Part 22
Despite so many vorns fighting Autobots and gathering intelligence on high ranking mechs, the Decepticons knew precious little about the Autobot's Chief Medical Officer. They knew that Ratchet could deliver an impressive flying kick. He could resurrect mechs from battle wounds that should have been fatal. And he could disable a mech piecemeal, so that the unfortunate Decepticon who found himself on Ratchet's slab would scream through a silent voice processor as their frame slowly disintegrated around them.
Starscream believed the Decepticon propaganda. Scraping his fingertips on the medical berth, staring with wide optics blinded by the overhead lights, he writhed against the heavy steel restraints locking him in place. His vocal processor was mute, but his gears and servos ground together in loud agony as he strained to move.
"Dammit, I ain't even doing anything!" Ratchet yelled over his shoulder, one hand braced on the table as he facepalmed, already knowing Starscream wouldn't listen. "Quit tensing up before you rupture something!"
Starscream ignored him, venting so loudly that it didn't matter that he'd been silenced-he might as well have been shrieking. Ratchet muttered to himself and thought about calling First Aid to help settle him.
A moment later, the brig door slammed open and Skyfire pushed passed a startled guard, heading straight to Starscream's side. The sound of groaning metal finally faded as Skyfire touched his arm, stroking him and easing the jet's rushed vents.
"I'm here," he said, kneeling beside him. "Calm down. It's all right. I'm here."
Starscream's optics stared past his face, unfocused in the bright surgical lights, but he locked on Skyfire's face like a lifeline. Gasping, he turned his helm toward Skyfire's palm, and his engine hiccupped as it downshifted into a low rumble. Still just as tense, he pushed his face against Skyfire's fingers, hiding in the larger mech's hold.
"Finally," Ratchet growled, turning and glaring at Skyfire. "I called you nearly a joor ago!"
"They were offloading energon out of my cargo bay." Skyfire melted under Ratchet's intensified scowl, ducking his head. "We just got back from Cape Canaveral. I couldn't transform with all that fuel inside me."
"'All that fuel'?" Ratchet echoed. "Energon doesn't take that long to unload."
Despite Starscream's shuddering and the angry mech snarling at him, Skyfire grinned. "This time it did. Prowl had us in the air and raiding one of their bases before he'd decoded everything in Starscream's download."
"Decepticon fuel?" Ratchet chuckled and, with a roll of his optics, turned to pick up the tools beside the berth again. "Fine, fine. Good news almost makes all his howling worth it. Here, talk some sense into the dumb jet. He won't listen to me."
With a few keystrokes on his medical interface, Ratchet reconnected Starscream's vocal processor and stood back. Even with his legendary bedside manner, he still grimaced, bracing himself for the coming barrage.
"Skyfire!" Even with his face muffled under his hand, Starscream's wail echoed off the walls. "He's taking me apart! Don't let him take me apart!"
"He isn't disassembling you," Skyfire said, cupping his face in his hands. "He's removing your weaponry."
"Lies! Ratchet takes mechs apart—everyone knows that! Ratchet the Hatchet, he'll break you down to spare parts while you're still alive!"
Skyfire looked up at Ratchet, who shrugged with a growing smile.
"I think that means they've got propaganda out about me," Ratchet said. "I admit, it warms my spark to know I'm their bogeyman."
Ratchet said something else, but Starscream's whimper prompted Skyfire's continuing touch, and he used his larger size to physically block the jet from seeing the rest of the brig or the tools beside them. He couldn't lift Starscream away from the berth or hold him close, but he could force Starscream to focus only on him.
"Starscream," Skyfire said softly, petting his helm. "Starscream, listen to me. He's not going to disassemble you. You're safe."
The jet's wailing subsided into a whining engine. "He already took pieces off..."
Skyfire glanced at the two canons in a pile by Ratchet's pedes, then at the spots on Starscream's arms. Freshly removed, the canon rivets had left six perfectly spaced, grooved holes, each a small window into Starscream's inner limb cords and servos. Skyfire stared at the punctured armor, lightly running his fingertips along the grooves. To see him again the way he used to be, clean of that awkward, jutting laser but with deep wounds to mark its place... his spark knotted in a way he hadn't anticipated.
"...Skyfire?"
Starscream watched him, his look flicking between his lover and Ratchet, his thoughts obvious. Had he made his final, greatest mistake? Did the shuttle really want Starscream disassembled? Had he been lying before about wanting him back?
"Does it hurt?" Skyfire asked.
