Fic: G1 AU - Yesterday's Ashes - Part 4

[yami_samuraiflo]

Title: Yesterday's Ashes
Rating: M
Universe: G1 AU
Pairings: Starscream/Perceptor, past Skyfire/Starscream and past Skyfire/Perceptor; implied others
Warnings: Slash, sticky, rape, mpreg, slavery, death, torture, trauma, miscarriages, sparklings, dystopia
Word Count: 13 592

“Long time no see, Starscream.”

Primus, he had missed Thundercracker’s voice. True, it was a bit garbled over the comm. system, but it had been far too long since he had last heard it. On the screen, the blue Seeker’s face was solemn.

“Hello there, Thundercracker. Called to gloat?” Starscream asked almost pleasantly. But his face was twisted in a painful grimace, and Thundercracker could hear the sad note in his voice even through the comm., so he simply shook his head. Trust Starscream to try and be a diva, even when he obviously needed comfort.

“I heard about Sunglitter. I’m sorry,” the blue Seeker said softly.

Starscream tilted his head. “Already heard? News travels fast. You knew her name? Even though you never met her?” It was... He didn’t know. But some part of him was glad Thundercracker, despite never, ever seeing her, knew what she had been named. Had he known what she had liked, too? How had he known anything about her, anyway?

Thundercracker sighed. “Starscream, you’re still Megatron’s Second and a highly respected General. All of Cybertron knows the name of your offspring. And don’t think that, because you basically banished me from your presence, I didn’t keep an optic on you and ‘Warp. Though, yes, I was informed faster than most. Skywarp was diligent in… informing me of her passing. I called as soon as I learned.”

“Of course you did.”

There was a silence.

“So… how are you feeling?” Thundercracker asked him awkwardly.

Starscream had a humorless laugh. “How do you think I feel? My daughter’s dead. Assassinated. Her Carrier hardly cares. But I think you had gathered that already? You always knew something like this would happen, didn’t you?” he asked, looking at Thundercracker’s image with pain in his optics.

“No,” the blue Seeker said quietly. “I did not. I suspected some kind of laser-guided karma would strike us someday for some of the things that we did, but I never suspected that it would come down to… this.”

“Our own damn fault, eh?” Starscream chuckled softly. “You know, I’ve a hard time understanding them. The Autobots. Were we really that cruel? I remember the slums, before the war… bad things happened there daily, still people survived, and thrived. Or at least, they tried to. They weren’t slaves in name, but frag it to the Pit if they weren’t in mind.”

The blue Seeker nodded at him. “I remember, yes. Slums people were hard folk, wanting something more, wanting out. It’s no surprise them all went to the Decepticons. But people born outside of it didn’t have the mindset to adapt to the same… unfortunate circumstances. Were we cruel? Oh Pit, yes!” he raged, then schooled his features into a more peaceful expression. “Of course, you were almost constantly overcharged during the first few orns following Megatron’s final victory, so you never took the time to come down in the streets and see… None of you in the high command did. Megatron was too busy basking in his victory and ‘facing the Prime, Shockwave never cared much for emotional trauma and Soundwave was too busy trying to hold down the fort, so to speak, to really take notice of the worst abuses.” Thundercracker sighed. “I was sober, not drunk on victory and high grade. One against too many to count. I saw, and had to hold my glossa when I realized nobody cared about what we were doing to our fellow Cybertronians. Worst, most of us were delighted, seeing what was done as justice or justified retribution. On mechs who, more often than not, had no idea of their living conditions and treatment before the war had been so bad. Oh, the irony, Star! Can’t say our Revolution’s end being any better than the corrupt system we had before,” he smiled bitterly.

Starscream didn’t comment on that. He wondered, exactly, what he had missed out while he had been mourning. He didn’t think the Autobots would tell, but perhaps Soundwave kept records? He had no love for the telepath, but if he had any information...

“Do you want me to come over for the funerals?” Thundercracker asked him, startling him out of his thoughts.

“If you want to,” he answered absentmindedly. It would be nice, he supposed, to have their whole trine together at the same place again.

Though there might be a problem for his former wingmate to come.

