Title: Sidus Ad Quirito Diabolo

By: Ceris Malfoy

Drabble #3c: Perfection, Part 3

Summary: Optronix can easily picture this seeker as what he should be: Death and War and Insanity made whole and perfect.

Characters: Optronix a.k.a. Optimus Prime, Starscream, Starsinger (OC), Autobots, Unicron

Pairings: Optronix (OP)/Starscream, Autobots/Starscream, Optronix (OP)/Starsinger (OC), (very slight) Unicron/Starscream

Warnings: bad mojo, character death, graphic (and semi-graphic) sex, violence

Continuity: Shattered Glass, major AU

A/N: For 14FlashSteps, who gave me this prompt:

"He had, Optimus realized in dark humor as his ember fell into darkness, unintentionally created the perfect weapon."

This is part 3 of 4 (I've finally decided), and mmm…is this good. I personally think this is my favorite of the sections so far, though I'm sure that feeling will change with the last installment. Just a warning to others: there is some very heavy petting in this one. …Enjoy!


"Perfection is finality. Finality is death."
- William Ellery Channing

Optronix has much to do and no time with which to do it. He feels rushed and harried, alarmed and eager – so very, very eager – and everything rushes by his normally focused attention. He meets with mechs he cannot recognize despite the fact that he knows them well, he speaks words he cannot hear and suspects are not what he wishes to say, and he paces for hours on end thinking himself deeper into something close to panic. His thoughts spin within his processor, so focused on what is to come later that he cannot process the now. He burns with want and need and thinks that it is a very good thing that he has already admitted to himself that he is so completely in love with his seeker, because otherwise he might have thought himself mad.

But despite his desire and his almost optimistic hope that Starscream is his, there is still Prowl's warning echoing silently in the back of his mind, a quiet void from which springs doubt and reason and whispers of the guarantee which has been so thoughtfully provided to him. He listens to the whispers for awhile, fingering the disk on which the virus rested, and almost gives in. It would be so easy, and he would never have to know.

But, no. He has to know, even though he suspects that it will hurt him, even though he suspects that his perception has been made faulty through blind hope and ember-deep obsession.


He is almost finished waxing his frame, determined to be presentable for his little beloved, when the comm. comes through. He ignores it at first, but whoever it is seems to be most insistent. He snarls, angry that he has been interrupted, and opens the comm.-link, prepared to give the mech on the other end hell. His thoughts and anger break before he can even get the first syllable out of his vocalizer as his seeker's smooth voice speaks.

"Something came up – an engagement that I can not break free from. Care to join me?" There is genuine regret in the seeker's voice, but also a hint of teasing.

Optronix does not even think about it. "Of course," he murmurs. "Where am I meeting you?"

"My sire's place," Starscream answers. "It seems my cousins have finally graduated the Academy, and Starsinger is determined they will have a grand party to celebrate." There is an indication of irritation in the voice, and Optronix does not need to guess why. He knows enough of Starscream's personal history to know that there is little love between Starscream and his family. Starscream has practically raised himself; the only real interaction that he's had over the years with his kin being exchanges of material goods and the credits to do whatever he willed.

There are a number of things Optronix could say, each more violent than the last, but instead all he says is a simple, "I'll meet you soon."

There is a sigh of relief over the line, and a quiet "Thank you," followed by the dead silence of a closed line.


They meet as they always do: soft smiles and gentle touches and a sweet, lingering kiss that never once gives note on what will happen later. They are not alone, after all, and both mechs are exceptionally private individuals. What will come later is meant for them alone, and none other. Still, their smiles are a bit too knowing, their touches linger a tad too long to be anything but promising, and their kiss is perhaps too short for the heat within their optics. Optronix is aware of the pleased smiles and gentle teasing of the crowds, but it is a distant awareness at best. He is so focused on the blue of his little beloved's optics, the gentle hum of systems healthy, whole, and pleased, and the heat that radiates off the seeker's frame to really much care that almost anyone who looks at them can tell that tonight will be their first night together.

"You polished," Starscream murmurs, running a delicate hand over Optronix's chassis.

"Yes," Optronix rumbles. He fingers a wing, delicately, gently, not wanting to hurt the fragile being in his arms with his superior strength. Only for this one, he thinks to himself.

Starscream smiles up at him, optics darkening slightly, the mechanisms within narrowing, sharpening, honing in on him the way only a seeker's can. "It will only get messed later," he warns, promises, voice a taunting assurance.

