A/N: I like to portray Starscream as kind of a less stable Hannibal Lector more than happy to go "silence of the lambs" your ass. I kept trying to flesh out the writing more and more but the style made it difficult. In keeping with the current motif though, I had to research characters, basically, I raided wikipedia and ff. Net.
This was admittedly the most difficult chapter I have ever written. It required me to not only be in Starscreams head but in the head of every character in the chapter... I am particularly fried, this was one hell of a labor of love. In the end, it took a lot rum to keep at it and get it to a semblance of right; the most difficult aspect of the story being living up to expectations.
Over time, my image of Starscream solidified somewhat, my imagination picking it up and running off with it, snickering all the way over the hills.
I see the seekers feet as though booted, the armor shifting aside to reveal articulate taloned bird-like feet; three toed and nimble with great curved claws and a fourth toe at the side much like the infamous killing claw of a velociraptor; admittedly, this is a gross artistic liberty.
I also have come to shift seeker armor to be more bird-like; the plating more articulate and segmented to act like feathers. I see a retractable, hawkish battle helm that covers a very beautiful, human-like head, thick metal plating at the back filigreed with gold and tapered like long fine hair; aristocratic and elegant above all else. I've enjoyed creating some rather artistic variants of him.
Edit: I have found myself to be not only influenced by writer Ceris Malfoy but now also by the works of Abyssal1, his/her theories on Cybertronian physiology are amazing! I definitely recommend reading this authors works and accredit many of my modifications to them as I will incorporating them into my work.
Title: Numb3rs (cause everyone puts a 3 in it.)
Summary: Come closer.
Had he set aside the time to think about it, he was certain that he would have been quite flattered.
It had all started after his meeting with Optimus; a fun little run-around as it was they seemed to be taking him seriously now.
That or he really was as difficult a patient as Hook accused him of being... how droll.
Their meeting had ended in blackness and he had awoken in pain and in chains behind a roiling field of energy that bartered no exit. That medic of theirs had undoubtedly rummaged through his internals; what remained of his wounds had been sealed, his chest no longer rattled disparagingly and what blood was left had long since dried and congealed. He grimaced, a small quirk of charcoal black lips, noting the dull burning ache of the repairs with a small drawling sigh. With a flicker of cherry red his optics came online and tapered onyx shutters lifted as he surveyed his surroundings, curved ebony shutters peeling back along crimson amygdaloid crystal eyes.
They had bound him to a standing repair plinth and locked him away in a guarded cell for safe keeping it seemed... their loss.
It was dark and strangely quiet, the only sound in the room coming from the 2 mechs seated around a low table. Dust flitted across his eyes as they dimmed a deep burgundy, pinpricks in the black with a cadence of orange and flecks of gold, watching ever silently as the 2 passed their cards along the scratched surface of their impromptu table. Hands fettered at the front Starscream's gaze swept the room, hungry, a hawk among the rats.
1 steel repair plinth, 3 rows of chains and 2 guards... how droll
One turned his head to look at him, blue eyes narrowing as the other elbowed him in the chest; this prisoner was not to be spoken to.
This one was dangerous, Optimus said so.
"Which one's the traitor hmmm?" The seekers grin warped from a slight upturn of gunmetal lips into a toothy smile and a haze of hot breath. He lazily bounced a gleeful gaze back and forth between the two mechs at the table like a snake leisurely deciding which little egg in the nest to devour first, after all, mommy isn't here right now.
"Was it- Cliffjumper... your name is Cliffjumper... such an aptly named little boy." He spoke with a sensual roll and an almost familial fondness, the others designation roiling off his tongue like heaving hot oil, like the devil waiting for his favorite signature.
"Ever the dreamer, the little wannabe hero that wants and wants all the way into the armies all too sticky back seats and onto the ground... and off of a cliff." The seekers optics lit up scandelously as the mech turned to lock wide eyes with him, smile growing to consume the high sharp bloodstained ridges of his cheeks.
