A/N: This was written for a drabble challenge I'm doing on LiveJournal. This prompt was "joy".

It had been a long time, such a long time, stretching out into an endless, swirling oblivion when in reality it had been merely a few days.

The sight, now… the paint peeling from shuddering armor, the optics dim and flickering with something that had once been hope and pride, the legs twisted beneath bodies heavier than his own… The sight was something tragic, something beautiful, something worth everything he'd worked for.

Worth it.

"How does it feel now, Autobot?" Voice high and mocking like it had always been, and he couldn't help it, could he? They say the killer always visits the scene of the crime. Though in this case, he wasn't the killer. No, Sunstreaker had done that all by himself.

And it felt… surprisingly, achingly good to see him so broken. The swarm lay in smoldering heaps around him, along with pieces of what had been the bridge, but it was all worth it. Just to see the look in those dimming optics as they stared, horrified, into his own.

Sunstreaker arched. The Autobot symbol plastered onto his chest was peeling away and he smoked along with those he had once called his enemy. Funny, now, that he should perish along with them.

"I… It…" Couldn't even speak, the pathetic fool. Pathetic and whimpering and desperate for something to hold onto, and at the same time, something to throw away. Starscream had given him as much, or at least he liked to think so. Given him a shred of hope with the promise of Earth creatures' destruction. Taken every shred of dignity the vainglorious field warrior had.

"What was that?" he said, leaning over at the hip, smirk spreading across his face. Primus, it felt good. "I didn't quite catch that, traitor." Pressed the heel of his foot into Sunstreaker's chest and pushed down sharply until he could hear the sensitive armor crack in two. Until he could hear the pained yelp that followed.

Silence. (So good, felt so good, seeing someone else break for once, being the Megatron now.) Then, soft and pained, "Don't… please, don't…"

"Don't what?" The smirk widened and he stepped again, but this time there was no cry that followed the crunch of wires and circuits. Sunstreaker, beneath him, was a wreck of blackened gold and those optics held all the shame and pain of someone (literally and metaphorically) stepped on, used, betrayed.

How often had he felt that way, in the past? All the times Megatron had him slammed against walls, all the times the position of leader was so within his grasp only to have it wrenched away again? Only to have Megatron step on him like this? Too many to count.

And being dominant, being cruel… It felt… so slagging good. This was power. Looking down into broken, cracked optics and seeing the fear of death in them, the fear of what was to come by his hand. He leaned over further to get a closer look.

Having Sunstreaker beneath him like this, begging not to die, pleading with him to spare him, to show mercy, to not shoot, don't shoot, don't kill me… This was the joy he hadn't felt in far too long.

"Don't… what, Autobot traitor?"

Sunstreaker shivered, once, reaching up to grip his foot with a dark, cracked hand. "Please…" His vocal chords were shot, leaving his voice cracked and staticky and distant. Starscream had to struggle to hear it. "Please… don't…"

Here it comes. His favorite part: the plea for mercy. Starscream grinned and urged it on, nearly felt himself nodding, trying so hard to get a grip on his excitement…

Say it. Submit to me.

"Don't…"

…Say it…

"Don't… tell Sideswipe."

There was a long pause. The wreckage around them echoed with the words, those last dying words of a broken loyalty. Starscream felt rage and disappointment and frustration well up inside of him, and he took his gun. Sunstreaker's optics flickered dangerously back and forth, on and off, so ready…

So fracking ready…

"Pathetic Autobot."

With a single pull of a trigger, he blasted open Sunstreaker's face. A new kind of joy flooded his sensors; the joy of seeing those wires just open to him, spilling that bright Energon over the charred metal, and he laughed, loudly and shrilly, and it echoed off of the ruins, off of the wreckage and the bodies and this stupid, pathetic fool that lay before him, this loyal idiot who had died on neither side.

His laughter died down into silence again, and he retracted his cannon. There was no use now. He looked down at the bleeding, broken warrior before him… almost a symbol of all that they'd been through, Decepticon and Autobot alike.

One day he would rule, and all of the Autobots would suffer like this one had. He would toy with them, manipulate their fears to suit his needs, and then he would toss them like Megatron had tossed him so many times before.

For now, he would fulfill his end of their bargain. That voice in his mind, he set off through the piles of scrap and ruins that had one been the bridge and Megatron's great weapon, the Swarm, knowing that the humans would be far easier manipulated than Autobot warriors.

Knowing without a doubt what was to come for him next.

All hail the mighty Starscream.