A/N: God, Megatron is TERRIFYIINNNGGG. I'm really pleased with the canon callbacks in this, though, as it really does epitomize the sycophantic master-slave relationship they always have.
Get excited, guys! I have ninety percent of the last two chapters written, and I'll likely be able to post them before I pack up and leave for Spain. Hooray for long-overdue bursts of inspiration!
Characters: Starscream, Megatron
Pairings: MegatronxStarscream, everpresent StarscreamxSkyfire
Warnings: language, violence, mindfuckery
Caught
Nearly twenty-four hours later found Starscream sitting across a white table-top from the President, staring at his plate as a couple slow-danced within arms' reach.
The way he came to be there seemed to be nothing but a blur, but a few moments stuck out with painful clarity. The moment he opened his eyes and immediately pressed his face into the warm body next to his to escape the morning light shining through the apartment window, for instance. There was a finality in the way that Skyfire didn't wake when he did, even when he rose to his elbows and carefully slid a hand over the bigger man's side. Skyfire was quiet, handsome, huge; his glasses were hanging off his nose, which was sporting a pink imprint from where they had pressed into his face all night.
The very sight made Starscream want to do stupid things and he surprised himself by not doing them, but rather curling up next to the big man again and shutting his eyes.
Starscream lay there for minutes more, telling himself it was the hangover weighing him down, but it was as if something were cooling between them as the new day came on in earnest: his own illusions, perhaps, or the realization that, no matter how long he lay there curled against Skyfire, nothing would change. Skyfire would not or could not look at him with anything more than the friendliest of regards, both lukewarm and earnest. What was left in the wake of that epiphany was greyed and disappointed but solid. The Seeker heir wasn't used to compromise but something else was keeping him from throwing the whole affair to the winds.
Something that could be worthwhile, if he knew how to handle it.
Gathering his things, he left without saying goodbye, partially because he didn't want to face the impartiality implicit in a confused wave of Skyfire's hand and a stifled yawn. He drove home and spent the rest of the day finishing up the papers he had neglected Friday, aching from head toe. Perhaps it had been the cheap flooring, but it was as if his body had been so intent on soaking every little detail in while he slept that he woke feeling creaky and tired. Unrested, hazy and sapped of most will to move.
When Megatron summoned him to his curb at eight, Starscream had no room in him for anything but a nod and a mumbled acquiescence.
He simply couldn't get out of it: the last time they had spoken of their deal, Megatron had nearly crushed his wrists. But this was, for certain, his very last outing with the tyrant. His only hope now was to tell Megatron the news tonight, in public, and perhaps the man wouldn't reach across his penne rigatta and strangle him.
Such was his sardonic, self-deprecating tone and poise: it crept into Starscream's every gesture, hiding in the lines beneath his eyes. The younger man was heavy with a strange distant bitterness not at all in keeping with his pugnacious, relentless nature. If the President noticed his Second looking a bit less attractive than normal, he had the good social breeding not to say anything, regardless of the cool way his dangerous grey eyes slid over the younger man's face and lackluster attire.
Perhaps it was because Starscream was too tired to notice anything out of the ordinary in his employer, or even work up any fear if he did, but the dinner simply happened. It passed in overlapping increments of subject matter and courses, each broached with clipped comments and broadened with formulaic exchanges and the clink of silverware.
When Starscream set his tiny dessert fork down, Megatron took that as a cue to take his wineglass in hand, rise from his chair and motion to the balcony. The Seeker heir watched his employer walk halfway to the glass doors, stride strong with the expectation that Starscream should follow him immediately. Then he rose and did so.
Somewhere in him, he felt like he should have been terrified. He wasn't.
Perhaps it was the fact that he knew that Skyfire would help him, if he needed it, and not being utterly alone in the world lent him a bit of strength. Precious data from the past few weeks was beginning to converge and be assimilated. Perhaps he had never been alone: he had his brothers. His sister.
It was somewhat sad that the police weren't even on his list of possible assistance, but criminals didn't go to the police seeking justice. Uncovering just a bit of D-Con's activities would mean throwing the whole blanket back and then he would be lucky enough just to get a cell next to Megatron. All he could do now was play along until he could stop the game, which would go no further than tonight.
Starscream opened the glass doors and received a gust of warm air on his face, ruffling his limp dark hair. He was reminded, as he so often had to be when it came to the turn of the seasons, that it was almost halfway through spring. It was nothing like the last time he had been on a balcony with the huge man now leaning on the railing, grey eyes locked on the warming Detroit below them.
