This time it really grew on me, and i had a hard time letting go. Deep and intense. Warning for sexual content in the form of Sparksex.
When Starscream regains consciousness it is to a dimly lit room. Looking around, his optics slowly adjusts to the dim light and as he takes in his surroundings all he sees is a small sparsely furnished room. There is no indication of the owner, but the scent of flight grade energon is enough for him to know. The cube giving off the scent is conveniently placed at the stand beside the berth and as he reaches for it he relaxes a bit when nothing restricts him in the movement.
Sitting up with the cube held securely in his right hand he gives the room another glance and this time he instantly sees the small slot of light from the slightly ajar door leading into another room.
Soft murmuring reaches his audios and curious he leaves the energon cube at the berth, standing and walking to the door to look into the other room.
Greeting him is the sight of sweeping blue wings, a strong back and a perfect aft as Thundercracker is leaning over his desk, unaware of the spectator to his unintended flaunting of assets. Even flustered and blushing heatedly Starscream is unable to divert his optics from the gorgeous sight. Then he frowns.
'Why am I reacting like this?' Granted Thundercracker is gorgeous, but so had his trinemate been. And even if the frame is different it shouldn't awake feelings and reactions like this. It is his old flight instructor for Primus' sake. But even that fact doesn't calm his wildly pulsing spark one bit.
'You miss him and you are trying to find someone to fill the gap the loss has left inside you' a small voice sounds in his mind and he solemnly has to agree. Just before he leaves the door to go back to the berth and the energon cube a movement draws his attention and a vicious flare of jealousy takes hold in his spark at the sight of hands, white and grey hands, making sweeping movements across the blue wings and eliciting a pleasured reaction from Thundercracker. The sight of the blue seeker throwing his head back, moaning soundly with pleasure rises his core temperature slightly, but the sight of a hand groping a wing tip instantly kills the charge in his frame. Whoever it is who is fondling the instructor, the mech is dead!
A low dissatisfied growl escapes his vocalizer and horrified at the sound he stumbles away from the door, almost tripping over his own feet in his hurry, but managing to catch himself before he makes more noise and draws attention. Shaken by the sight and his own reaction he sits down on the berth and grabs the cube. Swallowing the fuel in large gulps he tries to force the image of the hands on Thundercracker's wings out of his processor, but fails miserably.
It figures that the blue seeker has found together with someone during his stay. His wingmates are after all dead. Still Starscream feels disconcert at the fact that the blue seeker and his new mate? lover? friend? dare to indulge in such actions when they know that he is there and accidentally could happen upon them.
"Starscream?"
He jolts at the sound of his name and to his horror he senses Thundercracker just outside the door to the berth room. Fight or flight? His instincts is screaming at him to react, that he has done something shameful, seen something he shouldn't, has been caught and now Thundercracker is going to admonish him. In his panic he completely forgets everything about the fact that it probably had been the blue seeker placing him inside the berth room in the first place.
"Starscream, are you okay?" Thundercracker asks, his voice filled with concern.
When the small slot of light grows with the opening of the door Starscream flinches away, scurrying towards the far corner of the berth until he reaches the wall and is completely trapped.
As the blue seeker enters the room another frame fills the door and Starscream is unable to stop the vicious hiss at the sight of Fireflight.
"Leave." Thundercracker orders coldly, optics an icy blue and for just a klik Starscream is certain the blue seeker is talking to him, but when the aerialbot sheepishly murmurs an apology and leaves, puzzlement fills the tricolored seeker's optics.
Staring warily as Thundercracker makes no move to get closer, Starscream curls a bit more in on himself in the corner of the berth, legs held taught against his chest while his hands grips his knee-joints tightly.
"Can I sit down?" Thundercracker asks in a soft voice, a hand in a slow and controlled move gesturing towards the part of the berth furthest away from the huddle tricolored seeker, wings drooping slightly at the sight of the distraught seeker.
Red optics narrows suspiciously at the question, but a small nod follows a few kliks later.
With a glance to the open door and the light spilling into the dim berth room, Thundercracker sits down on the berth and scoots against the wall, in safe distance away from Starscream, but not restricting the access to the door and freedom if Starscream should want it. At the sight of his only means of escape no longer being blocked by the blue seeker's frame Starscream relaxes a bit and slowly unfurls from his cramped position against the corner of the berth.
