Shockwave later placed Starscream onto an actual berth and hadn't left him to fester atop the meeting-room table like a sparkless savage, but Storm's feelings still remained remarkedly mixed on the matter.
He didn't love his mother, but he didn't want to see Starscream die from a brutal beat down either; especially by the bot whom Storm considered to be his surrogate-father.
Of course, he didn't love Shockwave either.
And now that he thought about it, he really didn't have a person or thing that he did love.
He didn't know what is was - the feeling.
He loved his brother, Jetfire.
Logically, he would. It made sense.
And all of his other siblings too, he loved them.
Well...
Most of them...
Some of them...
But what was the feeling?
Was it just not wanting to see a bot die?
Was it just caring if someone was in pain?
Storm hadn't once left Starscream's side, when Shockwave had dropped him limply onto the berth.
"Starscream?" he whispered, when he noticed slight movement.
"Storm, that you sweetspark?" Starscream onlined his optics, but the lights guttered out as soon as he tried. "My optics, aren't working quite right..."
"Yeah, don't worry about it. Deadend should be here any joor with supplies from Vos, and he'll fix you up, right as rain."
"Right as rain, huh? Pfft, you and your silly-sparked human expressions. I won't bother to understand it."
Storm rolled his eyes in response, but then he remembered that Starscream couldn't see his glowering frown.
"Oh, and you say Deadend will be the one fixing me up? That's new. Did Shockwave get a cold servo?" Starscream sarcastically asked.
"Something like that. He was going to, but then Megatron summoned him to the Nemesis."
"Ugh, yuck, please don't mention that bucketheaded imbecile! Its the last thing my mind's eye ought to think about when my helm is caved in like a tin can."
"Yeah, it doesn't look good. You'll have to get that fixed before you go back on the Nemesis, else it'll look suspicious."
"Suspicious how? I'll just tell the truth for once, that Shockwave beat me up!"
Storm laughed, and Starscream turned away, hunched over as he rubbered the dented crater atop his helm. He had a strangled vacant expression, one dissociating from his current situation.
"You know, I don't think I've ever heard you laugh before?" Starscream causally said. He looked across the room, as if remembering different times.
"Well..." Storm paused, not sure what to make of such a strange observation. "I've never had much reason to. I don't plot and scheme like you do Starscream." He truthfully said.
"And being a schemer is a requirement to laugh? As if!"
"Literally, every time you laugh its in the middle of a recharge cycle! I always wake up from you laughing as you piece together some contrived plan!"
Starscream scoffed. He hadn't woken up Storm since he'd landed on the planet Earth and joined the Autobots - he was being dramatic.
Still, Storm was upset, his tone angry as he stood next to the berth. Starscream hadn't realized his "laughter" bothered Jetstorm of all things - it was a little absurd. His own child hated his laughter. He wondered if any of the others felt the same way...Starscream liked laughing...but if no one else liked it...
"Alright, I admit it. I find much joy in scheming. Perhaps you should join me in making my next set of plans. Maybe you'll laugh too; we share the same coding for that I'm sure."
Storm looked angry. His servos had become fists at his sides, but Starscream looked blissfully unware atop the berth. Storm wanted nothing to do with Starscream, but he couldn't find the words to say it outright. Starscream smiled nervously in his direction, with dull optics.
"Wait, don't leave." Starscream said lamely, grasping thin air when he realized Storm left his side.
He heard Storm stomp out of the room, and he didn't know what to make of the sudden feeling of loss. He wanted to say anything to get Storm to stay, but he didn't know his child like the others. He hadn't earned the right.
He hadn't gotten to know Storm in comparison to his other sparklings and Jetfire, but he hadn't realized the damage done to their relationship until that very moment.
Suddenly, he had a feeling that he wouldn't be laughing for a while.
"Alright, that should be the last of it." Deadend was strangely cheerful that day. Typically he was a melancholic mess as he fulfilled his work errands, but there was something about holding a crate full of spark-chambers ready-for-consumption, that put him in a good mood...
Perhaps, he'd help himself to one...
It wouldn't be missed.
The metal crate lid lifted easily enough from a prying servo. A thing he'd never get used to were his claws, which he couldn't retract back into his fingertips like the sparkling sparkeaters could.
