CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The hotel room was suspiciously quiet when Soundwave and the others returned. The intelligence officer had fully expected that he would be able to hear his creations' screaming from the other end of the hall if not the street outside, and the lack of it was setting him on edge a bit. He didn't doubt that Megatron would have long since grown weary of their overexcited, high-pitched yelling and found some way to shut them up.
He could only hope that it had been as nonviolent as possible; as much as he cared about his creations, he really didn't want to have to deal with them right now. All he wanted was to throw the seemingly hundreds of bags he'd been reduced to lugging around onto the floor and lie down before his legs gave out from underneath him. Judging by the shake in Thundercracker's legs, the Seeker wanted to do the same.
Slipstream, the only one with free hands, unlocked the door to let them in, and all at once, a cacophony of indignant yelling sprang up.
"Soundwave! Megatron hung Rumble on the curtain rod!" Frenzy was squealing as he ran up to his creator.
"He said I could come down in 30 minutes, but he just keeps making it longer!" Rumble added, his voice slightly muffled.
"He does not! You just have no idea how long 30 minutes is, you little rats!" That was Starscream.
Peering in, Soundwave saw Megatron reclined on the sofa, covered in sheets stolen from the double bed, and a surprisingly refreshed-looking Starscream sitting crosslegged on his and Megatron's bed. His twins on the other hand...
Soundwave took one look at Rumble's position and let out a snort of laughter, surprising even himself. His creations stared at him in wide-mouthed horror.
"I am sure you did something to deserve it," Soundwave said as Slipstream and Thundercracker broke into gales of laughter behind him.
"We were just having fun!" Frenzy protested.
"Bo-ooooss!" Rumble whined.
Soundwave sighed and stepped into the room.
"May I take him down, Lord Megatron?" he asked.
"If you promise never to leave me with them again," Megatron grumbled from the couch, though Soundwave could see the amusement pulling at his leader's face as well.
No sooner had Rumble been released from his hanging prison than he and his twin were falling upon the shopping bags. Slipstream hissed and snapped at them, but to no avail.
"Is this for us?" Frenzy demanded, holding up a pair of pants that was longer than he was tall.
"Obviously not!" Slipstream replied, snatching the pants away from them. "Those are Soundwave's. These are yours."
And then she procured two identical outfits of blue shirts and khaki shorts.
"What's this for?" Rumble wanted to know, holding up the underwear that Slipstream had given him with the other things.
"It goes on your butt," Slipstream said, and both twins' faces instantly lit up with delight.
Soundwave couldn't help but feel some sense of appreciation for the femme's crass wording then as his creations stripped off their old clothes and started pulling on the underwear. He had told her when she bought them that both boys would probably refuse to wear them, and she had simply given him a knowing look and said, "You need to learn how to work their angles more, Soundwave." Apparently, she'd been right.
"I AM THE BUTT MAN!" Rumble was declaring now, standing tall and proud in nothing but his new underwear.
"I AM THE BIGGER BUTT MAN!" his twin announced from beside him.
"More quietly," Soundwave reminded them, "or Lord Megatron may hang you up by your underwear next."
He doubted the underwear was strong enough to hold if Megatron were to try, but both twins took the hint and started putting the rest of their clothes on much more quietly.
"What'd you get for me?" Starscream spoke up at last from the bed, and Slipstream threw a set of clothes in his direction.
"Where's Skywarp?" Thundercracker asked, looking around the suite with more clothes in his own hands.
"Bathroom," Megatron grunted.
"Put these in there while you're at it," Slipstream said, holding out another bag full of several colorful plastic bottles, tubes, and what looked like polishing cloths.
"What are those?" Megatron wanted to know.
"Cleaning solvents," she responded. "You didn't think humans cleaned themselves with just water all the time, did you?"
Starscream, who was in the middle of sliding a shirt over his head, suddenly looked up and flung the garment aside.
"I wanna try them!" he squealed, bouncing out of the bed and snatching the bag from his brother's hands.
"You will do no such thing," Megatron growled, hastily seizing them back.
"Why not?" the Seeker whined. "I wanna be clean!"
"Before that, you will eat something," his leader insisted, shoving the solvents at Thundercracker again.
Starscream scowled, but relented, moving toward the bed where he had left his clothes, somewhat to Soundwave's surprise. Thundercracker shrugged and disappeared into the bathroom in search of his youngest brother.
