Chapter 27: Smile
A/N: Sorry for being slow…have a few problems with reality to sort out here and there. I'll probably be revisiting this chapter to shoot down the typos :D
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"Where have you been-! Primus, what happened to you?!"
He tried to remember what happened. Before. Or after. Or after what happened before. Wait. That would be now. Now?
"Nothing…just go back to sleep."
"Go back to sleep-go back to sleep?!!! I've been WAITING for you! It's already been five breems since-"
"What are you, my nannybot? Leave me 'lone."
Now is happening. He focused on the now. He tried to squint an optic open like a disobedient child lying in bed past his curfew. No, he had to widen his view, because Skywarp was too intoxicated to be discreet. Not like a small glowing red light caught the attention of his bickering wing mates standing in front of his feet. Thundercracker looked like he had been hit by a titanium moosebot. Starscream looked like a moosebot, until Skywarp corrected his focus. A moosebot with very attractive thrusters. No, its Starscream. And she's…screaming. Loudly. Primus, they were acting like a tied couple.
"'Leave you alone', you bloody slag! I know what you've been doing! Don't try to hide it from me Thundercracker!!!"
"Oh, I've nothing to hide, 'commander'! So you recognise the tire marks on my back?! I guess you know that stupid boyfriend of yours so well! And Megatron-!"
"(Um…cons…?)"
The female Decepticon immediately throws a malicious glare subduing her waking purple counterpart, who nonchalantly rolls over and adjusts his position on the couch, pretending to be ignorant. If the purple Decepticon did respond again, she would drive her foot into his abdomen for being naively intrusive to the situation. Stiff digits clamped hold of Starscream's wings and swivelled her back into the heated argument once more. The blue seeker looked desperate. A thin line of energon from his cracked optic traced the corner of his mouth, and sparks from his open joints leapt in protest of his mistreatment in the previous battle.
"Starscream-!" she tore her arms from his grip, but he exchanged them for her flailing wrists. "Starscream, listen-!"
"Let go of me! Let go!" the red seeker grew less patient with every word her blue counterpart had to say, thrashing in this hold like a spoilt youngster. "Let go I say!"
"Starscream, you gotta listen! They don't care about you! They're only using you for their own means! Don't-!"
" LET GO! LETGO-AACKH!"
The hand of the blue Decepticon did as was told only to rashly graze her cheek with a small swipe. Drawing her closer, Thundercracker glared straight into her frantic optics. What remained of his functioning sight tried to catch her optics racing across his face.
"You know what they're after Starscream! YOU of all cons should know!" he spoke through gritted teeth. "They don't want you! I want you! I love you-!"
"(How dare you hit me like that…)" she whispered in a subdued but bitter hiss, bowing her head. "(Of all the Transformers to do that…)"
"(…You would be the last!)" the blue jet was already regretting, holding onto a pair of trembling wrists, connected to a taut body.
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Skywarp meekly scratched the back of his worn helmet, struggling to recall the incident that occurred between his wing mates, before he included himself. A pair of white and blue feet were miserably marching to the space bridge tower. Starscream wanted to get back and retreat from the blue atrocity of irrational thought, beside the imbecilic purple fool. Everything was ready to be sent to Earth. Everything was done.
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"Please, Starscream-! I'm sorry-! I-! …Please, you have to stop doing this! It's not good for you-" Thundercracker pleaded in a broken voice. Starscream unfriendly response was to direct her attentions elsewhere, angling her head away from him. She didn't want to hear what Thundercracker had to say. She didn't care. Not after what he did to seize her attention.
"(You stupid fool…what makes you think Megatron does not think of me at all? And Jazz is there to pass the time.)" Starscream slowly turned her head to focus her burning visage to his dumbfounded countenance.
"(Do you want to be a mere hobby, Thundercracker? Do you want me to play with your little feelings?)"
"…..YOU DON'T DECIDE WHAT I DO TRIBURST-MMPH!!!"
Starscream suddenly found their faces locked together, her wing mate clumsily waltzing around the room to search for the door switch between their fumbling limbs. Her muffled cries were ignored and the blue jet roughly pinned her down to her own recharge bed, stopping to pull himself away from her to get a better view. Starscream's lips drew into a tight line as her internal systems was chasing itself into a frenzy. Gazing down on her with a stern look of determination, Thundercracker waited for her next move.
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The purple jet did remember one thing that occurred in the earliest hours of Cybertron. As intimidating as she looked, Skywarp could not turn his audio receptors offline to the scuffling of limbs or the muted cries in the next room. His wobbling vision searched for the door. It was locked.
Well, they don't call him Skywarp for nothing.
Doing as his namesake suggests became a fortunate decision to the Decepticon aerial commander. A fury of arms and legs belonging to Skywarp's wing mates met his optics, inciting the purple seeker to throw his weight into his blue counterpart. Astray wires and circuits tore from their extensions, snapping the air in defiance as the purple warrior made a spirited pounce on top the blue jet and started wearing savage fists onto his face and chest. The femme con pulled herself up to regain her senses, hastily inching away on her recharge bed from the tussle and frantically collecting what was left of her modesty hanging out of her chassis. Starscream's vermillion optics quivered with inquisitive horror at her purple counterpart's berserk fit over their wingmate, his arms venting more destructive force with every hit.