About to wail again, Starscream paused as he realized that no, it didn't. He shook his head once.
"And it won't hurt. Every bit of weaponry is coming off. It isn't torture. It's so you can't hurt anyone ever again." Skyfire stood straight, holding his jet's hand below the restraint. "And I want you to do this. Do you understand?"
Starscream stared at him for a long moment, unblinking, then jerked as Ratchet opened his laserbanks and began work with the hydrospanner. Wincing, Starscream glanced back up at Skyfire, searching his face for any hint of a way out. When he saw the shuttle's familiar stern look, he squeezed his optics shut and nodded once.
"Good." Skyfire knelt down beside him, still touching his hand. "I'll stay with you if you want."
With a frantic nod, Starscream turned his hand to grasp Skyfire's, shaking with shuddering vents. Ratchet knocked the back of his hand against the jet's wing.
"Quit venting like that," he grumbled. "You'll make me slip. And you—"
He pointed at Skyfire, the sonic cutter in his hand dripping a tiny amount of oil. "If you're gonna clutter up my medical brig, you're gonna at least make yerself useful. Get those canons out of my way and grab me one of those packs of cable couplings. Your boyfriend needs a stasis lock while I pull some of these systems out."
Wincing at the oil-covered cutter, Skyfire nodded obediently and patted Starscream one more time, then took the canons to the shelves in back. He tried to make as little noise as he could, rifling through the various medical packs to grab what he hoped were the right cables. As he came back, he stopped in his tracks, staring at the cells.
"Soundwave's gone," he gasped.
"S'okay," Ratchet said over the high whine of a sonic saw. "Jazz took him out on a walk."
Skyfire blinked, expecting more of an explanation. When he didn't get one, he hoped Jazz knew what he was doing and came back to the berth. For an instant, he glimpsed Starscream's displayed components, saw Ratchet disconnecting vital cables and junctions with oil spilling across his hands—
Muffling a moan so Starscream didn't panic, Skyfire turned away and kept his optics focused on the far wall.
"By the way," Ratchet said, tilting his head toward the monitor. "You should check out that datapad by my tools."
Grateful for the distraction, Skyfire leaned to one side and reached out, carefully picking it up. One of the major downsides of being larger than most of the mechs around him, besides having to watch where he stepped, was that he could crush their tiny datapads if he wasn't careful. He didn't want to think what Ratchet would do if he broke one of his datapads.
"Courtesy of Red Alert," Ratchet said even as he pulled a boxy chunk of steel and tight copper coils up and out of Starscream's frame. "An archive of all the really special comments the magnificent skyprince here left on stories with him in 'em."
"Wha—?" Starscream groaned low in his engine and shook his head once. "That's not...no, don't..."
Boosting his optic magnification, Skyfire squeezed Starscream's hand once. Nevermind that his jet didn't want him to read it. He needed something to focus on beside Ratchet clamping cables spurting oil and drizzled energon, and what could be worse than Starscream trying to shoot him? And these were just his comments on those forum stories Jazz had shown him. How bad could Starscream's comments be?
Air Commander Starscream, taken out by a MEDIC? And not even by trickery, but in hand to hand combat? PERPOSTERUOS.
Skyfire blinked. What on Cybertron...?
Starscream was far too easily decived and overcome! He would never have been so easily mislead, nor would he have surrended so quickly, and with such meekness! The glory of Starscream is his boldness, his passion!
Oh. Understanding washed over him, and he glanced at Starscream...
...who'd opted to close his optics and pretend that Ratchet really was disassembling him and that he wouldn't have to see Skyfire reading his comments. Damn that First Aid! Why was it so funny to collect all of Starscream's responses? Maybe if he was lucky, Ratchet would rip out his optics.
So he couldn't see Skyfire half smiling and scrolling through, relieved to find more of his highstrung friend buried within the unstable Decepticon.
Where is the dessecration of the decals, the teasing of turbines, the molten heat of humiliation as his own frame becomes a weapon against him? Starscream is an exotic, a creature of air and fire who's very existance calls to the poetry in one's spark! Even Autobots cannot deny it—
His eyeridge went up. Teased turbines he knew about, but desecrating decals? Come to think about it, that particular kink had featured in 'Starscream, Starburst.' Soundwave was the writer, but the jet had read it faithfully.
"Ratchet," Skyfire said, still not looking at the medic's handiwork. "Were you planning on stripping off his Decepticon insignia?"
"Pfft." Ratchet jerked a shoulder in a shrug. "I got my hands full right now. 'Sides, he ain't any less of a threat without 'em."
