Author's notes: "Angst" in this story is being used in the sense of whingy, teen angst.

Angsty Combaticons:

"I jus' thought of another reason why I hate Starscream!" Swindle listed to one side, overbalanced as he shook a finger as if to emphasize his point.

"And that makes for what? Reason number five thousand, three hundred and seventy?" Blast Off asked as Brawl grabbed Swindle by the shoulder and dragged him upright again.

Swindle's optics fuzzed and his lips moved in thought. "No!" he said. "S'only...couple dozen. Shut up! You're gonna make me lose my reason!"

"Too late," Blast Off muttered. He sighed. "I suppose it's too much to ask to have one night of drinking that didn't result in yet another round of Starscream bashing?"

"You don't like him either, Blast Off. Hey! Where's my cube?" Swindle struggled to rebalance himself on his stool. "C'mon, where's my cube?"

"You finished it," Brawl said, pouring the remnants of Swindle's cube into his fuel tank and setting the empty cube in front of Swindle. "See? Empty."

"Damn!" Swindle looked around, searching wildly for a replacement cube. Chuckling, Onslaught slid a fresh one in front of Swindle. "Whoa, cool...okay, where was I?"

"You were about to add to the long list of reasons why you hate Starscream," Onslaught said.

"Why we hate Starscream." Swindle waggled a finger in front of Onslaught. "Don' be a-a whatchacallit? A apologizer like Blast Off is. This is th' guy who used us an' tossed us away when we weren't convenient for him anymore, remember? That's low. That's dirty. That's--"

"Exactly what we would have done had the situations been reversed," Blast Off said. "It was exactly what we planned to do, once we'd disposed of Megatron, remember?"

"That's beside the point!" Swindle said. "Look, look, just listen already, okay? Starscream dragged us outta Room 217 'cause he wanted us to do his dirty work, right? An' then when we weren't able to beat the entire Decepticon Empire by ourselves, he threw his hissy fit an' left, right? An' then when we were gonna actually succeed in takin' over Cybertron, he shows up an' tries to steal our credit an' then -- then! -- he sells us out to Megatron just 'cause we slapped him in a cell! I mean, we didn't even rip out his personality component! We were nice to him!"

"Well, I don't know about 'nice,'" Vortex said with a sadistic giggle. "We were gonna whale on him once we incinerated the Earth."

"Yeah, but we didn't." Swindle picked up his cube and took a triumphant guzzle. "We coulda just shot him down then, but we didn't!. So, instead, once Megatron an' Prime show up, Starscream sells us out faster than iI/i would have!"

"Again, something we'd have done happily," Blast Off said.

"Knock it off!" Swindle looked angrily at Onslaught. 'Make him quit doin' that thing he's doing!"

"Bringing logic to the argument?" Blast Off asked.

"Yeah!" Swindle nodded his head for a moment until Blast Off's words were fully processed. 'No!" he yelled, shaking his head even more emphatically. "You're cloudin' the issue! Quit cloudin' things!"

"Indeed," Onslaught said to Blast Off. "He'll stop talking about this if you simply let him finish."

Swindle smirked drunkenly at Blast Off. "Yeah!" he said. "So, he sells us out to Megatron an' Prime an' the next thing we know we're stuck back in the Empire an' everybody's treatin' us like we got scraplets an' what happens to Starscream, huh? What happens to Starscream?"

The others sat watching Swindle, expectantly waiting for the answer to the question.

"NOTHING!" Swindle roared, slamming both hands down on the tabletop and managing to topple himself from his chair again. "Ow! Damnit! Quit moving my chair!"

"You're saying that you're angry with Starscream because he can get away with being a slimy, self-serving, backstabbing...," Blast Off cut himself off. "I'm sorry; I must have drunk more than I thought. Of icourse/i you're angry because he can get away with being a slimy, self-serving backstabber. I'm surprised you don't spend your days studying his technique."

"Shut up!" Swindle whimpered from where he lay on the floor. "Ons! Make the ground stop moving so much!"