Human children bounced back faster than adults, it seemed, and Frenzy had regained his usual energy days before the others had moved past lying around 80% of the time, much to his twin's delight. With their creator still too tired to monitor them, they could get up to just about anything so long as they allowed him to smear the foul-smelling insect repellent they'd gotten from the doctors over all their exposed skin a couple of times a day. Of course, they ended up spending a good amount of time snatching food to bring back to the others and collecting trash to sell with Dipti, but they managed to find some time for their own endeavors as well.
Like this morning, when they found themselves perched atop a neighbor's shanty roof while they entertained themselves by throwing rocks at passersby. Dipti was hovering just behind them where she kept saying that they should stop before someone tried to get back at them , but she also couldn't seem to stop herself giggling along with them as their victims shouted in a garbled mix of English and Hindi at them, shaking their fists threateningly.
None of the locals could make good on any of their threats, anyway; they were all too short, too unfit, or too uncoordinated to climb up after them. The children's own path had involved clambering over trash piles that proved too flimsy to bear the weight of adults. So, they were having the time of their lives up in their new-found sanctuary, tormenting the dim-witted squishies with their far more pleasant squishy friend.
That was, until Frenzy made the mistake of throwing a rock at a rather tall passerby, who—when he turned around to locate his assailant—turned out to be Soundwave.
"Oops," Frenzy whispered, his and Rumble's stomachs both dropping straight through the roof they were sat upon as they made eye contact with their creator. Even from this distance, they could see the irritated expression on his face—never a good sign on someone who could normally model for a catalogue of emotionally-challenged mannequins.
"What will he do?" Dipti squeaked, shrinking behind the twins.
"Don't worry; he can't reach us," Rumble assured her in a low voice.
Wrongly, as it turned out.
Had the children's brains been working fast enough, they would have had time to get a decent head start before Soundwave had run, jumped, caught the edge of the shanty roof, and pulled himself up. As it was, the twins barely had time to shout, "Run, Dipti! We'll hold him off!" before their vengeful creator had snared the both of them and was dragging them back to Earth.
"You shouldn't let them influence you," he intoned when he saw Dipti peering over the edge of the roof at them.
"Sorry, sir," she murmured.
"Remember us!" Frenzy shouted before his creator snared him in a headlock.
Soundwave just sniffed and began dragging his wayward creations away from the scene, Rumble caught securely by the forearm and Frenzy trapped in a headlock, as it had been he who had launched the offending projectile.
Both twins struggled fiercely, not knowing what fate might await them back at the shanty, but Soundwave was undeterred.
"Urgh! I can't breathe!" Frenzy cried in a last ditch effort at freedom.
His creator either didn't buy it or didn't care because he simply tightened his grip.
Several agonizingly painful minutes later and Soundwave was dragging the both of them into their own shanty and dumping them on the uncomfortable, disused bed in the corner. On the other side of the room, Starscream sat up from among his nest of blankets, where he'd been napping, to watch the drama unfold.
"What's going on? What did they do?" he demanded.
Soundwave ignored him and continued to glare at his creations until one of them worked up the courage to speak.
"Sorry," Frenzy grumbled under his breath, keeping his gaze fixed on the floor like there were weights in his eyeballs.
"Sorry?" Starscream squawked. "What for? As second-in-command, I demand to know what's going on!"
Soundwave shot him a similar look to the one he was giving his creations and turned to Rumble expectantly.
"Wha-att?" Rumble complained loudly. It was the greatest injustice how he was always getting blamed for things his brother had done. Never mind that it happened the other way around just as often. "I didn't chuck that rock at you!"
Starscream burst into laughter. "Oh, dear Primus! How stupid can you get!?"
"Shut up, Screamer!" Frenzy snapped. "It's not like I knew it was him!"
"I am not angry with you for throwing stones at me," Soundwave told them as long-sufferingly as possibly while Starscream continued snorting with laughter behind him.
"You're not?" the twins chorused.
"I am angry with you for throwing stones at people in the first place."
The twins looked confused, and Starscream suddenly sobered up.
"Why?" Rumble ventured after a while.
"You would do well not to make enemies out of people you may one day need to rely on," Soundwave explained.