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'I don't want this to happen to me…I've seen it before, but I don't-! I don't understand don't do it to me please I don't want to know! I love Megatron! I wanted him! It was different that time! I wanted him! Just like you want…me...no…No no no…I don't-…don't…' A younger Starscream would have been pleading and swallowing her tears, just like most Decepticon females. Her wrists were pinned over her head by a larger pair of blue hands. Her wrung fists broke into her palms, fissuring the worn lines to crush the circuits buried underneath.
Starscream was truly afraid, and was perplexed as to what she could do to lighten her situation.
…So she started laughing.
"…W-What do you want to do now, Thundercracker, hm? Take away my modesty?" The blue jet's mouth gapped open stupidly.
"…Reminds me so much of Megatron…" the red seeker teasingly purred in a seductive manner, serving an estranged invite and a warning at the same time.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Starscream's head rolled to away from his gaze in false submission to his words.
"…Go on, do your worst. At least I now I don't have to worry about being taken by some stranger…that's what friends are for, right?"
Was she joking? Did she want to…?
Why did he take her comment as an invite?
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"Ready to board the space bridge, commander Starscream?" Shockwave's yellow ocular blinked for a confirmation. Starscream and company stood in an obvious fashion within the space bridge.
"Beam me up, Shocky." Skywarp muttered to himself, earning an indifferent gaze from the one armed Decepticon.
"…All right then." A flick of a switch, and the trio felt their bodies traversing at immeasurable speeds they cannot dream to achieve in the clear skies.
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"Skywarp, stop." The addressed seeker continued to smash his knuckles into Thundercracker until one of them fell into stasis lock.
"…Stop it Skywarp stop-…stop hitting him, he's not thinking straight-stop hit-STOP HITTING HIM HIS CEREBRAL CIRCUITS WERE GILTED A FEW BREEMS AGO!!!"
The command quickly galled the purple seeker to throw a heated look at the her.
"SLAG FEMALE WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP HIM?!!!" Wrathful optics lanced back at Thundercracker's sore state, and Skywarp rudely slapped the unconscious seeker's helmet to find it mangled from the near back; not life threatening, but a definite blow to keep the cerebral board glitching. A glimpse of one detached null ray to the side, callously thrown from the recharge berth caught his optic. Starscream found the Decepticon warrior staring at her vulnerable circuitry, but her right arm could not obey her involuntarily, having been rendered stiff from paralysis.
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Astrotrain was more than glad to carry the items back to base, save for the three seekers escorting the contents within his form. The triple changer was not used to them obediently obeying the bleak hum within his space, and neither did he care more or less. Their aspen leader's instructions were as clear as day: transport the seekers back to base, unload the packages and distribute them to the troops according to rank and file. The first few candidates for receiving 'presents' goes out to Starscream after Megatron, as always.
"Feh!" he spat out loud.
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"…Starscream…" a sad frown glazed Skywarp's dour expression. Picking himself up from Thundercracker, he prudently jolted back when she winced away from his out stretched arm. Clumsily scooping her circuitry back into herself, Starscream did not refuse a pair of tense hands aiding her in keeping her cockpit open, collecting her cords in an untidy mesh and tucking them back into their rightful place. Closing her chassis to spare then from further embarrassment, the Decepticon warrior looked at the aerial commander with genuine concern. Is she all right? Does it hurt anywhere? Skywarp pondered, scrutinizing the shaken red seeker austere countenance, reserving herself from looking vulnerable or fragile.
She looked dead inside.
"(…Not one word to Megatron)." The aerial commander spoke in an unfound humbleness from her character, leaving Skywarp shifting in vexation at the weight of her words.
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"Had fun, Starscream?" Megatron's graveled voice echoed within his quarters. The door shuck open with an unwelcome entry, and it's tenant listened to weightless feet stride into his quarters. Megatron felt his fuel pump skip in expected elation. Starscream facial reply was to sneer at his remark, her leader taking a small side glance over his shoulder in feigned disinterest. She coyly drew back when a crescent smile cut his face into a perverse grin.
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"…'Screamer, you okay-?" the purple jet asked.
"(I cannot feel my right arm and leg)," her vacuous stare penetrated the dim light.
"'No con, I mean-!"
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She had something for him. Her folded arms behind her wings made it blatantly obvious. Maybe, if she was in a better mood, she would…'glomp'? 'Glomp' him? Skywarp was making a weak joke, mentioning the time she did so in her misadventures in the past.
All females Decepticons must smile when they greet the superior males. Smile, because their partners worked hard; when they reach home, they deserve the small reward, that small reward, to have something pretty and feminine to look at. That pretty thing has no reason not to grace a smile on her face, even if he returned with missing limbs, or their close families were exterminated in the war, or-
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"(Don't be angry at Thundercracker-)" Starscream stopped talking when she felt Skywarp's sympathetic hand place itself on her taut shoulder.
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So she smiled, her usual devilish smile.