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[Transformers] Ghosts of Cybertron (3/11) - written with <lj site="livejournal.com" user="raisedbymo
Title: Ghosts of Cybertron (3/11)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: What with exorcisms, possession, and the occasional kidnapping, it's a wonder Rodimus Prime gets any work done. Especially with a ghostly Starscream making trouble around the base. But when the stirring of Cybertron's restless dead isn't limited to sarcastic ex-Seekers... Who you gonna call?
Contains an assortment of pairings, general bot-sluttery, crack, humour, and Decepticon/Autobot... 'alliances'. And Starscream. Lots and lots of Starscream.
*
Cybertron was in a state of controlled panic. In theory, the response to the discovery that their Prime had been kidnapped by the Decepticons should have been nice and straightforward: go forth, cannons blazing, and get him back by any means necessary.
The fact that said Decepticons had left a polite note promising to return him (mostly) undamaged within 30 joors had rather derailed things.
Ultra Magnus scanned over the offending datapad for the hundredth time, sighed, and pressed a hand to his optics. He was tempted to call up Cyclonus on their private frequency and demand to know what in the Pit Galvatron thought he was playing at - but given the phrasing of the note, and some reports he'd had from Red Alert on Sideswipe's latest contraband acquisitions, he would, to be honest, rather not know what he might be interrupting.
And then there was the other problem.
"Starscream," he said, with as much patience as he could manage - how did Rodimus put up with the ex-Seeker? "Get out of Air Raid at once."
"Not on your spark," crowed Starscream from where he was busily filling cubes of high-grade energon in the corner of the rec room. "Do you have any idea how annoying it is having the Matrix stopping me from possessing people? I'm going to have fun for a bit. Besides," and here he smirked in a way that was so purely Starscream that it was quite unsettling to see it on Air Raid's face, "he said I could."
"It's true," piped up Fireflight from where he was watching Starscream's growing pile of cubes with wide-opticked fascination. "Air Raid did say he could."
"I see." Ah, there it was, the beginning of the mother of all processor-aches. "And did you clear this with Silverbolt?"
"Oh, please." Starscream seemed to decide he had enough energon for now (fifteen cubes? Could Air Raid's tanks even hold that much?) and sprawled into a chair. He took a sip of high-grade and threw back his head with an expression close to rapture. "What goody-two-thrusters doesn't know won't hurt him."
*
Air Raid's tanks could not, in fact, hold that much. Not that Starscream got any of the fallout - he had vacated his host's body long before the first surges hit, leaving Air Raid to deal with the aftermath of Drinking Too Much Too Quickly on his own. First Aid's righteous wrath could be heard all the way to Charr. (Rodimus was in fact ready to pick up and head back to Cybertron, worried over his people; the fact that he was shackled to a wall made that difficult, and in any case he soon forgot his own name, much less how to worry about people who were a whole planet away.)
Silverbolt came to visit his wingmate after most of the ugly part had gone down; a pain in the aft he may be sometimes, but the leader of the Aerialbots gave excellent wingrubbings. "Why'd you let him?" he asked, stroking his palms outward along the leading edge.
Air Raid took a moment to moan before answering. "Curious."
"About?"
"Him. His memories. What makes him tick."
Silverbolt blinked. "You read his mind?"
"Yeah... no. Sorta. More like he used my memory banks as temporary storage. I didn't get to keep any of his memories, but..." Air Raid hummed, turned his head to one side and smiled. "Maybe I picked up a few things."
"I see." Silverbolt fell silent then, and applied his whole self to the effort of wingrubbing.
*
Starscream was taking a break from possessing people (he'd tried to possess Blurr, with rather disastrous results) when Silverbolt found him. "Come to lecture me again?" the ex-Seeker sneered, trailing his fingers idly through the wall.
"I already know you won't listen." Silverbolt stood before him, arms crossed. "I do think you've got a lot of convincing to do before I let you in one of my people again, though."
"Air Raid agreed to it!" Starscream protested, still wary of the big flier.
"And you took advantage of it and left Air Raid in a sorry state."
"If you were insubstantial," Starscream sniffed, "you'd take whatever chance you could to experience being overcharged again."
Silverbolt smiled - hard, thin, rather Megatron-like to Starscream's way of thinking. "That's exactly the issue here, isn't it?"
"What?"
"Before I let you ride around in an Aerialbot again, I want to know what they'd be getting out of it - and what you are."
Starscream lit up with his whole self. "Are you offering-?"
"Hurry up before I change my mind."
Starscream hesitated only a moment before diving into Silverbolt.
