[Fic] Chaos: Pride 2
Chapter 2
Summary: Sometimes Starscream's pride isn't at all good for him...
Warning: the abuse continues
Everything hurt when he came online and he tried to go straight back into recharge to avoid the pain.
It did not work, and he sighed but unplugged the charging cable without protest. With their almost constant supply shortages, their recharge berths were now allocated only a certain amount of energy, and he had used his quota. His private agreement with Megatron earned his Seekers an extra four percent over anyone else on the base, but it was still minimal and no-one ever thanked him for it. Not that he wanted their thanks, he reminded himself, because then they would know what he was doing, but sometimes he wondered if it were all worth it. That way lay madness, though, so he stopped considering it.
Easing himself out of the alcove carefully so as to avoid scraping his aching wings, he looked cautiously around the small room. His trinemates were both out, probably avoiding him. A good idea, too, because he was always in a foul mood after these sessions; pain, frustration and humiliation had that effect on him. Funny, that.
Examining the patches in a mirror that he had installed just for this purpose, he scowled.
Soundwave was a perfectly competent mechanic, but on Starscream he loved to use amateur patches which would leave scars. Jealousy, Starscream knew, and laughed bitterly. The crazy glitch was so besotted with Megatron that he was desperate even for this kind of touch and yet he would never have it. Megatron knew of the host's infatuation and wasn't interested in the least, particularly since he already had what he wanted and love had nothing to do with it on either side. It had certainly never been that way for Starscream: this was a business transaction, nothing more.
He began peeling the patches away, peering at the damage beneath. It would all heal well enough, even the wing joint. Megatron knew better than to do any real harm to his Air Commander's wings: that mistake had been made only once, and had led to huge losses on the battle field and Megatron himself being put at risk. The memory of how close he had come to losing flight altogether made Starscream shudder, but it had been worth it; these orns, Megatron was more careful. He knew the cost if Starscream was not available for a mission.
Releasing the covers over his spark chamber, he examined his interface port with a clinical optic. A little scorched, but his self-repair was handling that. On the whole, today's session had done remarkably little damage. A shame the timing had been so poor, interrupting the first truly restful time Starscream had enjoyed with his trinemates since before the crash onto this miserable organic planet, but complaining about it would only have endangered them.
The gun-mech was incurably paranoid about Starscream cheating on him. The fact that he could retain that jealousy and still take a Seeker for his pleasure showed how arrogant he was, but Starscream had always indulged him because it got him what he wanted: power. For centuries, any mech who so much as glanced at the Air Commander the wrong way got slagged in the goriest ways imaginable, and that had had a certain kind of appeal, but of course it also had a lasting effect. No-one looked anymore. Even his own trinemates had given up. Occasionally their lack of interest stung, but he never let himself dwell on it because it was better this way. He was not entirely sure he could physically enjoy such a relationship anymore after so many vorns of this abuse, and they knew him too well to be fooled.
Tired of his meandering thoughts he turned away from the mirror sharply, but stumbled as his left knee gave out beneath him. Swearing loudly, he steadied himself against the wall and shuffled awkwardly over to the one chair in the room. There was no way he could go out like this. He needed at least another groon in recharge and a good dose of energon to give his self-repair systems something solid to work with. Neither were currently possible, though, so he dragged the chair clumsily over to the small terminal in the corner.
If he was not able to rest, he should at least get some work done.
Skywarp's silent count reached four hundred and he started to rise, but Thundercracker caught his arm and pulled him down again.
"A little longer."
Skywarp frowned but did not pull away.
"What if he's collapsed on the floor bleeding himself into stasis lock?"
"It's only happened once, and that was a long time ago. Besides, you said he was on his feet."
Waiting was always the hardest part, but it was particularly necessary this time. If Megatron knew that Starscream had been alone with them earlier, or even just suspected it, and then caught them sneaking back to him... the consequences would be both painful and deadly. So they had to stay visible and nonchalant, as though there was nothing going on at all.
Not an easy thing to manage when most of the Decepticons were still out enjoying the pleasant weather and they could not bring themselves to leave the base.
It was a madness he had had all too long to accustom himself to, this pretence that Starscream meant nothing to him. Seekers were always concerned for their trine, whether or not they were interfacing together. They were linked in much the same way as gestalts, and similarly to gestalts that connection gave them greater effectiveness in battle, but that was not the only effect. There was an inevitable sensitivity to each other, one that could not be denied and yet it was also one that he and Thundercracker were constantly forced to pretend did not exist.
"Alright." Thundercracker gave in abruptly as Ravage wandered out of the room, leaving them alone. "Go and slip him that energon. But come straight back."
Skywarp grinned in relief and warped out of the room without wasting a click. It took was simple enough to get to their quarters safely from the rec room, and he took care to position himself within his own recharge alcove on arrival since there was no telling where in the room Starscream would be. Sure enough, Starscream was no longer in recharge but instead was slumped in the chair at their shared workstation.
He toook a click to analyse his trinemate critically and was reassured by what he saw: Starscream was tired and sore but not badly injured. Not curled in a keening ball of agony, not offline and bleeding in a heap. Crouching, he unsubspaced the two cubes he had brought and set them quietly down on the floor. Best not to disturb him now. But before he could straighten again, the wingleader had turned to glare at him.
"What are you doing here?"
"Just bringing you some energon." Skywarp said defensively.