"You purchased considerably more than I instructed," Megatron commented, turning his attention away from his second-in-command for a moment.
"You said you wanted the clothes so that we could fit in with the humans in this part of town," Slipstream reminded him. "Well, the humans around here have more than two changes of clothing—especially the foreigners."
"The clothes were very cheap; we did not spend too much money," Soundwave put in before Megatron could complain any further. He happened to agree with Slipstream on this matter. It wouldn't do to go around wearing dirty clothes in this part of town, and the more they had, the longer they could go before they would have to take them to one of the many laundromats he had seen around while they were shopping.
Megatron heaved a reluctant sigh. "Very well. Where are my clothes? I have been waiting all day to be able to go downstairs and eat something."
Soundwave pulled an outfit out of a bag and handed it over to him. "The fit may be off," he warned his leader. "It is difficult to find clothing for men of our stature in this country, it seems."
"Can't be worse than the ones we've been wearing up till now," the other man grunted as he held his new pants up to himself.
"Uh... except these are ridiculous?" Starscream spoke up from the bed, and Soundwave turned to see him standing there in his new jeans, holding the waistband up so that it was all-too-obvious that he could have fit most of a second of himself in them. "What were you thinking, Slipstream? These are even worse than the ones I pulled out of the trash!"
Slipstream glanced at him with disinterest.
"I got you the same size as your brothers," she said. "They fit T.C. just fine. I don't know what's wrong with you."
The Seeker blinked at her, and then glanced down at his rather prominent hip bones, which Soundwave had a feeling his pants were going to slide right off of if he tried to wear them just like that.
"Here," the intelligence officer said, stepping over and pulling a long, silken scarf from one of the shopping bags. "Use this as a belt and we can try to find something that fits better another time."
"That's mine!" Slipstream complained, trying to snatch the fabric back before Soundwave could hand it over to her cousin. Starscream was too fast for her, though.
"As it's your fault I have nothing fitting to wear, I see no problem taking it," he sneered at her.
"It's your fault that you're too proud to eat anything!" she snarled at him.
"Enough!" Megatron barked before she or Starscream could say more, and both fell silent, glaring daggers at one another.
"Boss!"
Soundwave looked down as he felt a tug on his hand. Rumble and Frenzy were both looking up at him expectantly, both of them wearing their new shirts back to front.
"We gonna get something to eat tonight?" the boys wanted to know.
"Yes, I suppose we should," their creator sighed.
Both twins instantly started jumping up and down and shouting out different foods that they wanted to eat.
"Yes, yes, we'll see what they have," Soundwave assured them, ushering both boys toward the door before they could irritate their commander into finding less savory things to do with the curtain rods. He needn't have worried, though; as he and the twins were slipping out the door, Megatron was too busy trying to convince Starscream to let him redo the bandage on his side to notice anything else.
Starscream really hated it that Skywarp had turned out to be right. He really, really did. According to the green numbers of the dusty alarm clock sat on the window sill, it was 2:34 in the morning, and he was still awake.
It wasn't a matter of not being tired because he was exhausted out of his mind. Unfortunately, he was also uncomfortably warm and aching in far too many places as well as achingly aware of his bed partner's presence. He flinched every time one of Megatron's arms or legs made contact with his bare skin. He would have shifted his position to get away from his leader a bit, but he just couldn't be bothered.
The evening had not gone well for Starscream. As an intelligent, scientifically-minded individual, he was perfectly aware that he needed to consume food to maintain his human form, and he had been doing that—consuming enough to maintain himself. He had not hitherto paid much consideration to the fact that there might be any point to eating beyond that, such as not ending up as a disgusting bag of bones who had to hold his pants up with a scarf.
All the same, he couldn't bring himself to eat anymore than usual at dinner that evening. The problem was that he was an intelligent, scientifically-minded individual, and therefore knew exactly where his food had come from: the ground. Most of the material on his plate that Megatron expected him to put in his body had come from seeds planted in the soil, pulling organic nutrients out of the ground from other decaying organics (or often even the other organics' waste materials) and using them to create this... mess that he had to depend on for survival. If it wasn't that, then it was the actual flesh of another actual, living being that had once been walking around on the soil, eating those same plant materials that he could barely bring himself to consume.
He didn't care that this body wasn't his real one; he had no intentions of sharing it with such a horror show.