"You are feeling guilty about something, Starscream," Megatron said into the quiet of the upper city stratosphere, voice deep and clear. Below them, an endless necklace of headlights winked through intersections and side-streets.
"Am I?"
Starscream asked it just to ask, then came back to himself: realizing where he was and whom he was speaking to. Megatron despised his sideways, patronizing questions — and, to his credit, the Seeker had never asked one on accident before. Scraping together the basest of his training, Starscream forced himself to lean against the nearby railing and school his voice into something curious and almost lofty. His insides creaked as much from the effort as the sudden difficulty of something that had always been so evilly effortless.
"What makes you think so, President?"
"If there is one thing I have learned about you, it is how to recognize the signs of when you have something hiding under your skin," Megatron stated shortly, dealing his Second a glance over his shoulder as he swirled his wineglass with an expert tilt of his wrist.
Starscream couldn't bring himself to deny his master's knowledge. It was probably true, and a much-needed defense mechanism on the older man's part. Starscream had surely spent more time deceiving his superior than working with him or even simply coexisting. The part of him that couldn't see past his recent disappointment wondered blithely how he had found the energy to be so constantly argumentative.
Still, work was a comfortable subject for them now, as long as it kept the conversation off of themselves. He thought about the accusation far more slowly and calmly than he should have, following the well-worn tracks of their two year history. He hadn't had time for any schemes lately, just as he'd told Thundercracker. What was the old fool on about?
"You know as well as I do I've been exceptionally well-behaved these past few months," Starscream muttered to the marble floor. "I would even go so far as to call my behavior model."
"Thus proving that, even when you fulfill the wildest of my expectations, you still manage to disappoint me," Megatron rumbled to his left. "Where were you last night?"
"Last night? I…"
Starscream began to speak out of nothing more than a knee-jerk response, then looked over, eyes wide.
Megatron was facing him, grey eyes locked on him in a way that made his heart pound painfully. He had only given that look – his eyes only possessed of that demonic, hateful intensity — when Starscream had committed a particularly grievous error, usually before putting hands to him. He swallowed, thinking the glass doors were hardly a deterrent if Megatron truly wanted to beat him and then went cold because of it.
"I hardly think that's any of your business, imbecile."
But his voice cracked on the clumsy insult and his eyes were wide. They only widened piteously when Megatron exhaled sharply through his nose like a taunted bull and closed the distance between them, big hand gripping his chin so hard it sent a flare of pain, but mostly shocking apprehension, into his neck. Starscream twisted and made a thick, protesting noise, then stilled preternaturally at the sight of his Lord and President's handsome, severe face in front of his, Megatron's eyes searching his without mercy.
His hands laced over the larger man's, nails not dug in. If he broke the skin, fought back, it would give permission for whatever darkness hiding in the other man to claw its way out.
"Answer me, if you have no guilt."
The Seeker tried to make his face anything but terrified, but Megatron's hateful grey eyes had put a seed of fear in him that was sending shoots into his every limb and he began to know where the line was being drawn — and how it was looped around Skyfire's neck. At last, Megatron gave him a smile so slim and cruel it nearly made Starscream fall to his knees.
"God, but you have kept your promise, little Seeker."
"Promise?"
He could do no more than parrot him, voice breaking out of the plaster shell of his chest.
"You have indeed expanded my horizons as my Second. You will, of course, remember your little pitch."
He had indeed promised such a thing, but Starscream was deadly certain this had nothing to do with business as Megatron roughly switched his grip to the back of his neck, yanking the skinny man close, voice reduced to a hot, grating whisper.
"So true, in the end. I did not know I was physically capable of such madness, such… animal jealousy until you slithered your way into my existence, telling me what I can and cannot have. You have toyed with me long enough, Starscream, and dearly underestimated the flaws you have so lovingly carved into my armor. As you have unleashed this side of me, prepare to face the brunt of it, pasariño."
"President?" Starscream asked faintly, but the very sound of his voice, meek and pleading, seemed to worm under the older man's skin and sour him further. Megatron's hands tightened, as if incapable of containing a rage that encased his very bones.
"Your tie has been bare for upwards a week now," he hissed. "Shunning my token was not a wise choice. It speaks of your betrayal before your lips can move to lie."
"Megatron, you're — you're hurting me — " he grit out. Here, his brain tried to say, you're hurting me here where everyone can see because pain from Megatron was as natural as anything but he literally cried out when the older man yanked him against him and dug his fingers into his white neck.
"Hurt you, Starscream," came the bare laugh, wrapped up in his name like the whole thing was a sour joke. Megatron jerked him close and continued in a grating, horribly exultant whisper that made Starscream fear the blunt edge of his teeth above his neck. "I have not yet begun to hurt you. You will beg for bruises after I am done with you."