"So now I'm such an invalid I can't be left to retrieve my own ration?" Starscream railed. "Meanwhile my two wingmates are stupidly shorting themselves so they'll drop out of the air on the next raid..."
Skywarp teleported away, and another jump later was settling back in his chair opposite Thundercracker who was setting up another dice game.
"So?"
Skywarp shrugged.
"Just the usual. He's fine."
"Told you."
But Skywarp saw Thundercracker relax at the reassurance, and then the blue jet rose, game abandoned.
"Want to go back out for some sun?"
"Race you to the lift."
Three orns later, Thundercracker perched on the clifftop, hidden by the looming boulders around him. He had been assigned to keep watch for Autobots, but the need for that role was almost over and there had been no sign. That was not all that uncommon for these quick raids, actually. Unlike on the official missions where no watch was ever set and was always needed.
Seeing the anticipated signal, he waited until everyone was in the air before following a couple of lengths behind the last of them. A few of the human ground-based military fired on them as they left but those were minimal annoyances only, barely worth their attention. Ramjet must have taken a shot, because he twisted and banked for a strafing run, but Thundercracker heard Starscream order him back into formation; an order that got obeyed instantly. In spite of the fact that none of the others liked their Air Commander, they were all compliant on these raids: disobedience only led to confiscation and redistribution of their portion of the haul.
These raids were not sanctioned attacks. The energon collected was only a fraction of that taken in one of the full missions, and none of it ever made it into the main supply vault. In fact, as far as anyone could make out it was most likely that Megatron had no idea they occurred at all: they were purely Starscream's work, and the only ploy he had tried since arriving on this planet which had gathered him some small part of the respect he used to hold on Cybertron.
The problem was that Megatron was fixated on replenishing their home planet. That was a goal none of them begrudged in principle, but their supplies were so erratic it sometimes meant orns of starvation between successful missions since nothing was ever held back to tide them over. When Starscream had suggested the first raid, after the fifth miserable orn of half a cube's rations, everyone had expected it to fail but had been desperate enough for some kind of relief that they had tried it. And to everyone's surprise - perhaps Starscream's, as well - it had succeeded.
Everyone involved got a share, including those whose role it was to distract Megatron while the others went out. That was usually left to Soundwave and the Constructicons, without whose complicity the whole scheme would have failed long ago. A couple of times some of the others had tried to splinter off and complete personal raids, but they had always been caught and severely punished. These were the only ones that worked consistently, so when Starscream passed the signal everyone shut up and listened and obeyed.
Picking up speed now that they were well on their way home, Thundercracker caught up to his wingmates. The red and white Seeker was flying as beautifully as always, no sign of discomfort from his injuries of a few orns before. Here he was in his element: in the lead, not arguing with Megatron or being laughed at by the others. Here and now he was respected, a glimpse of the mech he had been at the start of the war. Back then Thundercracker had thought the conflict must end swiftly, after all how could the Decepticons lose with a mech such as Starscream on their side. So naive, he had been.
~Formation!~ Starscream snapped at him, breaking him from his thoughts and he quickly moved back into position.
Yes, Starscream was powerful here and now. Beautiful, as he had always been. But it would not last. Even as they approached the Nemesis he would begin to hide within this shell of being subordinate and untrusted.
All the more reason to enjoy these moments while they lasted.
"Down."
Starscream went readily to his knees, but a rough hand shoved him further until his chin slammed against the floor. Then that same hand caressed his cheek tenderly.
"My brilliant, traitorous Starscream. Did you bring my share?"
It was awkward from this position, with his wings pinning down his arms unless he was willing to extend them and allow Megatron access to the most sensitive panels, but he managed to unsubspace the five cubes and shove them in the warlord's direction.
"Ah good. Yes, very good. And is it good quality, too?"
The same old tiresome games. Sometimes when he delivered Megatron's share, he was permitted to escape without so much as a word of thanks. Other times he was required to submit himself for violation first, but after the very recent session he knew that that would be unlikely this time. Which left these word games that he could never win: it was just a matter of how badly he would lose.
"Of course, Lord Megatron. I would never bring you substandard quality."
"Then you wasted one of my cubes on yourself?"
The question came in a dangerously soft tone.
"Only one, Lord. Just to be sure."
Of course, the one time that he had not done so, Megatron had nearly drowned him, flooding his systems with salt water in vicious punishment for daring to bring him something that might be substandard. It had taken twenty-seven separate surgery sessions with Hook to rid himself of the rust infection that had set in, and he had no intention of ever repeating that experience.
"Are you hungry?"
Another soft question, accompanied by a caress, heralding something nasty to come. Either answer would be wrong, but which would be worse? No way to tell.
"No, Lord."
"I see." Megatron mused. "In that case it will be no hardship for you to fast until I summon you next. And not until you beg me to bring you to overload. Yes, that is good. No more energon until you beg for my touch."
Well aware that his interface port was still damaged from the previous abuse and hating himself for his weakness, he nevertheless tried to avoid the coming famine by offering himself immediately.
"My Lord, I am ready for you now..."
"Not good enough." Megatron grunted, using one foot to shove him flat again. "You're too arrogant, Starscream. And I think I'd like to see you beg properly, not just whine. Now get up and get out of my sight. And Starscream - if I suspect you've broken your fast before you come to me, you will regret it."