"What is going on? Why am I here?" the tricolored seeker asks in a small quiet voice. His optics roams the blue seeker's relaxed frame for any indication of deception. 'Where has my trust gone?' he idly wonders as he waits for Thundercracker to answer his question. 'Oh yeah, it flushed down the drain when I realized that he isn't who I thought he is.' Starscream reminds himself, remembering the feeling of their fields intermingling and sensing the ruthlessness filling the blue seeker. 'He killed my comrades-in-arms in cold energon not even feeling anything while doing so.' Then again, the decepticons hadn't really been his comrades any longer at that point with the tricolored seeker giving Thundercracker the means to fight back. And the blue seeker had done so marvelously while defending him in the process. Still, Starscream is greatly unnerved at the pure destruction Thundercracker had been and is capable of.
Looking up from where he has been staring at the floor, Thundercracker turns to look at Starscream.
"I thought it would be better for you to wake up here instead of in the brig…" the blue seeker answers with a small smile on his lips and a shrug. A brief emotion flashes in the blue optics and it is gone before Starscream have the chance to read into it. Then Thundercracker looks away, his gaze going towards the floor once again, but he isn't done talking.
"I hope I didn't presume too much?" blue wings drooping further on his back while his voice holds uncertainty.
A hope beyond hope stirs inside Starscream at the carefully voiced question. Does he dare to believe? And more importantly, does he dare to trust?
"What about-"
"-Fireflight?" Thundercracker softly breaks in as if reading the question right out of his mind. "I guess you saw us." a simple statement.
Reining in the explosive feelings filling his spark at the thought of any of the Aerialbots, he quells the rising hate and nods. "Yes."
"My wingmates are dead. My spark is unstable. It needs the connection to another spark regularly to remain stable. They, the Aerialbots, have provided me that stability. It is nothing more. Fireflight simply forgot that you were here." Thundercracker apologizes in a voice tinged with sorrow while a telling sadness fills the blue optics.
"You didn't only lose your wingmates, did you?" Starscream asks with a growing feeling of dread as he reads between the lines.
"No. Solarstorm. He was my sparkbonded." The blue seeker whispers.
Guilt grasps mercilessly at Starscream's spark. They hadn't known. The information they had gathered on the blue seeker told only about a friendly companionship between the three seekers. Nothing indicated the existence of a sparkbond.
If…
If Skywarp hadn't…
If the spark hadn't been supported by another bond of equal strength…
Their plan to bind the blue seeker's loyalty through a sparkbond had saved the seeker in the end. If they hadn't, then Thundercracker would have withered away without anything able to stop the process.
And with a sudden horrible revelation Starscream realizes that that is what is happening to Skywarp now. How could he have been so negligent towards his own trinemate? Just because the black and purple seeker's bond didn't break due to Thundercracker dying, it doesn't mean that the withdrawal hasn't taken effect. It would certainly explain the instability and change in his trinemate's demeanor.
Canting his head when Starscream remains silent for a while, Thundercracker flares his field enough to gently touch against Starscream's. Sensing the distress in the other seeker, the field expands when Starscream doesn't protest and soon the tricolored seeker is encompassed in a field giving as much as taking reassurance and support.
"I'm fine Starscream. Ratchet managed to stabilize me when the Aerialbots brought me with them through time. As long as I spark merge regularly I'm going to remain healthy." The blue seeker reassures with a small smile, but it is clear to Starscream that it is a forced smile. It doesn't reach the blue optics, and Thundercracker still has an air of something around him. As if something is missing.
"Does it have to be them? Can't I or Skywarp do it?" the tricolored seeker asks, fighting greatly to keep the low growl out of his voice at the thought of what the Aerialbots has been doing with…yeah no longer his trinemate, but he can't stop thinking about Thundercracker as somehow still his. Powerlessness grips at his spark when he realizes that he actually no longer does have any claim on the blue seeker. Thundercracker is free to choose who he wants to be with, and if it isn't Starscream…or Skywarp for that matter, then he is forced to accept it.
"No. But Ratchet pointed out that flier sparks is the most suited, because of the direct compatibility of the frequency, easing the siphoning of the needed energy from the 'donor' spark as he termed it." the blue seeker explains almost clinically, optics once again fixated on the floor and not seeing the happy flutter in Starscream's wings at the words, but sensing the change in their intermingling fields. Gone is the choking despair previously dominating the tricolored seeker's field. Instead Starscream's field clears with determination and a feeling of hope.
Looking up, his own field flutters with a weak hope that he doesn't even dare to think about.
That small guarded flutter is all Starscream need.