Mouth twisting in disgust, Megatron thrust him away. Gasping, Starscream stumbled away with a hand to his aching neck, knee nearly taking him to the marble. Then the President turned towards the balcony once more.
"You are dismissed," Megatron informed him in an inhumanly deep rumble, grey eyes set on the expanse of the city even as they burned with an otherworldly hatred. His shoulders were straight, his poise painstakingly reposed even as the younger man could see the vein in his thick neck twitching. Starscream's mouth worked wordlessly for a moment before he bent and pawed at his tie, thumb swiping over the blank spot – the open sore – atop it.
"I… Megatron. Please, explain. My lord, how could I anger you without even knowing how?"
He heard the simper coming out in his voice but couldn't stop it. The sickening, pleading sweetness that was a product of his rotting confidence, his stupid assumption that anything he valued was safe from the older man. He had spent so long praying it was business even as he knew it wasn't.
All of that was time wasted, time he could have been protecting Skyfire from this inevitable moment, when Megatron realized someone had, if only in the most symbolic of senses, what he wanted.
But now, Starscream could hardly move his throat to speak when faced with the most disturbing realization of all: Megatron's wants were not and would never be simple, or even rational. This was not something that could be solved with a service or physical favor. Megatron wanted much, much more than he had assumed, wanted much more than the man himself had ever volleyed for, and that alone filled Starscream with an indescribable terror that could, for the man who never ceased to speak and rile and deny, only be expressed in shaking silence.
The Seeker's clawed hands fretted above the iron expanse of Megatron's back, finally settling on the older man's arms and pawing at the silk. He barely resisted the urge to press himself against his wide back, squirm close and hope to soften him by proximity even as he knew it could go horribly wrong. To see that grey expanse and know it had been levied against him in its entirety was simply too much for him.
"Please, Megatron."
Nonsensical, now. Insane to match the insanity of the man's hatred and desires. His voice climbed upwards, shaking, shaking, shaking.
"The pin. I'll wear it again, I was just… having it cleaned. Megatron? I beg of you, tell me what I've done and give me leave to —"
"You are dismissed," Megatron bellowed, hands still locked behind his back, one hand restrained by the other as if he let himself go he would injure Starscream, or finally murder him. Looking at his shaking white fists, scarred knuckles, the Seeker backed up frantically, nearly stumbling to his knee at the sight of Megatron's white bared teeth just beyond the crest of his shoulder.
"Yes, sir. Of course, sir," he whispered, unable to breathe the warm night air. Giving his lord and master one last terrified glance, Starscream pushed through the glass doors, unaffected by the rush of light and soft noise and people and perfectly folded napkins. He strode stiffly through the tables until he couldn't contain the fear boiling through his cavernous chest and he broke into a panicked run, narrowly avoiding crashing into a waiter, who dropped his plate full of wine-glasses with an earth-shaking crash.
Shards flew everywhere. Starscream, stumbling away, made a vague, wordless gesture and then stared down at the piles of broken crystal in terror, paralyzed by the memory and far-away feel of them. Taking a deep gulp of air, he hid his scarred hand under his jacket as he turned and ran from the mayhem and his torturer as if he could truly escape in the city that belonged to the President.
No matter how many stairs, how many streets or doors or how far he ran, he would always be found. He was, after all, expected at eight a.m. on Monday morning, and there was no commitment more akin to shackles than his empty desk. For his reputation, for his dogged desires, for his family, for his ego, Starscream would come crawling back into arm's reach, and that itself was some kind of beautiful insanity that sent a tightness down the President's spine.
On the balcony, Megatron closed his eyes and let go of his own hands with a creak of his fingers. He coolly lifted them for inspection, knowing he had left bruises on himself, but it was all for the better. It was teaching him restraint. Finesse, even, which seemed a constant battle that he had begun a lifetime ago.
He almost pitied Starscream, though it was on a purely theoretical level. The brat was histrionic in his belief that death was the worst punishment a superior could mete out. As with so many things, reality was very different from what Starscream imagined. The most vital of injuries could stem from a word or gesture — or a well-broken bit of deception. Assuming he had correctly entrusted the delicate procedure to Shockwave, Megatron's Second would soon learn one of his master's most hard-won lessons: pain was all in the mind.
He was, after all, not Starscream's greatest enemy. There was someone else on his payroll who could cut Starscream down to nothing far better than he ever could and he was content – nay, eager – to let it play out.
Someday, if that precious mind was still intact, Starscream would thank him for this.
