CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Megatron waited until Starscream had already fallen asleep before carefully climbing into the bed beside him. Unlike usual, he did not wrap himself around his second's slumbering form or pull him into his arms. Instead, he lay with his back to the Seeker, ramrod straight and wide awake despite the fact that he'd now been up for almost 24 hours.

His talk with Soundwave had been... enlightening? No, that wasn't the right word... Horrifying. Yes, that's what it had been. This human body of his wanted to... With Starscream!? He glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping Seeker and shuddered. If it had been anyone other than Soundwave who'd told him, he probably would have executed them on the spot.

He still didn't quite believe it, of course. After all, that was an activity humans engaged in for reproduction, but he and Starscream were both male. Why would his organic instincts encourage him to mate with someone who couldn't conceive offspring? Soundwave had mentioned something called "recreational sex" and explained that most humans needed to experience sexual climax on a regular basis for the sake of their mental and phsical well-being, whether they were attempting to reproduce or not. Megatron didn't understand the logic, and he certainly didn't understand why his body would want to relieve its urges with Starscream of all people! Yes, the Seeker's human form was visually appealing, as humans went, but...

For a moment, Megatron tried to amuse himself with the image of himself pressing into Starscream, the Seeker lying beneath him with his arms folded and his eyebrows drawn together as he told his commander to hurry up and get on with it. Or would Starscream mock him for giving in to such disgustingly primitive needs? Certainly, he wouldn't enjoy it.. would he?

And suddenly in his imaginings, Starscream was telling him how good it felt, begging him for more, reaching out for him as he worked himself in and out of the smaller man's body...

Megatron's eyes flew wide as he felt a throb of excitement from the flesh between his legs—the flesh he now knew was called a "dick"—and hastily pushed that image out of his mind. Starscream was even more disdainful of human practices than his commander. What could possibly possess him to want Megatron sticking his dick up his...

The ex-warlord shuddered again. No, he wasn't going to do that to Starscream. He had at least that much respect for the brat. He would not succumb to paltry organic needs, either by giving in to his temptations regarding his second-in-command or by engaging in the alternative method of relief Soundwave had suggested to him. Both were as bad as each other in his mind.

Of course, it would be a lot easier to ignore those needs if he weren't lying in bed with the little stinker, he realized, but the alternatives were either forcing himself into the double bed with five other people already or evicting Slipstream from the couch, which was too short for him to stretch out on anyway.

Megatron lay, considering his options, until there was a rustling from beside him and a soft, slender hand found his chest. The ex-warlord looked down at it, and then over at the sleeping face of the young man it belonged to. Starscream mumbled something indistinct and started pressing closer to his commander.

A second later, Megatron had extracted himself from the bed and was stumbling across the room to the couch. It took a bit of shaking to wake Slipstream, but she didn't argue when he told her to switch places with him. Probably because he was already pulling her up off the couch before she had even opened her eyes all the way.

He settled himself into the lumpy cushions and listened to her grumbling as she moved over to the twin bed. There was a gasp, followed by a thud, and Megatron peered back over his shoulder to see Starscream working to pick himself up off the floor as Slipstream spread herself out on the twin bed. The ex-warlord rolled his eyes and turned over again. He should have expected that.

"What are you doing!?" he heard Starscream hiss.

"Leader dearest kicked me off the couch," his cousin replied.

"What? Why!?"

"I assumed you did something to him..."

Megatron threw a pillow over his ear to shut out the rest of their grumbling. He was less successful at ignoring how intrinsically wrong it felt trying to sleep without another heartbeat against his, but eventually, he managed to drift off.


Starscream spent most of the day bouncing back and forth between the twin bed and the double until Soundwave took his spot on the twin, and he had no choice but to hunker down with his brothers for the rest of the afternoon.

He knew that he shouldn't care about Megatron abandoning him (he'd done the same thing the previous morning, after all), but for some reason he did. Sleeping with his brothers was all very well and good, but neither of them could so completely envelop him as Megatron did. He wanted the comfort of his commander's strong arms around him, but didn't quite dare try and worm his way onto the couch with the larger man to get it.

It probably wouldn't have rankled with him so much if he'd had some concrete idea of why it had happened, although he could guess that it might have something to do with the business on the bed that morning. If Megatron was suddenly discovering his sexuality, then Starscream couldn't blame him avoiding phsyical contact. It was the same thing that he himself had done in the beginning, after all.

However, he couldn't quite bring himself to believe that was the case. Megatron? Attracted to him? Megatron wanting to have dirty, organic sex with him? Skywarp would muster the courage to initiate conversations with strangers before that happened.

So, he was left stewing in hurt and staring longingly at his leader's broad back on the other side of the room every time something roused him from sleep, which seemed to happen every twenty minutes or so.

Starscream himself had gotten quite accustomed to sleeping during daylight hours, but most of his comrades hadn't. It seemed even the fact that they'd been awake the whole night was not enough to recondition them immediately. The whole lot of them were constantly waking up, tossing and turning and rousing the rest of their bedmates every time they did. The Seeker finally got sick of it around three in the afternoon and sat up with an irritated huff.