"Be quiet." Mirage, that was the one who spoke, a faint tenor of anger expertly hidden behind a veil of indifference but not well enough to hide the disdain.
"Ah... he deigns to speak; the emirate boy, hiding in shadows, hiding in too tall towers wide eyed and staring at the ground so far below, so afraid, so pathetic."
"Quiet." Shocked that the seeker could speak Autobot high-court but unwilling to show it, Mirage lay his cards face down on the table and swiveled to look away from him and back to his partner. Disdain turned to the arrogance of a bruised ego and Starscream drank it in, the sound of his claws tapping, ticking against the berth like the hands of a clock.
Ticking and tapping, a brisk click clack melting into the long crawling hiss of metal grinding on metal; a sensual chorus often heard only in the bedroom at late hours. Cliffjumper twitched uneasily at the sound, the twisted cadence mocking as the curve of the seekers lips widened, it made his very mass hot and itchy... itchy like back then.
"How unfortunate that your ivory walls should crumble, god forgive us our trespass for you were not meant to walk with this or that, you were not meant to be cast out little servants shadow."
"I said silence!" Mirage jumped, startled and just like that he was up and standing tall, every inch of him the governors son he was raised to be yet still he could not drown out the scraping and tapping of the seekers claws nor his piercing gaze or the slide of too sharp dentals over full black lips. The decepticon laughed at him, a cutting purr as sharp as it was shrill, a knife at his back in the dark, it made his internals crawl and his plating felt as if it were peeling away; leaving him naked with naught but the beads of condensation sweat dripping to the floor. It was like being propositioned, blatantly and thoroughly, armor gone, stripped to an aching metaskeleton and cracked down to the protform as the whore peals with racous laughter before your naked mass and shell.
"Little lost boy, fend for yourself; how sad, no servants to touch and no tutors to twaddle; daddy's gone but since when did that matter he was never there just like mother! "
He threw himself to the bars of the cell, angry and spitting, mass enflamed as the seeker seemed to boil. "SHUT UP!"
"Your pay -per-view family is dead and dust, dark eyes and empty rusted frames hauling you down, begging you suffer as they do- the little decepticon orphan-"
"SUHT UP!"
It had taken 2 minutes for him to bait the little noblemech into coming close enough to choke him with the chains fettering his wrists and 45 seconds for the other to wrest the mech from him, calling out for help. The red lines of cutting metal nowhere near the guilotine's blade or the hangman's noose that they could have been- should have been.
Starscream would just have to settle for scars and screams.
How boring.
So now they had bound him to his vertical medical cot with cuffs and bars, the thick metal restraints biting into his wrists, ankles and torso, wings flat at the back. The new guard assigned to him was double the last and along its center sat a tantalizing prize. The idea made him laugh, a chorus of shrill giggles, they couldn't possibly be that stupid, this was too easy!
1 steel repair plinth, 4 cuffs, 5 bars and 4 guards... how stupid.
"What you laughing at." It wasn't a question so much as a slowly worded statement, a challenging thrum of displeasure.
This was going to be fun.
"Virgin" He threw the word like a finely tuned knife and from the look of hitched shoulders and the angry huff of air through his huge body, it had hit home; square in the groin too.
"Me Grimlock not-"
"Grimlock, don't talk to him." Hound jabbed his elbow into the others side nervously as the seekers smile widened behind them and the room plunged back into silence.
Not a minute later, seemingly out of nowhere. "Virgin."
Grimlock's eyes widened for a second and then narrowed dangerously, a growl rumbling in his chest that made his huge frame shake with rising temper as the other guards shuffled nervously.
"Poor big mech, all that strength and armor and title; what could the little virgin possibly be doing wrong?" He could practically feel the mech twitch, his shoulders hiked high, big hands clenching and unclenching. Starscream leaned into his restraints, bowing them as he arched into the sizzling caress of the bars of his cage. His whole frame a languid liquid slur as he purred low and deep the field crackling a twinge of hot pink with the heady vibrations.