“Say, Thundercracker,” Starscream asked tiredly, but with some genuine curiosity. “How is he doing, that mech you took in?”

Thundercracker looked at him for a second, as if he was weighing his words. “He’s fine,” he finally answered. “Well, as fine as one can be in his case.”

“As a slave?” Starscream asked with a half-smile for his entire ‘nice guy’ act, perhaps Thundercracker wasn’t as good of a mech as he wanted others to think.

“No. As a now mentally impaired mech,” Thundercracker replied briskly. Starscream deflated.

“Ah, yes… I never quite understood why you chose him. It was obvious that he was going to be put down, and perhaps it would have been a mercy. But here you come, swooping down and claiming him as your own personal servant, whisking him away from the world. When everybody could see he was impaired, and as such, useless…”

“Because it was the right thing to do,” Thundercracker answered simply. “So, what if he currently wasn’t exactly… fine in the head? He could still have recovered and have be used in good fashion for the reconstruction effort.”

“I take it he didn’t get any better with time?” Starscream pointed out, understanding what wasn’t being said.

On the screen, Thundercracker’s shoulders sagged. “No. He has not. There has been progress, but nowhere near as much as I had hoped for. Broken bonds can do that to you, when they don’t outright kill you. The closer and longer you’ve been bonded, the worst it is. And it’s his twin who died…”

“It would have been mercy, then, to offline him,” Starscream said.

“I hardly think so,” the other Seeker said back. “And I really think there was enough pointless death already without adding one more to the list.”

Starscream wanted to argue, but he didn’t currently have the strength to do so.

Still, he tried to make conversation. It’s been so long since he had last had a talk with Thundercracker. Not since the scene in the Medbay. And well, he was becoming genuinely curious about Thundercracker’s approach with his own slave. He had taken him in without any plans aside of keeping him somewhat safe. The golden terror he remembered was now a wreck that could never have been used as a plaything, well, unless you were a very twisted mech. And Thundercracker wasn’t that kind of mech. What use did he have, really? Whatever talents he had before… did he still have them?

“I’ve heard that he was quite the artist before the war. Does he still paint?”

A disturbed look crossed over Thundercracker’s face, making Starscream raise an optic ridge. There was apparently more that Thundercracker wasn’t sharing.  “Yeah… somehow. He finger-paints, mainly. On the walls, the floors, the peoples … He paints on anything he can. But some of what comes out of his imagination, I’ll never show anyone.” The blue Seeker shuddered. Starscream chose to not comment. Instead, he changed the subject.

“I take it that he’s in no state to be moved and come with you? So, are you able to leave him alone at your estate?”

“That’s not a problem. I’ve another… slave… who can keep an optic on him,” the other Seeker explained, watching his words.

Starscream’s optics furrowed in confusion before he remembered. “Ah, true. I had forgotten you had received Dirge’s seized estate and properties when he was suspected of treason three vorns ago. Including his slave, you manoeuvred well,” he said with a smirk.

Thundercracker seemed to stand straighter. “I don’t see what you mean,” he said calmly.

“I’m sure you don’t,” Starscream replied. There was and would never be any way to prove Dirge’s downfall hadn’t been ‘wisely’ orchestrated by his teammate, for the sole purpose of getting another Autobot under his ‘protection’. Smart mechs could guess, though, if they really took the time to think about it. Thundercracker wasn’t ruthless, but he was far more cunning than most people thought. “Think this Autobot will be able to keep your pet out of trouble?”

Thundercracker had to smile faintly. “Trust me, he will. Dinobots can be quite persuasive.”

Without leaving Starscream the time to ask him anything else, he added. “I’ll be here as soon as possible. Sorry if I cut now, but I’m needed outside.”

Starscream nodded in acceptance. Thundercracker had responsibilities in Vos; he understood. Still, to be dismissed so quick… it twisted something inside him. He wanted, needed to talk some more. Of course, if the other Seeker really came to him, then the point would be moot. They were just postponing the real spark to spark conversation.

Thundercracker gave him a last look. “Star… Don’t avenge yourself on him again,” he warned the tricolored Seeker before he cut the feed.