It was an ill fit - most of Silverbolt's right side was beyond him, and his processor had several locks Starscream couldn't pass - but he could have flown well enough, and that was enough for him. "Learn what you need to," he said through Silverbolt's mouth.
"You too," Silverbolt answered the same way, and suddenly Starscream was bombarded with images of exactly what his host and Skyfire had been up to last night.
The screams, again, reached all the way to Charr, but at least this time nobody paid much attention.
*
It was when Skyfire realised he'd got through an entire day without interruption that he began to get worried. Not only had Starscream failed to materialise (literally), but Silverbolt hadn't dropped by for a chat, and the rest of the Aerialbots had also been conspicuously absent (even Fireflight, who was usually in and out of Skyfire's lab whenever he wasn't on duty). He cleaned up his bench, put away his tools, and went jet-hunting.
A long trail of complaints/amusement, a still-wobbly Air Raid, Ultra Magnus's locked office door (from behind which Skyfire could swear he heard the faint strains of Vivaldi and the occasional whimper), and some third-hand sightings later, he finally tracked Silverbolt down to a small rec room away from the usual haunts of off-duty Autobots. The silver jet was sitting hunched over in a chair, nursing a cube of energon, with an uncharacteristic scowl on his face.
"Silverbolt?" Skyfire tried not to let his worry into his voice. "Are you okay? And do you know where--"
Silverbolt looked up at him, and Skyfire simultaneously realised that Silverbolt's energy pattern had been overlaid with another, just as familiar one - and that the usually blue optics were a scalding red.
"Oh," said Skyfire. Then, angrily, "Starscream, get out!"
"He started it," muttered Starscream sullenly through Silverbolt's mouth, sinking deeper into the chair. "Sneaky bastard. Plays dirty. No wonder you like him - he's good at it." A wince, caused, apparently, by some stray uncomfortable thought. "... among other things."
Skyfire decided he didn't want to think too closely about that (or about the fact that his current and ex-lovers were sharing a body, which had to come pretty high on the list of Awkward Romantic Situations) and cautiously took a seat.
"I hope you're not planning to leave him with the hangover the way you did with Air Raid."
"Oh, we've agreed certain ground rules," said Silverbolt, eyes flashing back to blue and voice falling into his usual tones. "No overcharging, no flying over 10,000 feet, no pretending to be me..."
"... no overshare," finished Starscream pointedly.
It was disconcerting to see Silverbolt's optics change colour in a nanoklik, and to hear Starscream's voice coming from Silverbolt's vocaliser. Skyfire considered asking them to separate, but he was, he had to admit, deeply curious as to what had prompted Silverbolt into allowing this - and he wasn't going to do anything that might sabotage what looked like the beginnings of some sort of truce.
"So, you've just been... talking?"
"Something like that." Starscream glared at a point in space, apparently the only means he had of expressing his irritation with his current host. "I need more high-grade."
"I thought Silverbolt said--"
"Oh, give him some credit, he's not a complete lightweight."
Skyfire couldn't keep the amusement off his face. Starscream seemed to realise he'd just inadvertently complimented Silverbolt, threw Skyfire a withering look, and downed the rest of his cube in a quick, practised swallow that had Skyfire, despite himself, suddenly and keenly aware of Silverbolt's mouth. He looked away quickly, confused beyond words by the superimposition of Starscream's mannerisms on Silverbolt's body. Confused and, to his embarrassment, more than a little... intrigued.
"Hmmm."
And that was not a reassuring sound, not from Starscream, not - Skyfire darted a quick glance at his face - when his optics were narrowed and that tiny smirk was playing about his - Silverbolt's - lips. Starscream confined himself, however, to reaching for another cube (somehow he'd got a whole supply of what looked like non-regulation high-grade, Primus knew how, unless Silverbolt had been secretly stockpiling the stuff - which Skyfire, yesterday, would have said was unlikely, but he was starting to wonder if he actually knew his partner as well as he'd thought) and offering it to Skyfire.
"We've been having a lovely chat," Starscream said sweetly, "about all sorts of things. Why don't you join us?"
And the alarming thing, Skyfire thought as he took the cube and wondered just how badly this was going to come back to bite him, was that he couldn't actually tell whether that invitation had come from Starscream or Silverbolt.
*
Fireflight thought it was Slingshot at first - the mech was never so ready to go as when he'd just went, and the arms and chest pressed against his wings (oh great Primus, his wings) were fairly humming with post-coital signals. Fireflight sighed and leaned back against his visitor, who took his weight with a solidity and ease that Slingshot had never managed. Somewhat apprehensive, Fireflight looked back.