The sparklings could walk around looking cute and harmless, despite being undead-abominations.
Unlike himself.
Deadend looked undead twenty-four seven.
He was slightly envious of that fact.
He wanted to look normal and unassuming again.
But he'd gotten used to the fearful glances other bots brazenly sent his way, as if he was some exotic animal that had gotten loose.
That's what Deadend told himself anyway.
He'd asked Shockwave for an explanation once as to why he couldn't retract his claws into fingertips, but he had simply been dismissed with the wave of an impatient servo; Shockwave had implied he was stupid. "Figure it out yourself." He'd rudely said.
Deadend was still sour over the entire matter. Starscream hadn't figured it out either - how to retract his claws back into unassuming fingers, so it wasn't like asking Shockwave for help was uncalled for...
He could only conclude Shockwave didn't like him...and the feeling was mutual. That guy was a freak even amongst sparkeaters.
Deadend was a sparkeater, but he still remembered how it felt to be alive and normal.
Shockwave didn't.
And he grasped those precious happy memories so tightly, so fiercely that he'd vowed to never let them go!
Even the six million year old sparklings, permanently stuck in their growth stages from the consequences of a sparkeater's curse, had never lost their vigor for life; despite having lived so little in the first place.
As he gripped a spark-chamber, he was reminded why sparkeaters had claws. He pried open the spark-chamber, revealing a laser-core vibrating with a trembling spark underneath the shell. He grasped the core with his clawtips, avoiding a defensive-electrifying-shock that would've jolted his systems if he'd grasped it within the palm of his servo.
To a sparkeater, a laser-core was an entire meal that could sustain a bot for months, without the need for a single drop of energon if he kept movement to a minimum; but ideally, he'd be eating one everyday.
Sparks were just that tasty.
This particular laser-core was a delicious lime-green, and Deadend sunk his fangs into the energizing center, stripping the metal of all life within seconds. It had a sweet-bitter copper flavor, with a zesty zinc sauce.
'At least I can retract my fangs.' He sarcastically thought. 'I can't walk around looking too hideous.'
"Deadend! Is that your ration, or are you stealing from the shipment again!?" Starscream had rounded a corner, looking as Starscream as ever.
"Guilty as charged." Deadend relaxed comfortably atop the various containers he'd brought in, looking mighty pleased with himself.
Starscream grumbled but he waved a servo away as if to say, "Forget about it."
"If only all bots were as honest as you, Deadend. Perhaps my life wouldn't be such a mess all the time." He sarcastically said.
Deadend rolled his optics, still sucking the laser-core dry in case Starscream decided he should share. Each time they saw each other, Starscream made him out to be a shoulder to cry on. Deadend didn't really mind, as when he had been apart of the Stunticons, his brothers had also ranted and raved their feelings away - Starscream was a twisted sense of home.
"Hey, how's Knockout doing since Breakdown died?" Breakdown had been his brother, a fellow Stunticon. "I heard you guys ended up cutting into his body after some organic-monkey hijacked it?"
"Ah yes," Starscream clasped a hand to his still-dented helm. "Such a delight that was. Knockout actually took the entire situation oddly well. He was bloodthirsty and out for revenge! He peeled the parasitic organic from Breakdown's spark-chamber and broke every little bone in its squealing body, before crushing it into a red pulp. I've never seen such a crazy look in his optics before as he was cutting it up; I swore for a moment that he was a sparkeater!"
Deadend chucked the now empty laser-core away, and he gave Starscream a dour look. "Knockout, a sparkeater? Unlikely, unless you bit him...and, you didn't right? Remember, Breakdown made me promise to look after him. I take that seriously."
"Please, don't accuse me of such dumb-aft-antics. I already have Megatron to accuse me of such nonsense."
"Also, Knockout is one of the nicest bots I know - a little naïve even. It was that innocence that made Breakdown make Knockout into his Conjex Endura in the first place. I can't see him just snapping."
"Well alright, maybe he cried after the event for all I know. But him and I keep things strictly professional. I don't know what he gets up to in his free time."