Flaring his own field to encompass Thundercracker, he closes a bit of the distance between them and kneels, reaching a shaking hand towards a blue wing. When it connects with the plating he feels the traces of the tattoos all over the surface and curios he follows the lines carved into the plating. He never knew they were so much a part of the seeker. From a distance they look like painted on. The strangled moan when his fingers trace the current tattoo to the wing hinge enflames him with boldness and burning desire.
But when he keeps fondling the hinge a warning growl sounds from the blue seeker and the room lights up momentarily as an electric current seemingly originating from within the wing travels the surface of the wing, lighting up the tattoos on its travel across the plating.
Fascinated Starscream takes in the sight of the whole wing suddenly alight in blazing blue.
"You need to stop Starscream. That was a warning." Thundercracker pants lightly. The touch to his wing had felt divine, but the continued touch to the hinge had caused an alert to happen on his HUD and if Starscream continues to stimulate the wing hinge like that, systems are going to interpret it as an attempt to tamper with the weapons and do much more than just light up in a marvelous lightshow.
"What is it?" the tricolored seeker asks curios.
"I can show you in a merge. You need to remember I'm ancient. My frame is different from those you are used to. Only my wingmates knew how different I actually am from everyone else. Most just know me as the legend from the Quintesson War. Few know about my past before the war happened. I have had to sacrifice so much, and I still need to be cautious. My wingmates made willing sacrifices to be able to be together with me, a sacrifice not seeming as much to you, but to me…" The blue seeker explains. The sadness is back in the blue optics and Starscream removes his fingers from the wing, studying the other concerned.
"It is okay Starscream. I am okay." Thundercracker reassures. Then the smile suddenly changes, widening and a shudder starting in the blue wings takes hold of the blue seeker's whole frame. Longing and need fills their still intermingling fields and Starscream feels the yearning in Thundercracker as if it is his own need.
The next klik their lips are touching and he whimpers when Thundercracker takes control and deepens the kiss while forcing him to lie back on the berth. His protests are muffled by their connected lips and die completely when the hand supporting his head as Thundercracker had forced him to lie down, sweeps his right wing. After that he gives completely into the advance, melting into the frame pinning him to the berth and eagerly welcomes the continued kisses and touch to his frame.
"No more stalling." Thundercracker roughly whispers when he breaks the kiss, the other hand coming up to rub at Starscream's cockpit glass. A weak moan escapes the tricolored seeker, the feeling of the blue seeker's hands on his frame enflaming him with desperate need and his spark pulses wildly at the sight of the lust filled deep indigo optics staring down at him.
And this time he knows it isn't a dream. This time nothing is going to interrupt them.
This time…
A gasp is wrought from his vocalizer at the feeling of Thundercracker's lips touching his neck, glossa sweeping across the sensitive lines and wires forcing even more pleasured and delighted sounds from him.
Wide blue wings are flared high on the blue seeker's back as Thundercracker ventures lower and lower on his frame, peppering his cockpit with small kisses and languid strokes of his glossa on the smooth surface. He can feel Thundercracker smile against the smooth glass when a particularly choking moan is forced from his vocalizer as the expertly skilled glossa begins to gently trace along the sensitive transition separating his cockpit glass from his burning hot plating.
"Are you ready for me?" Thundercracker purrs hoarsely, still mouthing kisses along the rim of the cockpit glass, his lust turning his voice into something sinful, coaxing and utterly irresistible.
There is no thought. There can be no thought. Not with the pleasure swamping his whole being, and before Starscream is aware his cockpit is splitting, revealing his sparkchamber and next his spark in its most vulnerable and exposed state. Thundercracker can kill him with one swift move, but so wound up as he is Starscream doesn't care.
"P-Please…" he manages to force through his vocalizer before he is lost in the wash of pleasure taking him hostage and he willingly drowns.
A blinding light, and through hazy optics he stares at the beautiful sapphire spark that is Thundercracker. A small needy whine leaves him and then the blue seeker is lowering, intent to connect their sparks and Starscream can feel how his spark almost strains to reach for the other, anticipating and awaiting the moment where they finally touch.
"Yes. Oh yes." Thundercracker groans when the two sparks begin to merge into one entity for the duration of the merge. The blue seeker shudders delightfully at the feeling of being able to merge completely with the other. While the Aerialbots is able to merge enough with him to provide him with what he need, the merge can never be a full one when done with members already bonded as the young gestalt is.