"Knock it off, Starscream," he said with no real conviction after his spark had started beating again.
Starscream, still in Silverbolt's body, gave him his best 'on my best behavior' smile, which of course only worried Fireflight further. "You can't tell me you don't enjoy this."
"Is Silverbolt enjoying this?" Fireflight asked pointedly.
"Oh, he's long since worn out, poor thing." Starscream affected a sympathetic pout, which looked positively obscene with Silverbolt's lips. "I'm just having a little fun before he wakes up and kicks me out."
Worn out doing what, was the salient question, but Fireflight wasn't inclined to ask: in the first place, he wasn't sure he wanted to know, and in the second place, Starscream was every bit as good at wingrubbings as his host. And if his hands occasionally strayed, all the better.
*
"New ground rule," said Silverbolt, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.
"What?"
Starscream didn't sound like he particularly cared; he was floating on the other side of Silverbolt's quarters, the barest outlines of him visible against the wall, his whole body expressing languid satisfaction.
"No running around interfacing with half the base in my body." A pause. "Especially not my entire gestalt."
"You are no fun at all."
"That wasn't what you said last night."
"Very funny."
*
Cyclonus,
It's been 30 joors and fifteen breems. Where is my Prime?
Yrs in some trepidation,
Ultra Magnus
My dear Ultra Magnus -
We are having technical difficulties. Please stand by.
- Cyclonus
Cyclonus,
Technical difficulties? Of what sort? Is Rodimus in danger?
Yrs in more trepidation,
Ultra Magnus
My dear Ultra Magnus,
No danger, at least not unless he laughs himself into a seizure, which does, I admit, seem a possibility under the circumstances. I am at present more concerned about Lord Galvatron, who does not appreciate the... humour... of the situation the way the Prime does.
- Cyclonus
Cyclonus,
Am I going to need the extra-strength firewall for this one?
Yrs in considerable alarm,
Ultra Magnus
My dear U.M. -
Yes.
- C
(TBC)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: What with exorcisms, possession, and the occasional kidnapping, it's a wonder Rodimus Prime gets any work done. Especially with a ghostly Starscream making trouble around the base. But when the stirring of Cybertron's restless dead isn't limited to sarcastic ex-Seekers... Who you gonna call?
Contains an assortment of pairings, general bot-sluttery, crack, humour, and Decepticon/Autobot... 'alliances'. And Starscream. Lots and lots of Starscream.
*
Cybertron was in a state of controlled panic. In theory, the response to the discovery that their Prime had been kidnapped by the Decepticons should have been nice and straightforward: go forth, cannons blazing, and get him back by any means necessary.
The fact that said Decepticons had left a polite note promising to return him (mostly) undamaged within 30 joors had rather derailed things.
Ultra Magnus scanned over the offending datapad for the hundredth time, sighed, and pressed a hand to his optics. He was tempted to call up Cyclonus on their private frequency and demand to know what in the Pit Galvatron thought he was playing at - but given the phrasing of the note, and some reports he'd had from Red Alert on Sideswipe's latest contraband acquisitions, he would, to be honest, rather not know what he might be interrupting.
And then there was the other problem.
"Starscream," he said, with as much patience as he could manage - how did Rodimus put up with the ex-Seeker? "Get out of Air Raid at once."
"Not on your spark," crowed Starscream from where he was busily filling cubes of high-grade energon in the corner of the rec room. "Do you have any idea how annoying it is having the Matrix stopping me from possessing people? I'm going to have fun for a bit. Besides," and here he smirked in a way that was so purely Starscream that it was quite unsettling to see it on Air Raid's face, "he said I could."
"It's true," piped up Fireflight from where he was watching Starscream's growing pile of cubes with wide-opticked fascination. "Air Raid did say he could."
"I see." Ah, there it was, the beginning of the mother of all processor-aches. "And did you clear this with Silverbolt?"
"Oh, please." Starscream seemed to decide he had enough energon for now (fifteen cubes? Could Air Raid's tanks even hold that much?) and sprawled into a chair. He took a sip of high-grade and threw back his head with an expression close to rapture. "What goody-two-thrusters doesn't know won't hurt him."
*
Air Raid's tanks could not, in fact, hold that much. Not that Starscream got any of the fallout - he had vacated his host's body long before the first surges hit, leaving Air Raid to deal with the aftermath of Drinking Too Much Too Quickly on his own. First Aid's righteous wrath could be heard all the way to Charr. (Rodimus was in fact ready to pick up and head back to Cybertron, worried over his people; the fact that he was shackled to a wall made that difficult, and in any case he soon forgot his own name, much less how to worry about people who were a whole planet away.)