And can Optronix help it when his engine revs so loudly? "You little tease," he hisses, knowing that they still had several jors before they could reasonably escape the party.

Starscream laughs at him, voice husky and deep in a way Optronix has never heard before. "Not teasing," the seeker purrs at him. "Promising." And then the seeker is pulling away, still smiling, optics still dark and heated and intense, and every line of his body promising wicked things.

Optronix follows his seeker with his optics like a starving mech following a cube of energon, drowning in the sights of his seeker interacting with his frame-kin and the peers of his cousins. He watches as Starscream skillfully avoids his family with a familiarity and grace that bore signs of long practice. He watches as younglings, barely old enough to be walking around, let alone doing so unsupervised, crowd around his little beloved with obvious glee, demanding sweets and attention that Starscream is only too happy to give. He watches as other mechs, other seekers, attempts to flirt with his seeker only to find themselves ignored. He watches as every now and then Starscream looks over in his general direction, as if needing assurance that he is not alone.

Eventually, one of the mechs gets a little too forward for Optronix's taste, and so he moves swiftly forward through the thick crowd, most of whom are completely trashed, so that he can place a possessive grip on his seeker's waist and pull, bringing Starscream flush against his larger body in a clear display of ownership that only the blind would have trouble understanding. He says nothing; Starscream's shivering form pressing eagerly back into his body in clear submission says everything. The other mech takes one look at them and leaves. Hurriedly.

"I think," Optronix rumbles, grip tightening, "that we've been here long enough."

Starscream laughs. "Honestly, I thought you'd drag me off much earlier than this." He peers up at Optronix, smile turning sly and voice growing heated. "What took you so long, anyway?"

Optronix smiles, but does not answer. Instead, he leads his seeker out of Starsinger's domain, and towards his own.


They fall together onto his berth, a messy tangle of limbs and moans and oh sweet Primus is it good. He feels irresponsibly young, as if this is his first ever merge and his creators could walk in at any moment. There is just something that feels forbidden about this whole thing, something that Optronix cannot quite place, but suspects that it is hidden away within his seeker's superior, burning gaze and purring, wicked words that are murmured just so against his audials. Fingers reach within armor-seams to find hot spots he did not even know he had, teasing him to the point of almost-agony and he is helpless. Completely and totally helpless and at the mercy of the wicked seeker perched atop him as if that is his natural place to be.

This isn't how Optronix had imagined it – he had always dreamed that he would be the one to drive Starscream mad with desire – but he cannot find it in him to care. He's enjoying this too much to care, really.

Delicate hands leave his seams and trail down his body, leaving burning trails in their wake that Optronix can feel long after all touches have stopped. He doesn't understand why Starscream is suddenly having this effect on him; but even that thought does flying out the window when Starscream coaxes his interfacing panel open and teases his spike into full pressurization. His engines are full out roaring, his vision greys, and for a moment all he can hear is full-out white noise; the feeling of that delicate hand touching him so –!

He comes too after several long moments in which no movement is made at all, pleasure still burning through his systems, searching for that peak he is being so cruelly denied, only to meet his seeker's burning gaze. Starscream is poised above him, his own panel open and valve bared, seal still noticeably intact but nonetheless leaking profusely, one hand simply holding Optronix's spike and the other lingering beside Optronix's left hip, bracing his weight on the berth. Starscream's optics are watching him steadily, burning, burning with a heat that is only matched by the inferno that is roaring in Optronix's ember.

"You love me," Starscream says.

It is not a question, but Optronix treats the statement as if it is. "Yes," he manages to get out after several tries, his vocalizer almost completely locked up under the pressure building in his systems.

Starscream's helm cocks, optics studying him intently. "You will keep me?"

This is a question, but the answer is no different, and never could be. Even if he did not love the seeker, he would never let Starscream go. "Always," he says, and for some reason he feels that this is more a threat than a promise, but Starscream apparently is satisfied regardless.

With one last long, considering look, Starscream visibly tenses before moving his whole body down; in one smooth movement Starscream swiftly breaks his seal and plunging Optronix's spike into the hottest, tightest void in which he's ever been in. Optronix is reduced to his base programming in the same click – thoughts are gone, reason is gone, all that is left is the valve clutching his spike as if it was made for it and the impassioned cries of the seeker the valve was attached to. His hands find purchase on slim hips and clench, drawing forth a small, slightly pained cry; his pedes scramble and eventually are able to brace themselves on the berth, the slight shift in position forcing his spike deeper into the seeker's valve.