But Megatron and Soundwave had both been watching him closely the entire meal, and so he had no choice but to force himself to eat enough to satisfy them. Now he felt sick. He'd wanted nothing more than to run into the bathroom and purge his stomach all evening, but the door of the en suite was too thin. Someone would hear him and then Megatron would think he'd stopped taking his anti-malarial pills and gotten sick again or something. It was unlikely to do more than limit his freedom even further, at any rate.
Starscream wrapped his arms around himself, hating that he could feel his intestines at work on the food he had eaten, that he could feel his ribs so clearly beneath his fragile human skin, that he had no other options to solve his predicament.
He rolled onto his side as gently as possible so that he was facing Megatron. His leader's face looked so peaceful, so untroubled. It wasn't fair.
This was all his fault! Wasn't he supposed to be their Commander? Wasn't he supposed to guide them to fly clear of trouble? Wasn't he supposed to protect them? Protect him? But what had Megatron been doing?
Nothing! He'd crashed himself here on this planet and gotten himself frozen and left Starscream all alone and then they'd gotten him back just for him to go and leave them all again! And Starscream had thought for so long that he didn't need anyone's help or protection, because he was Starscream, king of the skies! But...
It wasn't slagging fair!
Starscream felt tears sting his eyes as his bed mate shifted and sighed next to him, warm breath ghosting over his forehead. A thick, muscled arm slid towards him, finger tips brushing against the cloth of his shirt. Starscream tentatively moved his own hand toward it, inhaling deeply as he felt the strength in the muscles beneath the skin—skin so fragile his nails could pierce it.
Megatron was nothing more than skin and bone with a few fleshy bits here and there. He was stronger than Starscream for sure, but still so delicate.
Sometimes, Starscream found himself thinking of all the ways in which Megatron had become delicate. It would take a mere three minutes for his fleshy lungs to give up after being deprived of oxygen. His heart needed to beat constantly to keep those lungs going. A bullet, a knife, a microscopic parasite passed to him from an insect... The smallest thing could steal him away. He was vulnerable.
Starscream wondered if he was aware of it himself. Did he think, as Starscream sometimes did, on the humans' rule of three? Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food, and they would all be dead.
Something trickled across his nose from his eye, and he lifted his hand swiftly to wipe it away.
Megatron was more vulnerable than he had ever been, and sometimes Starscream wanted so desperately to goad him into showing those vulnerabilities, lowering the warlord down to his own broken state of mind. But even more than that, he had this increasingly undeniable urge to crawl as close as he could get to Megatron and wrap himself tightly in the infallible, dependable aura that his leader always seemed to project. Yet, he had no doubt that if he did, Megatron would just push him away all the harder.
Another couple of tears trickled down his cheek to seep into the pillow, and he sniffed quietly as his nose started trying to run, too.
The more intelligent, though equally malicious, side of him said his desires were nothing more than a wishful fantasy anyways. Megatron couldn't protect him; he was weak and broken. It was only the Pit-forsaken chemicals in this defective flesh bag Starscream was captive in that made him think he would be safe in Megatron's arms—that made him see only the way his leader loomed tall and powerful over everyone, like there was still indestructible iron plating under that delicate skin and hard steel in those dark eyes.
Starscream jolted as he suddenly realized Megatron's hard, dark eyes were open, and focused on him.
"Starscream," his leader's quiet voice came through the dark. "What is the matter?"
Starscream hastily lowered his head, wiping at his face and sniffing angrily. He muttered something about having dust in his eyes and made to roll himself over again, but Megatron's massive hand reached out for him. His palm cupped the entire side of Starscream's face, warm against his damp cheek, and the Seeker felt a strange warmth spread through him, like a hole whose existence he hadn't known was being filled. Megatron's thumb swiped under his eye, wiping away a few more tears, and Starscream scrunched his eyes up angrily before wrenching the hand away from his face.
The mattress squealed and bounced as Megatron sat up, resting his weight on one arm and throwing the other one over Starscream's waist.
"I cannot help you if you don't tell me what's wrong," he said, his voice almost intimate in the quiet room.
Starscream swallowed thickly. "Just... leave me alone."
Megatron exhaled heavily, his breath fluttering over his second's sensitive skin. "How do you think I can sleep with you snivelling next to me?"
Starscream's face heated up furiously, and tears started to form once more in his damp, stinging eyes. "Fine!" he snapped. "I'll sleep somewhere else."