Silverbolt came to visit his wingmate after most of the ugly part had gone down; a pain in the aft he may be sometimes, but the leader of the Aerialbots gave excellent wingrubbings. "Why'd you let him?" he asked, stroking his palms outward along the leading edge.
Air Raid took a moment to moan before answering. "Curious."
"About?"
"Him. His memories. What makes him tick."
Silverbolt blinked. "You read his mind?"
"Yeah... no. Sorta. More like he used my memory banks as temporary storage. I didn't get to keep any of his memories, but..." Air Raid hummed, turned his head to one side and smiled. "Maybe I picked up a few things."
"I see." Silverbolt fell silent then, and applied his whole self to the effort of wingrubbing.
*
Starscream was taking a break from possessing people (he'd tried to possess Blurr, with rather disastrous results) when Silverbolt found him. "Come to lecture me again?" the ex-Seeker sneered, trailing his fingers idly through the wall.
"I already know you won't listen." Silverbolt stood before him, arms crossed. "I do think you've got a lot of convincing to do before I let you in one of my people again, though."
"Air Raid agreed to it!" Starscream protested, still wary of the big flier.
"And you took advantage of it and left Air Raid in a sorry state."
"If you were insubstantial," Starscream sniffed, "you'd take whatever chance you could to experience being overcharged again."
Silverbolt smiled - hard, thin, rather Megatron-like to Starscream's way of thinking. "That's exactly the issue here, isn't it?"
"What?"
"Before I let you ride around in an Aerialbot again, I want to know what they'd be getting out of it - and what you are."
Starscream lit up with his whole self. "Are you offering-?"
"Hurry up before I change my mind."
Starscream hesitated only a moment before diving into Silverbolt.
It was an ill fit - most of Silverbolt's right side was beyond him, and his processor had several locks Starscream couldn't pass - but he could have flown well enough, and that was enough for him. "Learn what you need to," he said through Silverbolt's mouth.
"You too," Silverbolt answered the same way, and suddenly Starscream was bombarded with images of exactly what his host and Skyfire had been up to last night.
The screams, again, reached all the way to Charr, but at least this time nobody paid much attention.
*
It was when Skyfire realised he'd got through an entire day without interruption that he began to get worried. Not only had Starscream failed to materialise (literally), but Silverbolt hadn't dropped by for a chat, and the rest of the Aerialbots had also been conspicuously absent (even Fireflight, who was usually in and out of Skyfire's lab whenever he wasn't on duty). He cleaned up his bench, put away his tools, and went jet-hunting.
A long trail of complaints/amusement, a still-wobbly Air Raid, Ultra Magnus's locked office door (from behind which Skyfire could swear he heard the faint strains of Vivaldi and the occasional whimper), and some third-hand sightings later, he finally tracked Silverbolt down to a small rec room away from the usual haunts of off-duty Autobots. The silver jet was sitting hunched over in a chair, nursing a cube of energon, with an uncharacteristic scowl on his face.
"Silverbolt?" Skyfire tried not to let his worry into his voice. "Are you okay? And do you know where--"
Silverbolt looked up at him, and Skyfire simultaneously realised that Silverbolt's energy pattern had been overlaid with another, just as familiar one - and that the usually blue optics were a scalding red.
"Oh," said Skyfire. Then, angrily, "Starscream, get out!"
"He started it," muttered Starscream sullenly through Silverbolt's mouth, sinking deeper into the chair. "Sneaky bastard. Plays dirty. No wonder you like him - he's good at it." A wince, caused, apparently, by some stray uncomfortable thought. "... among other things."
Skyfire decided he didn't want to think too closely about that (or about the fact that his current and ex-lovers were sharing a body, which had to come pretty high on the list of Awkward Romantic Situations) and cautiously took a seat.
"I hope you're not planning to leave him with the hangover the way you did with Air Raid."
"Oh, we've agreed certain ground rules," said Silverbolt, eyes flashing back to blue and voice falling into his usual tones. "No overcharging, no flying over 10,000 feet, no pretending to be me..."
"... no overshare," finished Starscream pointedly.
It was disconcerting to see Silverbolt's optics change colour in a nanoklik, and to hear Starscream's voice coming from Silverbolt's vocaliser. Skyfire considered asking them to separate, but he was, he had to admit, deeply curious as to what had prompted Silverbolt into allowing this - and he wasn't going to do anything that might sabotage what looked like the beginnings of some sort of truce.