To his surprise, Megatron was also sitting up, blinking blearily and rubbing his hand over his stubbly face. The two of them locked gazes, and Starscream felt himself blush. Megatron looked away first, running his hand through the hair on the back of his neck now, and then turned back to his second. He pointed to Starscream, then himself, and then mimed eating. Starscream rolled his eyes at the thought of food, but figured he'd better get it over with as soon as possible.

Not to mention, he thought as he carefully worked his way out from between his brothers, if Megatron wanted to eat breakfast with him, then he couldn't possibly be angry at him. He must have just moved because he was too hot, or something.

"I hope you're well-rested for tonight's work," Megatron murmured to him as they shut the door behind themselves.

"It's amazing how well you can sleep when you don't have a massive wall of meat rolling over you every two minutes," his second sneered back at him, neglecting the fact that he'd spent the whole night getting rolled over by various people anyway.

Megatron snorted and put up a hand like he was going to run it through Starscream's hair. The Seeker was just getting ready to snarl at his commander not to touch him when the other man suddenly snapped his hand back to his side of his own accord. Starscream frowned. It wasn't as if he enjoyed Megatron's caresses, but somehow he felt almost offended now he was denied one.

Their afternoon meal was a typical mess of rice and sauces with unspeakable things suspended in them. Starscream managed to choke down enough of it to satisfy his commander, and then sat trying to keep it down while Megatron finished his own, much larger serving.

"I am glad that you have finally found it in yourself to take sufficient sustenance," Megatron told him at some point.

"Well, anything is better than becoming so weak as to have to rely on you," Starscream returned, not meeting his commander's gaze.

"You already do rely on me," Megatron snorted.

"Oh? Did I just imagine the entirety of last night when you were standing around uselessly, watching me dominate the squishies all evening?" the Seeker demanded, finally looking up and jabbing his fork at the other man. He wished Megatron would stop talking and just finish up already, but he wasn't about to let a statement like that stand.

"And did I imagine the part where you were clinging to me in terror over a cow and begging to come back to the hotel?"

"Cows are dangerous!" Starscream protested. "They can break your bones if they step on you, and those horns are deadly!"

"Did your little human friend teach you that, too?"

"He wasn't my friend!" the Seeker hissed, a knot of indignation twisting at his already sensitive stomach. "He was a tool, which even you used when it was convenient."

"True," Megatron conceded. "Definitely the most useful tool I had around for a while. It's a pity we had to leave him behind."

Starscream hummed disinterestedly, drumming his fingertips on the table. "Finish eating already," he snapped.

"I'd rather take my time," his commander replied, scraping another bite of rice and sauce together and popping it in his mouth. "I don't know what you have against it," he continued through his mouthful.

"You're disgusting," his second sneered at him. "Do you have any idea how human you look when you do that?"

Megatron's face darkened far more than he'd expected, and the ex-warlord swallowed before replying: "If you think for a second, Starscream, that I take any pleasure in being trapped in this pathetic state, you are greatly mistaken."

"The curry sauce on your mustache says otherwise," the Seeker scoffed, looking away and folding his arms across his chest as Megatron wiped at his facial hair in frustration.

"I assume there is some method for removing this stuff?" he muttered, and Starscream assumed he was talking about the hair, not the curry.

"A razor," he said simply, starting to jitter his leg impatiently.

"I shall have to ask Slipstream to locate one," his commander grumbled, going back to his food with noticeably less gusto.

Starscream cursed his own folly; if he hadn't commented on the other man's eating habits, Megatron might still be shoveling the stuff into his face, and they could get out of here faster.

"Do you think you could teach the others any of your tricks before tonight?" Megatron asked after a moment.

"Less talking, more eating!" Starscream snarled at him.

Megatron set his spoon down with a definitive clack and glared at him. "I am beginning to think you did not sleep at all."

"I slept perfectly fine, no thanks to you!" his second returned.

"And what fault was it of mine?" Megatron demanded.

Starscream clamped his mouth shut and turned away to hide his blush. He hadn't meant to say that. Maybe he was more than a little tired, after all.

"I can teach them," he muttered after a while. "Though, I doubt any of them will ever match my level of skill."

Megatron just rolled his eyes and went back to his food.

The others were starting to stir when the two officers returned to the hotel room, and Starscream made a hasty beeline for the bathroom before anyone else could beat him to it. He turned on the shower as high as he could before dropping down in front of the toilet and shoving his fingers down his throat. There was a part of him that felt guilty as he flushed his breakfast down the drain, but it wasn't nearly so strong as the relief he felt knowing that slag was no longer inside of him.

It was fine, anyway, he told himself as he rinsed his mouth in the sink. Even if he did this after almost every meal, it wasn't as if he ever threw up the whole meal. Megatron just didn't understand that he was smaller and didn't need to eat so much. Obviously, he was still getting enough nutrients, or else he would have collapsed by now. As long as he kept drinking water he would be fine.

No one ever needed to know.