Starscream looked at the black screen for a long time. “I don’t intend to.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Sunglitter was now safely in the care of the servants, who would arrange for her to get a nice appearance for the public wake. He had been strongly advised to get some rest, especially from Knock Out and Hook, who came to help the better trained medic. Ratchet had concurred, strangely enough. Now, that was an Autobot he wondered about. He truly seemed shaken by what had happened with Beta and the sparklings. Hardly surprised by his fellow Autobots’ reaction, though; he had just sighed, as if he had always known it would end up this way.

Just how many mechs, out of here, had known and said nothing? Starscream wondered about Soundwave as well. The telepath had an interview and data collect project going on that he wasn’t willing to share, and Starscream vaguely wondered if it had anything to do with… with the current events.

He was supposed to rest. And he had smiled mirthlessly at anyone who said that, because how in the Pit could he rest when there was so much going on in his CPU?

No, he couldn’t rest. But he could watch others doing so.

For several joors now, he watched Perceptor recharge, silent, standing at the foot of their common berth in the quarters allowed to them in Megatron’s palace. The apartment was nice, though not as nice as the Seeker’s estate at the edge of Praxus…

Perceptor shifted a bit in his sleep, and Starscream balked. Still, he stared.

In his sleep, the microscope features were peaceful. Beautiful. His memory's feedback must have been pleasant ones. Was he thinking about his time with Skyfire? Did he remember some real joy from having Sunglitter? The Skyfire’s hypothesis seemed the most likely, though.

Skyfire had been one-of-a-kind. Or so Starscream had thought. Now… Well, now, he didn’t know what he was feeling anymore.

Some part of him was ranting about the unfairness of it all. Another wept for what could have been. Another wailed for the loss of his child. Another was full of fury against the murderer, wanting nothing more than find a way to bring her back to life to kill her again, and again.

Mostly, though, he felt some kind of nausea unsettling his fuel tank.

How could have things come to that? The Autobots, champion braggers for the rights of all sentient beings, yadda, yadda, yadda, reduced to wrecks who didn’t even care for the lives of their own children?

Oh Primus, the world had become mad when he hadn’t been looking… or when he had been looking, but not at the bigger picture.

Would Skyfire have ended up like those other Autobots, had he still be alive?

That too was sickening to contemplate, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Slavery… he had never thought about it in details before. He had people to lord over and execute his whims, he had prestige, glory, recognition, and everything he could have ever wanted when he was young. That other mechs suffered wasn’t his problem.

Except, the problem didn’t seem to think Starscream wasn’t concerned, and it had eventually hit him when he had least expected it. And the price to pay had been his precious sparkling’s life.

Perceptor shifted again in his recharge. He looked… gorgeous, and Starscream had to fight back a wave of desire. Now wasn’t the time.

The Autobot was carrying. The Autobot was distraught. The Autobot… he didn’t know how to act with him anymore. He just… he knew, deep down, that he couldn’t continue to treat him like he did before. Not after… Not after Beta and Sunglitter. Not when there was another little one on the way, one he intended to see live.

He thought about Skyfire again, and the uneasiness didn’t falter. He tried to imagine the shuttle in the microscope’s place, once again. Tried to imagine the downcast expression and sometimes dull optics on his old friend and lover. Remembered why they were so. A question haunted him. Would have he been able to do that to someone he loved?

Perceptor…

Did he love Perceptor?

...

That was a tricky question. He didn’t love him, not like he had loved Skyfire, if he had indeed loved him. Slowly, he was realizing that he had, for a long time now, subconsciously leaned against the microscope for strength. The microscope had become a fixture in his life. He was there, quiet and timidly smiling at times, when he thought Starscream wasn’t looking and he saw or thought of something pleasant to him. It was nice smile; Starscream had to admit it, though he had never outwardly cared about it. Perceptor wasn’t doing science anymore, and well, perhaps Starscream could start to allow him that. There had to be more to his pet’s life than cleaning the house, playing with their sparklings, and entertaining him in the berth, though not of his own free will and choice.

Yes, he supposed, he loved Perceptor. Amazingly enough, despite his original hatred, he had grown so accustomed to him he couldn’t hate him anymore. Instead, he was… well, he didn’t know for sure what he felt or what he was doing.