"So, you've just been... talking?"
"Something like that." Starscream glared at a point in space, apparently the only means he had of expressing his irritation with his current host. "I need more high-grade."
"I thought Silverbolt said--"
"Oh, give him some credit, he's not a complete lightweight."
Skyfire couldn't keep the amusement off his face. Starscream seemed to realise he'd just inadvertently complimented Silverbolt, threw Skyfire a withering look, and downed the rest of his cube in a quick, practised swallow that had Skyfire, despite himself, suddenly and keenly aware of Silverbolt's mouth. He looked away quickly, confused beyond words by the superimposition of Starscream's mannerisms on Silverbolt's body. Confused and, to his embarrassment, more than a little... intrigued.
"Hmmm."
And that was not a reassuring sound, not from Starscream, not - Skyfire darted a quick glance at his face - when his optics were narrowed and that tiny smirk was playing about his - Silverbolt's - lips. Starscream confined himself, however, to reaching for another cube (somehow he'd got a whole supply of what looked like non-regulation high-grade, Primus knew how, unless Silverbolt had been secretly stockpiling the stuff - which Skyfire, yesterday, would have said was unlikely, but he was starting to wonder if he actually knew his partner as well as he'd thought) and offering it to Skyfire.
"We've been having a lovely chat," Starscream said sweetly, "about all sorts of things. Why don't you join us?"
And the alarming thing, Skyfire thought as he took the cube and wondered just how badly this was going to come back to bite him, was that he couldn't actually tell whether that invitation had come from Starscream or Silverbolt.
*
Fireflight thought it was Slingshot at first - the mech was never so ready to go as when he'd just went, and the arms and chest pressed against his wings (oh great Primus, his wings) were fairly humming with post-coital signals. Fireflight sighed and leaned back against his visitor, who took his weight with a solidity and ease that Slingshot had never managed. Somewhat apprehensive, Fireflight looked back.
"Knock it off, Starscream," he said with no real conviction after his spark had started beating again.
Starscream, still in Silverbolt's body, gave him his best 'on my best behavior' smile, which of course only worried Fireflight further. "You can't tell me you don't enjoy this."
"Is Silverbolt enjoying this?" Fireflight asked pointedly.
"Oh, he's long since worn out, poor thing." Starscream affected a sympathetic pout, which looked positively obscene with Silverbolt's lips. "I'm just having a little fun before he wakes up and kicks me out."
Worn out doing what, was the salient question, but Fireflight wasn't inclined to ask: in the first place, he wasn't sure he wanted to know, and in the second place, Starscream was every bit as good at wingrubbings as his host. And if his hands occasionally strayed, all the better.
*
"New ground rule," said Silverbolt, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.
"What?"
Starscream didn't sound like he particularly cared; he was floating on the other side of Silverbolt's quarters, the barest outlines of him visible against the wall, his whole body expressing languid satisfaction.
"No running around interfacing with half the base in my body." A pause. "Especially not my entire gestalt."
"You are no fun at all."
"That wasn't what you said last night."
"Very funny."
*
Cyclonus,
It's been 30 joors and fifteen breems. Where is my Prime?
Yrs in some trepidation,
Ultra Magnus
My dear Ultra Magnus -
We are having technical difficulties. Please stand by.
- Cyclonus
Cyclonus,
Technical difficulties? Of what sort? Is Rodimus in danger?
Yrs in more trepidation,
Ultra Magnus
My dear Ultra Magnus,
No danger, at least not unless he laughs himself into a seizure, which does, I admit, seem a possibility under the circumstances. I am at present more concerned about Lord Galvatron, who does not appreciate the... humour... of the situation the way the Prime does.
- Cyclonus
Cyclonus,
Am I going to need the extra-strength firewall for this one?
Yrs in considerable alarm,
Ultra Magnus
My dear U.M. -
Yes.
- C
(TBC)
Tags:
- character: aerialbots,
- character: galvatron,
- character: rodimus prime,
- character: silverbolt,
- character: skyfire,
- character: starscream,
- fandom: transformers,
- genre: humour,
- genre: slash,
- pairing: galvatron/rodimus,
- pairing: rodimus/starscream,
- pairing: skyfire/silverbolt,
- pairing: skyfire/starscream
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The last section was just ROFL-worthy. I'm having to clap my mouth shut, though I can't help but to thump my thigh. It's great.
Off to read more!
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I love Starscream's philosophy of (after)life here: whenever you're corporeal, fuck everyone you encounter.
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