The sensual cadence sent the dinobot's energy field into disarray, ebb and flow a roller-coaster eddy of irritation and unwanted arousal as the hum of power rattled through the bars and walls and down his shoulders into the very center of his bulk, his core temperature spiking.
The seekers lascivious toothy grin grew as if to split his fine face in half, the smile of a fox in a den of mice.
It was as if the larger mech could feel the others hot breath on the very nape of his neck, fingers at his hips, a predator stalking in the shadows behind it's prey, puffs of foul fog scorching up his spinal struts with drops of cold condensation snaking down his wires and cables, a fever heat sweat and shudder. His intakes caught in his chest, gritting his teeth as the purr became a thick hum framed with too-bright eyes, crimson blood spots behind a veil of cell bars and purple black. He turned only slightly, a child opening the closet door into the dark, watching from the corner of one cerulean eye as the seeker licked his lips and ran his slick silver tongue over too pointed teeth that seemed almost serrated. It was the seekers energy field he realized, the sheer heady power of the other mech throbbing through the very bars of the cell an awesome clawing force plucking his wiring here and there like actual physical hands on him, caressing his own considerable mass into a roiling red. His spark throbbed heavy, his fingers itched and body set to twitching.
A tremor wavered its way up the large mechs frame, mercilessly squelched by an inexperienced body unwilling to venture into shame but crawling beneath his plating like live-wires nonetheless, hissing and biting at his insides. A spasm of eons of unrequited lust curled up along his legs, his stoicism abruptly shattered by a violent shuddering in his knees that sent pins and needles all the way up to his abdomen, a bolt of electricity straight up his back on the cusp of tumult and he shivered.
The hum up his struts morphed into a cacophany of hiccuping cackles and peals of wet luxurious laughter echoing through the brig and stinging the senses. Grimlock's energy field spiked and crackled against the invasive other as without warning the T-rex swung around with an enraged roar, pinning the laughing seeker through the bars against the berth and towering over the moonlight white form beneath him. The three behind him jolted with shock and lunged forward to try and pry the giant mech off of him, cursing and shouting as not even their collective bulk was able to shift him as they scrabbled. He leaned in close, high above the bound and laughing seeker, clawed hands digging into the cell wall behind them, haunching over until face to face. He roared in the others faceplates, all teeth and spit and aching fangs.
It had taken only 3 minutes and 34 seconds for him to bait the large and startlingly young mech into coming close enough to bite out the giants throat and maneuver the other into shooting his left leg free enough to kick him across 3 halls and through 2 bolted doors before they could call for help and subdue him... annoying.
The blood-spray of hot energon and the look on the fools face as he grasped his gushing, spurting wound with his hands had been rather exquisite though.
The bite torn too deep, the wires and cables yanked out, mass torn, the T-rex wrenched back by the others to fall on the heap clutching a gapping whole that bled out alarmingly fast, his HUD a smear of warnings and his own energon, not daring to let go of his neck for fear it may very well snap in half. His gargled roar petering into a keening choked wail of terror as alarms sounded on both his HUD and through the cell, grasping and gasping, drowning on dry land as the others writhed to escape his bleeding bulk.
Staring into the mad seekers eyes with a front-row seat to his own internals hanging and oozing, dripping from smiling scissor clamp jaws, a grinning bear trap in the leaves, still laughing, still purring long loud and deep as the seeker sucked them dry of energon and the red massblood that held them together.
That...and the look on their faces when the little mechs came running across their little scene had been hilarious.
This time it seemed they were going to make things at least a little more fun for him; they'd cuffed and barred him to the cot with a side of stasis cuffs, chains and a bit to keep him quiet and preventing him from moving his head; strapped to the berth as he was...cute.