He began to roll off the bed, despite knowing perfectly well that there was nowhere else to sleep but the cold, hard floor. A strong hand closed around his wrist, stilling him in his movements and slowly, almost carefully, dragging him back between the sheets.
Moments later, he was once more lying on his side, this time with his back pressed into the unbearably comforting warmth of Megatron's chest.
"I'm tired," he choked out, his voice breaking.
The arm Megatron had wrapped around his waist tightened and a sigh blew a burst of hot air against his ear. "Then go to sleep."
It was easy for him to say, Starscream reflected. He was so certain about everything, wasn't he? Starscream was quite sure that Megatron didn't spend hours at a time stressing about how they were going to get out of this predicament until it started to rip him apart inside; he'd just decided on a solution and had full confidence that it would work. Not to mention, he had no idea what he was doing to his SIC every time they lay together...
Or did he?
Starscream couldn't help but remember that morning when something hard and warm and right around the region of Megatron's groin had most definitely poked him in the rear. But... That was probably just a random biological reaction... right? There was no way that Megatron was attracted to an ugly, bony little human like him. Quite frankly, he would think less of his leader if he was.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of something else.
"Did it hurt?" he whispered finally, voicing a question that had been on his mind for a long time now.
"You'll have to be more specific," Megatron muttered groggily against the back of his neck.
"Deactivating," Starscream said simply, and he felt Megatron instantly stiffen against him. Seconds ticked by in which his leader made no answer, but it was obvious that he was still awake. "And onlining again," he added, hoping to prompt an answer. "Both, really."
Megatron huffed and rolled away from the Seeker. Starscream's shoulders tensed at the loss of his leader's soothing presence. He cursed his own idiocy for bringing up something that was so obviously bound to ruin the moment he'd been having, but he still had nothing better to do than pursue it.
"My lord?" he tried, rolling over himself and sliding closer to the other man once more. "Master?" He brushed his fingers down Megatron's arm. The warlord just burrowed deeper into his pillow. "Lord High Protector?"
"Starscream!"
The Seeker withdrew his hand quickly as his leader's face turned out of the pillow once more, his dark eyes flashing obvious displeasure in the dim light of the room.
"Go to sleep," Megatron growled.
"I can't," the younger man hissed back.
"Try."
"I am trying!"
"Try harder." Megatron pulled his pillow out from beneath himself and slammed it down over his head, doubtless in hopes of drowning out the sound of his second's voice.
Starscream pouted and glanced around the room at the other inhabitants, all sleeping peacefully. It wasn't fair. His gaze fell on his brothers pressed against each other in the double bed, and another thought occurred to him.
"Can you still feel... Does your bond still exist?" he asked, settling down on the bed so that his and Megatron's faces were mere inches apart now.
Megatron scowled and pulled the pillow off his head before whacking the Seeker with it. "Can you still feel your brothers?" he snarled.
"Somewhat," Starscream answered casually, unperturbed by either Megatron's half-hearted assault or the risks always associated when bringing up his leader's rarely spoken of past. This was more important. "Could he find us through your bond?"
"I am fairly sure that he ignores its existence," Megatron snorted, settling down again. "What would the flesh bags think if they knew Optimus Prime shared genetic coding with me?"
Starscream hummed in agreement and settled down into the mattress once more, arms folded across his chest. Well, that was one anxiety taken care of, but there were still so many others... He started running through a list of them as he stared up at the dark ceiling, wondering if it was worth invoking Megatron's wrath to try talking to him about any of them. His leader's back continued to face him, though—hard and immovable—so Starscream fretted in silence, his hands clenching tighter and tighter in the covers.
After several long minutes of this, there was a shuffling and bouncing of mattress springs as Megatron rolled himself back over, pressing himself against his second again and burying his face in the smaller man's hair. Starscream stiffened, his eyes widening so that the blackness of the room swam for a moment as his pupils tried to adjust.
"Just sleep, Starscream," the warlord muttered, voice muffled against the Seeker's head. "Whatever's bothering you, we can deal with it in the morning."
Starscream nodded mutely.
Just once, he told himself as comfort and reassurance started spreading through him.
Just this once, he would allow himself to settle into his leader's warmth, burying his face and all of his worries in that impossibly firm, immovable chest, even if he knew it would be little more than a foolish dream in the morning light.