But this…
This is pure and simple bliss for a spark who has longed for that deeper connection and for the chance to lose itself completely inside another.
Then memories begin to flicker. Some his own, others clearly Starscreams.
Taking control of the merge, remembering the promise to show, Thundercracker searches in his spark's memories for the moment defining who he is, and the forging of his own sentience as well as the repurposing of the weapons which became so legendary with his first free and sentient action.
The change had begun slowly. The awareness of I and ME began to take up more and more focus inside his processor until questions began to arise.
Who am I?
What am I?
Why am I?
And then the more complex ones follow.
The more define questions.
Why am I doing this?
I see the pain, the fear.
I hear the screams.
I smell the smell of energon, stale and nauseating.
I feel the give of plating.
What am I doing?
What is my purpose?
Once again I wake as if from recharge and the mech before me shows nothing the others had. It puzzles me. Why isn't he afraid? Why doesn't he try to flee me? Why is he…walking calmly towards me? Those optics showing no fear fills me with a strange serenity and I hesitate to release my weapons.
He stops when only mere footsteps separate us and I can so easily draw my weapons and cut him down. Yet, he just stands there, looking at me with those optics that conveys so much more than the calmness his whole being exudes.
"You don't need to do this. You don't need to obey them." the mech tells me in a voice just as calm as his field. He is here to be killed. By me. But he doesn't seem to care.
"D-Don't talk to me." My very first words. I'm so shocked that I take several steps back and my hand touches to my throat feeling the hardware there.
"There are others like us. Break their hold on you. Free yourself of their shackles." The calm optics turns to our surroundings. All around the arena the spectators are screaming, calling for energon, this mech's energon. And I am their tool.
Tool…
The word does something to me. My head is dizzy with confusion, the sounds not helping me to think. It still feels so unnatural.
A stab of pain inside my processor and a warning flashing on my HUD. I sag and he reaches for me.
"No." I croak, the pain filling my vocalizer as I feel how my wings flares, trembling with the urge to be released, to do what they have been forged to do, to execute this prisoner, this slave who has dared to stand up against his Masters.
"I am Alpha Trion. Who are you?" His voice is innocent, as if he doesn't know what damage his words causes inside me.
"I'm…"
"I'm…"
"I'm…" no one.
Slaves don't have names. Slaves are no one and nothing compared to our Masters.
But…if that is so…then I'm a slave as well.
And the mech in front of me is not, yet he isn't one of my Masters.
Doubt rises in my processor and I shake my head, trying to clear my processor enough to understand.
"W-Who are you?" I ask. Demands.
"A sentient being." is the cryptic answer. "Just like you." He then adds, causing more damage to my scattered processor.
"Who are you?" he then casually asks, and I wonder if he didn't already ask me that.
But my processor begins to process the question and something seems to click into place inside me, because the pain slowly begins to fade as my thoughts begin to more freely take over my mind and the confusion seems to clear.
"I'm…"
"I'm…"
"I am THUNDERCRACKER!" my vocalizer suddenly roars when my processor aligns with the change happening inside me and sentience finally takes over completely, leaving me a thinking being instead of one mindlessly following orders.
With sentience, feelings occur and a burning rage takes over my spark.
Through fluid, powerful jumps I'm suddenly several levels above the floor and looking down at the mech still standing inside the arena looking curiously up at me, his optics strengthening me and a smile urging me on to do my very first action as a free sentient being.
With determination I look up, scanning the rings surrounding the arena for the target I know I need to deal with to win my freedom. Hovering for several kliks, my wings keeping me airborne in those important moments until my optics lands on my target, I use the surface of the ring just below me to leap and give me enough momentum to bring me to the upper ring.
In my quest everything else is forgotten. I don't pay attention to the panic around me, or the weapons being trained on my frame. My only goal is to reach that ring and my Master.
Somersaulting as I reach the right altitude, my wings finally releases, the heavy clanks before the weapons begin to transform sounding above all the noise, almost stopping time before they connect to my hands. I feel everyone's attention on me as I wield the shield protectively before swinging the sword and drawing my Master's life fluids in one sweeping movement.
"I AM THUNDERCRACKER!" I roar, screaming out my defiance for all to hear and claiming my freedom at the same time.
Coming to, Starscream stares perplex up at Thundercracker's still offline frame.
He is utterly speechless as his processor tries to digest the fact that…
No. It is all so surreal.
But his optics lingers heavily on the blue wings.
"Freedom of the will." He whispers almost silently.