Deadend crossed his arms. "A shame. I hope to convince him to leave the Decepticons before it kills him. Same goes for you, also." Starscream snorted, "Oh how gentlemech of you Deadend. Is that why your here with this shipment? Are you going to stay for once?"
"Yeah, unfortunately. I can't stand one more recharge cycle stuck on Vox. That place is so cramped now that tourists are daring to run around."
"Is it really that popular, Seaspray's Radio Show?"
"Don't they send you pictures? You could reason a guess. It's not the only attraction on Vox."
"Yes, well, I don't look at every single one...it's hard for me to believe that none of the tourists go missing."
"Nah, nothing like that, not before I left anyway. The Voxians take maintaining their newfound freedom seriously. And Winglord Sunstorm threatened to blow up half of Vox if any visitors left as sparkeaters. Seriously, some of the guests we get are freaks begging us to bite them and crazy scrap like that. It makes it a lot easier not to do it."
Starscream made a distressed grumble. "I almost wish you didn't tell me all that. At least then I could exist blissfully unaware before it turned into a problem I'd have to deal with."
"Yah, nah. Starscream your life is cursed to be a mess, deal with it." Deadend had meant to speak in a playful manner, but his voice was so monotone that Starscream was hard pressed to put up any pleasant delusions, like imagining Deadend actually liked to hear him speak...
"Yes, I suppose I will." Despite the lack of comradery or any real sort of warmth between the two, Starscream still treasured his conversations with Deadend. Gingerly he stepped closer, sensing his way around the shipments without the use of his optics.
An awkward silence manifested into the room, as Starscream sat onto a container of spark-chambers next to Deadend and said not a word more.
"So...are the Voxians...are YOU...still maintaining your mining operations near the neutral colonies?" Starscream eventually broke the silence.
"Yep." Deadend said plainly with a grimace. His servos lightly twitched against his lap, and he wished he was holding some high-grade.
It wasn't a pleasant conversation.
"The spark-chambers you're sitting on all came from there."
Starscream said not a word.
"But we still have our allies. Remember we are buddy-buddy with a few of the colonies. We aren't sucking everyone dry out there, just the bandit-types."
"Pfft, 'just the bandit-types,' easily translates into anyone slightly rebelling against your crackpot operation!" Starscream stood up onto a crate, treating it as a soapbox for an infamous sudo-speech. "Next time I go out there, I don't want to find out you've been slaughtering all the remaining holdouts. We Cybertronians are almost extinct for slag's sake! We aren't supposed to kill neutrals like the Decepticons!"
Deadend stayed quiet, not expecting such coherent empathy from a jackaft like Starscream. ''You hear me?! If I come back to a pile of bodies I'll rip your head off Deadend!" Threats flowed easily from Starscream like his overused insults, ever since he became a Decepticon, but from where Deadend came from, Velocitron, a semi-peaceful planet of neutrals, throwing out threats was never to be taken lightly.
He felt compelled to rough Starscream up, or at least to push him from his seat to "teach him some manners," but it was at that moment Deadend noticed Starscream's sorry looking state. His head was dented in like a tin can.
"Geezus, did Megatron use you to mop the Nemesis again? You look like fresh slag I stepped on. Your helmet is basically a hammered nail. Your audials are twitchy like antennas, which makes you look like an insecticon by the way."
"Oh yes Deadend, you always shower me with compliments, but please, I'm in enough pain already." Starscream waved a servo. "Don't try to change the subject." He snapped. Deadend said nothing, and forced Starscream to uncomfortably stew in his own words. "Well, come on, don't you see my point? I'm...I'm not talking crazy here."
Deadend sat quietly some more, before sighing, looking over Starscream's sorry state. "You're right Starscream. I don't like the 'mining operation' either, but it's all we have until we can start mass breeding livestock like the extinct Iacon sheep."
"That's it? You don't even have the sheep project up and running yet?!"
Deadend steepled his claws together, looking down at the ground, his face betrayed no expression. "Well, the colonies we are allied with sometimes pay us in part-ridges from their coops, but that all goes back to Vox for the tourists and the unbitten-brothers."
"What about the kremzeek farm Shockwave left behind?"
"Oh yah, that's still up and running!" Deadend's mood improved somewhat. That was one thing he was proud to report.