He knew he had to do something. Now.

“Starscream?” He lifted his head and saw Perceptor’s blue optics staring at him. “What are you doing?” he asked, shifting to he could sit on the edge of the berth and stand.

“Thinking,” he answered back, continuing to stare at the microscope. “Perceptor… We need to talk.”

The microscope nodded faintly, silently, arms at his side and optics downward, waiting for his Master to speak. Curiously, it didn’t make Starscream happy.

The Seeker sighed. “I had time to think, while you recharged. I don’t… I don’t want what happened with Sunglitter –“he stalled on the name, a sour taste in his mouth as he evocated his now deceased sparkling, “– to happen again.” Perceptor shifted uneasily, but didn’t comment. Starscream took a deep inspiration through his vents before talking.

“So… How about we start things over again?” he asked simply. And realized he had made a mistake.

Perceptor’s optics dimmed. “What?” he asked, rather stupidly. Starscream refrained from snorting and making a snarky answer. It certainly wouldn’t help. He supposed he could have phrased things better.

But before he could utter a world to better explain himself, the microscope took a step back (which made Starscream almost flinch – he didn’t want Perceptor to get away from him; not now, not ever) and started to laugh shakily… and perhaps a tad hysterically. The Seeker visibly winced; that was not what he had been aiming for.

“Oh Primus,” Perceptor hiccupped nervously, “oh Primus… You didn’t… you didn’t just ask me…” he laughed again, uneasily, and crying. He sat down abruptly, and hid his face against his knees, arms locked around his legs as his frame shook violently. Starscream watched him with narrowed optics, and a small trace of concern in his features. But he said nothing. At this point, he didn’t think anything he could say would do any good.

Whatever hysteria had befallen the genius Autobot started to dissipate, and the red mech uncurled a little to give Starscream a wry and desperate look. “Oh, Starscream…” he said in a soft voice. “How can you even ask… do you even understand…?” he gave a helpless chuckle. “You think… you think just by proposing… just because you… you have a guilt trip that probably won’t last…? You really think you can erase vorns and vorns and vorns of abuse you knowingly afflicted? Oh, Primus, I knew you were insane, but that…” His face disappeared again has he made a keening sound. A glimpse at the hiding face told Starscream the microscope was leaking optical cleaning fluid.

Perceptor laughed again, and it wasn’t a nice laugh. It was the laugh of a broken mech. A very, very broken mech. Starscream’s vents worked hard to cool himself down, and he held his tongue in check as he watched his slave and reluctant lover completely break down in front of him; just because he was making a sincere proposition to erase some of the past, and to start on a better base.

Primus, how he hated it when Thundercracker was right…

Slowly, Perceptor’s broken laughter subsided. The microscope looked at him.

“Are you really serious?” he asked his Master, tears still in his optics.

Starscream nodded firmly. “Yes. I don’t see what’s so amusing about that,” he said crossly.

Perceptor sighed. “Of course you don’t. You clearly lack any form of empathy.” Starscream tried to feel incensed, but couldn't manage it. There was some truth to what the microscope said; he never was good with other people’s feelings.

The Autobot eyed him warily before pursuing. “I’m a slave, Starscream. Your slave,” he said with a joyless smile. “Slaves, in this Empire you constructed, are at the bottom of the bottom. They’re property, they have no rights, aside of the one to endure whatever is thrown at them. You abuse me daily, hit me, rape me any time you wish to. You care little for what I wish or think, of what I’m feeling deep down. You don’t let me work on anything, or let me help. I’m a decorative object, a plaything. I was a scientist, and I haven’t been allowed to even approach a lab since I came into your care, because you wanted to punish me for something that wasn’t my fault in the first place. You have made me live through the Pit, and suddenly---suddenly--- it’s like it never happened?” He laughed again, forcefully, hysterically, crying and sobbing as he did. “Oh, Primus, I don’t know who’s more insane, you or us!”

Starscream didn’t answer immediately. He stayed silent, giving Perceptor time to calm down. It took a while. Finally, the sobs and laughter subsided totally, leaving only blessed silence.

A silence that Starscream broke.

Attentively, Perceptor watched and listened to him.

