Disclaimer: do not own Transformers.
Summary: Dark fic, 07Movieverse, not 09 compliant, oneshot. Starscream takes a small Decepticon, barely hatched, under his wing. How unfortunate…
Warnings: Violence
Rated: R (O_O The bunny is so dark that it expanded my ratings range!!)
Author note: There was a delightfully fuzzy, warm bunny over at tf_bunny_farm, the first part of number two of
here. There was a dark, brooding bunny, over
here. They met and had a little bunny...a little bunny with sharp, pointy teeth.
This is that bunny.
(This is the part where I thank
katsuko and
drharper for the inspiration, and I hope that y'all enjoy the mutated offspring of their bunnies).
Keeper
“Don’t look at me like that,” Thundercracker said to the struggling, smaller being who was attempting to escape his grip. “We told you this would happen.” He walked calmly down the hallways of the seeker base, ignoring the sounds of protest coming from his charge.
“What’s going on?” Skywarp asked, coming across this display, a cube of high-grade in hand. At the sight of the other seeker, the small mech ceased struggling and let Thundercracker carry him undisturbed. Skywarp grinned. “Starscream’s little one refusing to eat again?”
“Yeah. Get the door, will you?”
Skywarp punched in the code, and the door opened to what was dubbed a “feeding room,” in that it was the centre that “fed” into many other corridors. One of the many doors lead to the cluster of dronelings, still not yet hatched. Three of the other doors lead directly to each trine alpha’s private quarters.
Thundercracker entered the darkened room with his burden, walked up to a table tucked away in a corner, and set him down on a perch. “Be good,” he said sternly. He was answered with an angry chirrup. He walked out, and joined Skywarp at the entrance way. He swiped the cube of high-grade and chugged it down.
“Hey!”
“Mute it. You didn’t have to deal with that little terror all orn.”
The door closed, and the locks were reset, though the door panels were so high that he wouldn’t be able to open the door even if he knew the codes. The voices continued, muffled, down the hall.
“Serves you right for trying. You know he only eats for Starscream,” Skywarp said.
“Can’t help but be worried when one so young doesn’t eat…”
“That’s what high-grade is for. Drown out those pesky instinct-program lines.”
“Maybe we should stay with him,” Thundercracker said doubtfully.
“Nah. He’ll be good. Besides, there ain’t nothing in there that he can break like last time, and he learned his lesson. You know how Starscream is.”
The subject of their conversation waited until the footsteps had safely faded away, and then he got up slowly. He slid off from the high perch-made for a fully-upgraded seeker, not a being whose design was only half as large-landed on the ground, wincing slightly, and looked around. Shoulders sagged in relief when he saw the wide window at the far end of the room, past all the doors, framing the stars.
He ran up to the window eagerly, looking hungrily to the view outside the ship. Red optics glowed softly, and his gaze flitted from one part of the open space to the next, before settling on a small blue planet in the distance.
He stayed like that for a long time, and the only sound in the room other than his own internal workings was the tapping of his fingers against the glass. Somewhere outside filtered the voices of other seekers, lesser members of lesser trines, but he ignored them. The moment of reprieve was shattered when a combination of tones filled the air, the sound of a door being unlocked, and the doors at the opposite end of the room slid to the side.
Then there came the sound of footsteps, slow and heavy, coming towards him. He started to look back, but then forced himself to turn away, palm pressing against the window.
“Creating more trouble, are you, Descent?” Starscream asked, standing a little behind him, a large cube of pure energon in his grasp.
The being did not answer, and instead stared intently at the sky and stars and that blue marble of a planet in the far distance.
“Descent.” The voice was sharper this time around.
“That isn’t my name,” he answered quietly, before tearing his gaze away from the window to look at his keeper, red optics bright. “That isn’t my name,” he said, louder this time.
“Oh?” Starscream chuckled warmly, like he was hearing a favourite joke. “What is your name, then?”
He continued in his defiant stance, but ultimately his optics dimmed and he broke visual contact with his keeper, and instead stared out the window yet again. His thoughts were betrayed by his trembling fingers as he unconsciously stroked the gouges in the armour of his shoulder.
Starscream smiled the warm smile of a parent whose child has made an accomplishment.
“There, now,” he said, and the young one cringed as Starscream approached him, a hand coming down and resting heavily at his other shoulder. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He brought the cube of fresh energon in front of the young one’s optics. “Drink,” he said. Quietly, systems awakened in anticipation, waiting for just a little sip. Red lights brightened and optics widened in interest though the owner of those optics shied away from the cube.
“It hasn’t been tainted, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Starscream said casually, and he made a show of taking a small drink. “You haven’t eaten,” he said, holding out the energon cube yet again. “That isn’t good, especially for someone as young as you. Drink,” he repeated, his voice soft and coaxing.
And the small mech lifted a hand tentatively, reaching out for the offered cube…
And then he angrily pushed it away. The energon cube flew out of Starscream’s hand and went clattering to the floor. The contents spilled and hissed before the bright pseudo-liquid turned grey as all the energy became wasted.
Starscream looked down calmly at his charge, head tilted slightly. A glimmer of fear passed over his charge’s optics and he gave a small, almost unnoticeable shudder. Then he set back his shoulders, straightened, turned around, and looked at his keeper straight in the optics.
There was silence.
Then Starscream hit him.
He got up quickly and tried to back away, but Starscream was advancing. “How dare you?” he roared. “You ungrateful little glitch!” He hit him again, and his head snapped to the side from the force. He staggered, and regained his balance. “I saved you from the enemy, accepted you despite your inferiority, gave you the protection of my trine, I call you my own though you were born less than a spark-less drone!” He was backed against a corner, and Starscream’s claws dug into his shoulder and then he pushed him roughly to the side. He hit the adjacent wall with a yelp, crawled to the side and got back up again, trying to keep from being pinned to the wall another time.
“I offer you a form only second to our own, I protect you from the outside world, I even gave you the energon running through my own wires when there was not enough! There was nothing I would have done for you, and yet this is how you repay me?!” The final blow sent the young one spinning and stumbling before he crumpled to the ground, and he did not get back up again.
Starscream glared at him, his optics glowing a bright, murderous red while the optics of his charge flickered, and then dimmed, the red light glowing so weakly that the optics were almost dark. Then Starscream straightened, and the glow of his optics lessened, and when he spoke, his voice had returned to a low, rough murmur.
“Descent,” he said, his patient tone having just a hint of disappointment. He got down on one knee, and his fingers curved inward so that the talons were pointed away from the delicate frame. Gently, he wiped away a thin line of processed energon that leaked from one of his charge’s optic sockets. “Why can’t you just behave?”
The only answer was a weak groan, and the whirring of internal systems as they tried to recover.
Then Starscream gathered him up gently in his arms, and then took him into one of his personal quarters. Getting into the recharge berth, he balanced the small, still stunned mech in his lap.
“You haven’t eaten,” he said again, his voice gentle and coaxing, as though whatever happened in that dark room before, in the room with the wide window and promise of open space, never happened. “That isn’t good, for someone as young as you.”
Starscream exposed some wiring in his own arm, and made a tiny slit in it. A small trickle of processed energon came forth, and Starscream presented this improvised source of food to the smaller mech, who was beginning to come to.
Optics opened fully in realization of what was happening. He tried to pull away, and tried to escape Starscream’s grasp, but Starscream held firmly. He tried once again to refuse, but a combination of hunger and the seeker’s force won out in the end.
Optics dimmed, he finally sipped from the offered vein, while Starscream carefully rocked him and cradled him, humming to him a little seeker lullaby.