"Then make more faster! I'm sending you my energon rations aren't I? Megatron almost scrapped me when he found one of my mines!"
"Duly noted." Said Deadend. "But, wait until you get back and try kremzeek syrup on mica-tincakes with milk of magnesium. It'll put your fears of starvation aside."
Starscream fixed him with a weird expression, "I had forgotten real food like that existed..." He muttered, and then said no more. He looked humiliated, as he glanced anywhere but at Deadend with vacant optics.
Deadend felt bad then. Starscream was stuck fighting a war subsisting entirely on low-grade energon and greasy-flavorless Vehicons sparks. "No wonder you are such a backstabbing afthole." Deadend hadn't meant to voice a meanspirited thought out loud, and Starscream's dangerous expression made him quickly make a correction. "W-wait! What I meant is, we need to get some real food into you. Maybe then you'll come to your senses and stop being a Decepticon."
"You think it's so simple?" Starscream hummed. "Give me some real food and I'll stop being such a blasted shellcase?" It almost sounded like he was taking Deadend seriously.
"..."
"Deadend? You there?"
"Anyway, moving on..." Deadend clasped his servos together, sounding uncomfortable.
He began to move shipments again, mostly laboratory supplies donated by sympathetic New Vos citizens. No doubt the contents would mainly go to Shockwave's uses. "But seriously, Starscream, how the slag did you control those lunatics on Vox? Literally, as soon as you left, they all scattered to do whatever insane project they wanted!"
Starscream sighed. "Well, I can't exactly do anything until I get back on Vox. You're still keeping tabs of names and their corresponding crimes?"
"Yep."
"Excellent. Keep doing that. Anyone die recently?"
"Err, Airwave got caught cannibalizing Autobots and Decepticons on Cybertron, so we lost that source."
"What!?" Starscream stumbled forward in surprise, almost crashing his face into a shipment before his claws stretched outward. "Did I hear correctly? You said Airwave." Deadend nodded, though Starscream couldn't see it, but he'd made an educated guess. "But Airwave grew into his adult-frame. He's not a sparkeater!"
"Yah, but he still was a cannibal." Deadened shrugged. "Lots of the unbitten-brothers are cannibals now; something about cultivating comradery amongst their sparkeaters brethren."
"I'm think I'm going to be sick." Starscream held the sides of his helm, rubbing profusely as if banishing horrendous imagery.
"Why? We're literally cannibals."
"I welcomed the unbitten-brothers onto Vox because I thought they'd become a positive influence for their smaller sparkeater brothers! They grew up to be normal! I thought maybe, just maybe the sparklings would become civilized enough to convince Sunstorm to allow them onto New Vos - to give them some sort of growth and future - instead everyone is going backwards!"
That's not going to happen now.
All his sparklings, even the adult-framed unbitten...
Had been corrupted.
Just without him being there.
Starscream smashed his helm into the side of a crate, the noise rang throughout the underground hanger.
"What are you doing!?" Deadend shouted and Starscream screeched back, "Yes, what am I doing!? Obviously, they can't be trusted to care for themselves on Vox, adult-frames be damned!" His expression grew darker, more dangerous - more sparkeater-ish.
"This is your fault! I left YOU to run the place!" Starscream charged in Deadend's direction flashing his claws dangerously, but tripped over his twitching talons, blind as ever. His chin smacked sickly against a container lid, leaking blue energon with smoldering black flecks. His old welds against his splintered chin had reopened and he could only lay in his own blood, nurturing his self-pity.
Deadend made a distressed sound, simply staring down at Starscream, his servos hung limply at his sides.
"Okay." He said plainly. "Give me a sec and I'll drag you to medbay."
"Oh, how generous. It's not like I'm in complete agony or something!" Starscream hissed, his claws clasped his dented helm uselessly. 'Help me.' He tried to say more, out loud, but his denta had pressed too firmly together, the pain unbearable, immovable.
"I just need to restack the crates you ran over." Deadend sighed, bent over and moved slowly, "We can't have any of the spark-chambers exploding on us, after all."
Starscream was inclined to agree, even when crippled, dying to a high degree.
'Help me.' He repeated, to himself.