And then he moves. The seeker leans his back against the support offered by Optronix's bent legs and moves with him. They establish an easy rhythm at first – even with his whole world narrowed down on the feeling of his spike and that valve, he is conscious of his partner's inexperience with this. He moves the seeker up and down, slowly, slowly, ever-gentle.

But it isn't enough, not for him, and he can easily tell by the frustrated, jerking movements of Starscream's hips that it isn't enough for him either. He picks up the pace, hands having no trouble lifting the seeker's weight repeatedly. His optics drink in the sight of Starscream taking him in eagerly, wantonly, mouth opening and closing as if trying to say something but unable to make noise, hands flitting about as if unable to decide where he wants them, wings quivering and trembling and beating a discordant rhythm against Optronix's legs, fans roaring as they try desperately to fend off the impending system overload.

Starscream's canopy recedes into his body, cockpit splitting down the center, and there before Optronix's greedy gaze is the seeker's ember, bared and beautiful.

So beautiful. So achingly beautiful. And all his.

Grinning, his own chassis splits and bares his own wildly spinning ember. He thrusts deep and hard, harder than he has yet, and Starscream shrieks, optics flaring white as his systems finally surrenders to the overload that's been hanging just beyond reach. Optronix wastes no time and thrusts his upper body forward even as his hands leave those delectable hips, finds purchase on his upper back, and pulls Starscream down, down, down until they're connected.


He comes to slowly, systems aching in way that tells him that his overload had not just been good, but one of the best he's ever had, and a goofy grin settles across his face. Like almost every other time he's overloaded, his systems are a little slow to wake, but that's okay. He feels almost euphoric, and can only conclude that everything went well; why else would he be feeling so happy?

But there is also a lingering edge of doubt, because he doesn't feel Starscream in the berth with him, doesn't feel Starscream's energy-field anywhere in the room, actually, and there is a funny little feeling in his processor that says something isn't right. As his systems finally start to really wake, he notes other things: he is strangely exhausted, impossibly euphoric, thoughts cloudy and unable to think, and he's starting to become more than a bit nauseous. Drugged, he finally concludes.

And then it really hits him.

Starscream drugged him. Starscream left. He racks his processor, struggling to remember their merge – what had been revealed? – but the drugs are too potent, and his thoughts slips back and slides through his processor with no control of his own.


He paces for days on end, back and forth, back and forth, thinking, and waiting. He waits for guards screaming for his arrest, he waits for news of his tentative chain of command to disappear, he waits and waits and thinks. Nothing happens, and though he still can not recall everything he had learned from their merge, he does remember enough to know that Starscream knew more than Optronix had ever wanted him to. Starscream knows what Optronix is planning, knows what Optronix had planned for him, knows about the virus and about every little crime Optronix has ever committed.

And yet, nothing. Days pass in silence, and he thinks, pushing his processors to their limits trying to recall every detail, every thought revealed during their merge. He finally remembers the disgust and fear Starscream had felt, but he also recalls the love and the self-hatred – despite what Starscream had seen, the seeker still loved him and hated him for it. As the days slip pass and his spies tell him that Starscream has returned to the Iacon Institute of the Sciences – quieter, unhappy, and colder than ice – he realizes that the guards are never coming. Starscream is going to pretend he never knew Optronix, is going to attempt to forget about him.

It makes Optronix want to laugh and cry at the same time, but he can't. His ember is numb, so numb, so different from the usual burning that he knows Starscream's rejection has broken something inside of him. He wishes that he could hate the seeker, wishes he could find it in himself to hunt Starscream down and make him suffer, but he cannot blame the seeker.

Prowl had warned him; his own common sense had warned him. And, really, what had he expected? Even if something in Starscream had been receptive to his desires for Cybertron, there is still too much holding the seeker back. His sense of duty towards his people, his lingering affection for various mechs that Optronix would have to kill to get his way, his rigid faith in Primus, and his desire for self-control. And there-in lays the worst of the problem: Starscream will never consent of his own will to what Optronix wants.

He eyes the virus lying so innocently on the table, and despite the fog within his ember, he knows that Starscream will be his. Though he will never forget, and he's beginning to think he will never forgive, either. He picks up the disk, and – never once hesitating – opens his chassis and places it in the data-drive closest to his ember.