Starscream scoffed. "Like we need those fleshy—"
"There is no telling what the future holds for us," Soundwave cut him off loudly, "and our lives have already been saved once by the good will of humans."
"Yeah, but those were humans we know," Frenzy objected. "It's not like we have to be nice to all the humans... is it?"
"There was a time when you did not know Dipti, was there not?" Soundwave pointed out. "What if you had thrown rocks at her?"
The twins fell quiet again. Of course, their creator couldn't know that the two of them had become friends with Dipti in the first place by throwing rocks at someone else, but it did raise a good point. What if they had thrown that rock at the wrong person that day? Would the other girl have had a brother who was so generous with his resources? Would she have been so well-acquainted with the doctors that she could have convinced them to go so far as to bring a car to transport them when they couldn't get to the clinic on their own? The careless throw of a stone very well may have cost them their lives as easily as it had saved them.
"We're sorry," Rumble muttered.
"Soft-sparked glitches," Starscream muttered, clearly disappointed that things had resolved without any shouting. Frenzy stuck his tongue out at the Seeker, who returned in kind.
"I trust you have not been spending all your free time hurling stones at helpless organics?" Soundwave said, grabbing Frenzy's face and turning it back to himself.
"Oh, yeah!" Rumble exclaimed, jumping off the bed to grasp his creator's other hand. "Wanna see? But not you, Screamer. You're not good enough."
"Pff! More like too good," Starscream snorted. "I'm not interested in your chump change projects."
Soundwave had to fight back a smile despite himself as his two creations led him out and around the back of the shanty house to a somewhat conspicuous pile of rocks whose existence and purpose he had been aware of for a while.
"Is this it?" he wondered aloud for effect.
"No, boss! Look!" Frenzy shouted enthusiastically as he knelt to shift some of the rocks away. An old, battered shoe box started to emerge. When it was mostly exposed, Rumble grabbed hold of it and shook it loose the rest of the way.
"See?" he declared, opening the top to reveal—
"Rupees?" Soundwave verified, kneeling down to see it better.
Rumble smiled. "We had more before the malaria, but we've been saving up again."
Soundwave reached out to count the money. There wasn't much there, maybe 600 rupees (which, after he did a rough calculation with his embarrassingly slow and imprecise human brain, was only about 10 USD).
"What are you saving up for?" he asked, curious.
"Ya know," Frenzy shrugged, taking the money back and bending to hide it beneath the rocks again. "Just in case."
"Of course," Soundwave agreed, and this time, he did smile. "Just in case."
Frenzy straightened up, wiping dirtied hands on his equally filthy shirt, and both twins' faces split into far more innocent grins than Soundwave had ever thought them capable of. All at once, he felt an urge to do something he had never done before.
"Come here," he said, extending his arms toward them.
After a moment's hesitation, they stepped forward. Soundwave wrapped an arm around each twin and pulled them close against his chest as he had seen other parents do. Two small heartbeats joined his own as his creations nestled unexpectedly into the touch. They were warm and soft and fragile against him, and despite all their flaws, he was just glad that they were still alive, whether Cybertronian or not. He wondered if this was what all human parents felt for their children.
"Um... Boss?"
Frenzy's voice brought him back to his senses and he released the two of them.
"I, uh... I appreciate the both of you," he announced with an awkward cough as he got to his feet. "Continue your endeavors."
Despite his rebellious streak at the clinic, Starscream had done little but sleep since their return. It wasn't that he didn't have anything else he'd rather be doing—he was actually feeling more clear-headed and emotionally stable than he had in weeks—but that was exactly why he was resting. He owed Ajit a massive debt, and he intended to regain his strength as quickly as possible so that he could repay it. The boy said he wanted nothing in return, but Starscream wasn't willing to gamble on that being true.
Soundwave's conversation with the twins was bothering him, though. It was all too true that their survival in this world could well depend on cooperation with the other humans, but he didn't like the idea. Just thinking about making nice with anyone he didn't want to had always made him feel rather like his throat was being drawn up through his mouth with a pair of soddering irons, but making nice with inferior lifeforms? All the inferior lifeforms? That was just ridiculous!