“I’m not a nice mech. I know that. I was, perhaps, kinder when I was younger, but life made me change into something different. I don’t regret it. What I regret is---” he paused, searching for the right words. “What I regret is the intensity of the damages,” he continued after a while. “I never wanted things to get this bad. I don’t think Megatron wanted things to get so bad. It’s like---like seeing broken dolls on a display, but you don’t realize they’re broken until you look at them closely and see the fissures. To see and hear the Prime… it was his son, and he barely flinched. Already, he’s envisioning the next one with an emotional detachment that made me think Shockwave is positively cuddly,” he tried to joke, but it fell flat. “That’s probably the biggest wake-up call a mech can feel. To see that your mates” Perceptor gave him a look that clearly meant that ‘mates’ wasn’t the best word to employ, but it was nicer than slave, so Starscream preferred it “don’t even care about the life and death of your progeny… That they are replaceable goods… It was never what I wanted. I know it’s too late now to make most mechs change their opinions and ways. But I---I want to think everything isn’t already doomed. You care probably more than the rest of them, of that I’m sure,” he said as he looked at Perceptor in the optics. “That’s why I want to try and make amends with you. No more… no more forced interfaces,” he choked out, and Perceptor let a gasp escape from him. “No more beatings,” he continued. “No more humiliations. I’ll let you work outside the estate if you want to. I would like to tell you I’ll change, that I’ll become a better person, but that would be a lie, because mechs like me don’t change. But they can learn from their mistakes, and not repeat them. I don’t know if I really can make amends for what happened. I don’t know if it will work. I don’t even know if it’s a good idea or even a possible one, because we’ve been going at it for so long that it’s not going to get easy right away, and probably will not for vorns and vorns. But I want to give it a try. Because, I’m thinking that, if I had noticed… If I had done something… If I had done things differently… Sunglitter might still be alive. I loved her, you know. Perhaps I never showed it enough, but I loved her. She was mine, and she was bright, smart and everything I had dreamed a child of Skyfire and mine would be like,” he said with a wistful voice that made Perceptor nibble at his lip in uneasiness. “It’s funny, the way she turned out was exactly like my dream offspring, even with you as her Carrier. Or perhaps it was a sign, one I’ve ignored because it didn’t fit in my ideal world. There’s something else you have to understand,” he added. “I never want to be parted from what I call mine and my own. I didn’t want to with Skyfire, or whatever legacy he could have left in this world. I suppose this is Primus’ punishment for my misdeeds that, eventually, there was nothing left of him to remember him by, aside from my memories… and yours. You will always carry a part of Skyfire. And you will always… always resemble him in ways I hadn’t wanted to consider before. Just for that, I should hold you more preciously than I ever did before. I can’t let you go. No Decepticon will ever let any Autobot go. It’s not… it’s not in our mentality. Once something is conquered, we keep it, no matter what. But it doesn’t mean… It doesn’t mean things always have to stay the same between us.” He cleared his vocalizer. “My point is, I want things to get better between us. But… I can’t do this all on my own. For this to work, I’ll need you. Your good will. Your impressions. Your feelings over some matters. I want to make it work… But for that, I’ll need your help.”

The Seeker held out a hand for the microscope to take.

Perceptor looked at him with wide optics. “Starscream…” he said uneasily. “I…” he tried.

The Seeker looked at him intensely. “Please. Just think about it. For the future sparkling, if nothing else,” he said quietly.

Perceptor hesitated, looking uneasy. Starscream still held his hand out, tried to keep a neutral face and not move. He didn’t want to frighten the Autobot. He really, really wanted things to work out. For the future sparkling. To never have to live through another horror like Sunglitter’s death.

Finally, the tension broke. The microscope didn’t take his hand, but he nodded slightly in acknowledgment of Starscream’s passionate statement.

“I… I don’t know if I can, or… or if I’ll ever be able to, but… if you really want… really want to make it better… to make it bearable… Starting over again… it may… may not be really possible, but… I think… it might… be… worth… a try,” he told him slowly.

Starscream smiled weakly in answer.

It might not be what he had been aiming for, but it was a start. And a start was all he really needed to make things work… or not.