He barely has time to consider who, exactly, had given him the virus before his world goes black.


"Well, now," he purrs into his frightened seeker's audials. "Isn't this quite the predicament?"

He stands behind his once-beloved, pressed as close as he had been once in the distant past, and just as before, Starscream shivers and presses back against him. Feelings such as the type they had once for each other are incapable of leaving a mech's processor completely – it is likely that Optimus could do anything and everything to Starscream, and still the seeker would subconsciously respond to him as if nothing had ever happened. It delights Optimus, even as it enrages him.

He did not want to resort to this, as some part of him still longed for Starscream bound to him willingly, but Starscream had proven to be a far better master of himself than Optronix had ever been. Unlike his past-self, Starscream had fought off the virus before it had managed to do any lasting damage, had shut it down and picked apart the coding to add to his already considerable firewalls so that Optimus or Prowl could never do such a thing to him again.

Optimus does not blame Prowl for what he did. Optimus can see why it was necessary: as far as Optronix had gotten, he had still been an emotionally weak mech who had bordered on madness. Optronix had been an intellectual playing games, setting up the board as if his future was something to be so easily controlled and predicted. As Optimus Prime, he is not only smart but brilliant in his own way, insane to the point of genius, capable of not only setting the board but destroying it if need be. Optimus is willing to go so much farther than Optronix ever could, and that is why he knows that there is another way besides the virus to bring Starscream to him.

After all, grief, sorrow, and pain did strange things to a mech. It will be a hollow victory, but it will be victory all the same, and Optimus is pleased.

"You have one last chance," he murmurs, heavily armored and much larger hand stroking up and down Starscream's canopy in a mockery of a caress. "Join me, Starscream."

"I..." Starscream's vocalizer whines, grinding under the force of his fear and unwanted arousal. "I can't; I won't!" he manages to force out.

It is the wrong answer, but one that Optimus has seen coming. He gives no warning, simply tightens his grip on the seeker's canopy until the fragile glass shatters, gold-orange pieces tinkling merrily against the floor even as his seeker bucks and screams at the pain. "Very well," he says, voice bland and disinterested. He brings the seeker to the window, one hand clamped inside of the seeker's cockpit, grinding glass into the delicate arrays, uncaring of the energon that is staining his hand or the damage he is causing.

"I will burn your world to ashes," he whispers softly in Starscream's audials, other hand trailing up and teasing a wing gently. "I will take your ember and break it; piece by pitiful piece until you have nothing but a void to cling to in the madness of your own mind. I will torture your body until you know nothing but pain and agony and wish to beg for the release death could bring you but I will deny, over and over again simply because I can." He tightens his grip on the wing in his hand and pulls, easily ripping off the appendage and tossing it over the side.

Starscream howls again, but Optimus is no longer listening. He is staring down and out the window, looking at the rows upon rows of mechs willing to die to do his bidding. They are all wearing lustful looks as they watch the spectacle Starscream is unknowingly creating – the delicate seeker frame covered in energon writhing and gasping and screaming. It is a powerfully arousing image, especially to the bunch of sadists he has personally cultivated and promoted to his chain of command and who, naturally, stand closest to the view.

He smiles. He will do all of which he has promised and more, and at the end of it, Starscream will be nothing more than a broken toy he will mold to his will. He glances at his little not-beloved and his smile turns vicious. He will have his weapon, his beautifully mad puppet, even if it kills him.


Sorry about the wait. Just finally recovered from Easter with my relatives – what a damn nightmare. Lol.

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this latest installment. As you can tell, I had fun with this one. XD I've decided that there will be only 4 parts to this – the next installment will cover the destruction of Crystal City and Vos, Starscream's various tortures, and will end with the arrival of Unicron. I won't be able to update for a little bit though – I've got a research paper to do for college, and as it is 33% of my grade, I'd like to concentrate fully on it …if I can. XD

Sorry for not personally answering any reviews, but again, been busy. (And the fact that my internet apparently doesn't like whatever coding FFnet uses for the review replies, because everything is constantly going wonky when I do try and use it…) I'm really grateful to everyone who has reviewed, and really appreciate the comments left. They make me smile. : )

Hope everyone had a great Easter/Spring Break (for some)/ weekend off, and I'll see you next time, yes?

Review? XD