1 steel repair plinth, 4 stasis cuff fetters, 3 rows of chains, 5 bars, 5 guards and 1 mask and bit... silly.
He was almost amused as he dipped into a quick recharge, drugs still running their course through his veins, vision bobbing in and out with a white lace of static. He shifted his gaze drunkenly along the turned over table set, crushed by a certain irate tyrannosaur's massive weight; roving his eyes along the rows of clock-work toys and licking at the blood on his charcoal black lips with a giggle.
There was Huffer the sad little wanton to the left of his cell and the sweetly little firebug Hotshot at his side. He surveyed them lazily, watching them twitch, sparks on warm coals as he sucked on his cut lip and jiggled the bit in his mouth between sharp dentals. This would almost be as fun as dissecting Mudflap or Inferno but any commander would have to be an errant fool to put such fervent children in his care.
Lightfoot at the right, shuffling on his peds, water ever cradled by so much fire, the chill sulfur pools twisting at the volcanoes base waiting to boil. Further to the right at the nervous mechs arm stood Pointblank; a weary old peacemaker of few virtues and even fewer words. He supposed an audience of mute lunatics would do just fine, his prize was in the doorway, all calm collected duty leashed at the neck with fine silken red ribbon and little brass bells.
A gift from the Prime himself.
At the lead of the group was none other than the autobot SIC himself, an honor truly but stupid really... this was going to be a laugh and a half.
Logic, simple logic, logic like Shockwave, unto a child of something that by all means did not run on logic. He could see it in the others blue eyed crystal gaze, calculating without understanding; he wouldn't even need to speak to break this mech.
The seeker let out a long drawling sigh through his vents, lazily setting his optics at their backs, studying every detail for where best to sheath a knife and claw, mapping out each of their internals and biographies and updating his files.
Lightfoot still carried his left ped as if it were damaged; the incident at the battle of pteras was 3 years 7 months 2 weeks 4 days and 4 hours and 34 minutes to the current date... and 15- 16 seconds. His ped had been amputated rather prettily by a hidden mine; really though if it took this long to get over a little blown limb what the frag was he doing in a war? If only he'd gotten the silly mech into an interrogation chamber, he'd show the boy a blast hehehehehe.
Needle-stick gaze pin-pricking up the logic child's spinal struts and crawling beneath his plating, seeping into every crevice, licking shocks of unreality, worms nipping into the flesh. Sensations that aren't there, pointless unease and a nervousness you can't explain, scenario after scenario running through your processors faster and faster. The devil at your back but the devil isn't real, this isn't right-
Prowl turned cautiously to lock stern optics with the seeker if only for a second, unreal red onto ocean blue into the purple black bruise of a rotting limb; was this mech some kind of techno-path?
-Mother isn't here to tell you what's wrong, no one to make the wrong go away; it burns doesn't it? A bile in your chest like the fire in your eyes; cry it away-
A crooked smile behind a mask and bit, a madman's chortle smothered behind soft ebony lips still oozing blood, a murder weapon as sharp as his tongue, wrapped in silk.
Eyes boring into the back of his head, he could feel it but that was silly because eyes don't touch, they don't caress so softly, not like a mad lovers hands along his frame to make him shiver ever so.
-It feels like your brains are being pulled out through your nose, you can't focus, a tingling in your limbs and a snaking buzz up your spinal struts kissing along each sensor; a touch, a sigh, a lovers breath.-
How much fun these fellows were proving to be, Starscream could spend whole hours staring them into submission; he must have gone through at least 4 more guards by now!
They even whispered of blindfolds; the idea made him giddy with a laughter that bubbled up like froth on his lips, guttered by the bit in his mouth and glittering in not-all-there hellfire eyes.
A look, a touch, a purr; all in the eyes as they met across the room again, enticing, wanting and waiting.