"You would do well to exercise more congeniality to those who have shown it to you, at least," Megatron told him when the Seeker had found the courage to broach the subject that night. "But I hardly expect you to ever be capable of something so drastic as learning manners."
Starscream gaped and nearly threw his unwanted dinner at his commander before realizing that this would only prove his point. The two of them were seated outside the hut, eating some perfectly good rice with veggies in it that Thundercracker and Skywarp had found in a dumpster behind a restaurant. Or rather, Megatron was eating and Starscream was trying to avoid eating.
"I'd have you remember that I was a member of the Vossian high caste before you dragged me down to your pits!" he screeched.
"No, you were a member of the Vossian high caste until they kicked you out for your reprobate behavior, and you came crawling down to my pits because no one else would take you," Megatron reminded him. "Eat some more rice."
Starscream grimaced at the plate in his lap and pushed it aside.
"Starscream," Megatron growled warningly.
"I've had enough," the Seeker protested. He wasn't going to eat any more regardless of what his leader wanted to threaten him with tonight. The thought of what he was putting in his body made his insides churn, and then the feel of it stretching his stomach, weighing on his guts, moving through him... He would rather be hungry.
"Fine," Megatron relented, apparently sensing that he had pushed his second as far as he could on the subject of food tonight. "At least drink some more water."
He reached around the smaller man and grabbed the unfinished plate before starting to shovel the leftovers down his gullet with all the finesse of one of the many stray dogs wandering the streets of the slum.
"And you have the nerve to lecture me about etiquette," Starscream sneered.
"As a former member of the high caste, you should know Starscream; etiquette is a tool to wield when needed," Megatron replied through a mouthful of rice. "You are someone I have never needed that tool on, nor who has ever done anything to deserve it."
Starscream watched him eating a moment longer, and then quickly looked away as his and Slipstream's conversation at the clinic suddenly came back to mind.
Knowing what his body was doing—what it wanted from his leader—made things both simpler and more complicated. For one thing, he found it easier to calm himself down when he had his... reactions now that the element of fear and enigma had mostly been removed. On the other hand, he was now beset by an almost ever-present roar of disgust and shame and something else that he couldn't name in the back of his mind that fluctuated in volume depending on the circumstance. Right now, it was getting louder.
"I could be," he muttered.
"Could be what?" Megatron wanted to know, putting the finished plate of food aside.
"Someone who deserves your etiquette," the Seeker sniffed.
Megatron gave him a long, unidentifiable look, and Starscream felt his face warm. After a moment, his leader reached out a hand. The smaller man flinched, but Megatron just clasped his warm, strong hand around the back of his neck in what Starscream might have called an affectionate manner from anyone else.
"Starscream, I would love nothing more than for you to put in the effort to become that kind of person," Megatron declared. He stroked his thumb up and down through the short hairs on the back of his second's neck a couple of times before giving him a little smirk and pulling away.
Starscream continued to stare at him for a while without really seeing him as the heat in his face started spreading throughout his body, and with it the roar in the back of his mind became almost deafening.
Disgusting.
Repulsive.
Shameful.
Pathetic.
And a hundred other things Megatron would say if he ever knew what Starscream wanted from him swirled round and round in his head, until he shook himself and got to his feet.
"I'm going to bed," he announced, heading back into the hut without waiting for any sort of reply.
He could handle being sexually attracted to Megatron; it was just human hormones playing games with his brain, after all. Not to mention, he was used to wishing things on Megatron's person, either secretly or not-so-secretly, that his leader tended to object to when he found out. Granted, they tended to be substantially more violent than what he would like to do with his leader this time around (although, according to Slipstream, this could be surprisingly violent if the involved parties were so inclined), but that shouldn't make a difference. He just had to suppress these urges the same way he'd suppressed the urge to strangle Megatron in his sleep so many times in the past. He needn't worry about Megatron finding out unless he was stupid enough to act on them.
And even if Megatron did find out somehow, it wasn't as if the slagger thought especially well of him to begin with. What did Starscream care if his opinion sank lower? Who cared what Megatron thought about anything?
Why did he care what Megatron thought?
The question burned in his mind as he burrowed into his blankets—blankets that he had never before noticed reeked so strongly of his leader.