Skyfire nodded once. That would give him all the opportunity he needed. He glanced at Starscream, cupping the jet's helm in his hand and running his thumb over one red strut.
When Starscream chanced opening his optics again, sure he would see Skyfire's irritation, even scorn, he instead breathed a deep vent of relief. Skyfire was smiling at him, touching him and keeping the horrible Autobot from ripping him apart. He relaxed, rubbing his face against the larger mechs' fingertips.
"Finally," Ratchet said, wrist deep in Starscream's systems. "Whatever you're doing, keep it up. Those rupturing coils're finally relaxing."
"Sure," Skyfire said, continuing to stroke Starscream's helm. As the jet mooned at him, warm vents brushing his steel in such a familiar way, Skyfire wondered if Jazz would authorize a little paint stripper for his use.
TBC...
Author's Note:
I couldn't write Starscream's forum responses if I tried. Fortunately Crabapplered stepped up to my challenge and hit it out of the park! I only used part of her responses above, so here are the full pieces for anyone curious. Warning, Starscream leaves rather spirited reviews:
Double Agent, Double Surrender – (Starscream is a minor character easily dispatched by Ratchet's flying kick to the helm) – "Well, I see REALISM has taken a back seat to SENSELESS KINK. That, or the idiot writing it was so overheated by his own writing that it fried his logic circuits. Air Commander Starscream, taken out by a MEDIC? And not even by trickery, but in hand to hand combat? PERPOSTERUOS. Not only is the idea ludicrous, but it disgraces the Decepticon name by implying the finest of its fliers could be taken out by some boxy Autobot dustcrawler in one blow. Disgusting! Shameful! Are there no standards for writing anymore?"
Revolt of the Autobot Love Slaves – (Starscream is overloaded by five autobots, including Powerglide and Cliffjumper, and left in chains to await Lord Megatron's displeasure) – I'll grant that it's an intriguing premise, but whoever wrote this was going for QUANTITY, not QUALITY. Never mind that it would take more then five Autobots, two of them minibots too boot, to capture Starscream, it's the ridiculous parade of formulaic overloads I object to! Grope the wings, fondle the open cockpit, snear some (NOT very creative) insults, and then an instant overload? PLEASE. Lets see some actual EFFORT involved! Where is the dessecration of the decals, the teasing of turbines, the molten heat of humiliation as his own frame becomes a weapon against him? Starscream is an exotic, a creature of air and fire who's very existance calls to the poetry in one's spark! Even Autobots cannot deny it, and they should be taking full advange of this opportunity to touch and
explore, not squandering it on rote, factory assembled actions like drones!
Spark Bond, Spark Slave – (Starscream is forcibly bonded to his trinemates) – A solid, if somewhat predictable story. Thundercracker and Skywarp are their usual conniving, backstabbing selves, scheming for power and prestige at the expense of their leader. I will give credit where it is due: It's not often that I see errotica attempt to touch on the cut-cable political maneuverings of trine formation, and the scenario is one that is all the believable, as it is hard to imagine how else those two could have possible snagged Starscream as their third trinemate. Still, Starscream was far too easily decived and overcome! He would never have been so easily mislead, nor would he have surrended so quickly, and with such meekness! The glory of Starscream is his boldness, his passion! Even when faced with overwhelming force, still he fights, and this story in no way displays this. As for the second act's scene between Thundercracker and Skywarp-! The plot's focus was on the capture of Starscream's spark. That sidetrack into dull, unhappy groping was nothing more then pointless filler, barely arounsing, and detrimental to the momentum that had been building until then. On the other hand, once the writer got back on track and into the physical elements of Starscream's new forced bonding, the story trully showed its metal, with such orignal concepts as CPU hacking and forced gyro play!
Inside Starscream's Overload Academy – (wherein Starscream educates numerous autobots and decepticons as pleasurebots) – This is undoubtably a SPARKLING GEM amid the slag that's so often posted! FINALLY we see Starscream given due credit as the sensual creature he so obviously is! To see his skills showcased in such loving detail was both glorious and impressive. The writer must surely have been favoured with Starscream's skills in life . . . or at least have downloaded several explicit errotic manuals! Particularly notable was the scene in the hot oil baths, whener Starscream was seduced by his most beloved student, Skyfire! The plot twist of having him go from master to student was brilliant! All his knowledge fleeing him in an instant, making him weak tin foil in those large hands-! Trully, my spark flutered in its casing as I read those words. My praise cannot be overstated!