-I can show you-
Hours of staring, never moving, crawling up his back and neck and under his derma, an intruder into his very brain laced hot with heady static. He ran a systems check, everything coming back normal, no glitches, no intrusions. He briefly glared into the other's bloodied face, onyx black caked in dried energon along thin lips and across the eyes like a spattering brush stroke, mocking.
Those red eyes needled and burrowed into his plating as he turned away again, an opulent gaze that demanded his tryst, eyes that seemed to be getting larger or was he getting closer, he couldn't tell.
-but that isn't logical... is it?-
Come closer come closer they seemed as if to whisper, he could almost hear it in the halls a poisonous kiss echoing along his audials but that wasn't logical, eyes don't touch and they definitely don't speak... but then who's talking. He shifted, scanning the room and halls for intruders; no one there as he stood with his fellows, just they themselves and the dank walls closing in on them. He blinked, feeling as though being pulled inexorably backward, as if by looking away he gave the opportunity for the chained other to come that much closer, an itch between his shoulder blades as he suddenly felt a palm on his side.
-"You good Prowler?"- Jazz, he could always count on Jazz to pull him back into rhythm; thank god for Jazz. Recovering from his start of surprise with a deep intake, unaware he'd been holding his breath to begin with Prowl turned to assuage his friends worry, feeling an old cold sweat break in the motion and aching joints loosen.
Only Jazz wasn't there... he wasn't even on the days duty roster, how had he forgotten that?
-nought but the laughing in the dark, the cheshire cat, the fleeting riddle of the wrong.-
The hallucination, for that's what it had to be, was worrisome at best; perhaps it was the trick of a mind trying very hard not to be overwhelmed with suffocating silence between the lilting claws of hands around his neck that weren't really there.
However, the most catching terror was in the realization that with every glance he'd spared that freak behind him he had unconsciously moved one step closer to it; all of them had and now he was face to face with it. The seeker grinned maniacally around the bit in his mouth, twisting mask and face into a truly horrifying visage, still strapped flush against the repair plinth, still staring as if he knew just who and what had made him turn to the madmech so happily.
-how cute...-
In that moment he feared for Jazz, his lines running cold as he could swear he could hear the murder in the seekers bloody eyes. Staring and staring, portholes to hell itself tacked onto the body of a mech; eyes that were a world and a being unto their own, grasping, clawing, pulling his brain out through his nasal plating and into the unforgiving red. Eyes like death, eyes like the devil, Unicron himself looking through the vermilion windows and pulling.
He couldn't look away, they wouldn't let him... and for some reason... it made sense.
And that was when the world glitched and crashed.
It took 168 minutes and 22 seconds for his dear mech to crack and break the 6 foot distance rule, into the spiders web, pretty little brass bells broken and red silken ribbons undone.
168 minutes and 22 seconds to lure a playmate with its own for the lock-pick talons of his hands and feet and to dig them merrily into the mechs spark chamber.
Now it was night, it was calm and it was quiet and they were kind enough to give him the whole brig to himself... how sweet. There was nothing to be heard and nothing to be seen but oh so much to be done.
He sighed behind his custom made mask and bit, wriggling his tongue against the roof of his mouth idly, searching for a little splinter. There, at the top of his palate the pin came loose and with a delicate flick of his serpentine glossa he had it between his teeth and jammed into the lock at his collar.
1 steel repair plinth, 4 stasis cuff fetters, 3 rows of chains, 5 bars, 5 straps, 1 bit, 1 mask, 10 guards in the hall and a shock collar... well, if he kept Megatron waiting any longer the bastard would just get angrier...how droll.
By morning all that was left to signify his having been there at all were the now empty restraints that had housed him and an eerily looping security tape. No one had seen him leave the brig, no one had heard a sound, the containment field stood intact, mocking them.
No one slept that night, their only company the creaking in the metal walls of dark corridors and the groaning hiss of rusted hinges, their own home a yawning blackness in the quiet.
The laughing in the dark.