The Devil's Advocate

Chapter 11

In the immediate confusion and mild outrage, both Autobots and Decepticons only able to see Megatron's torn apart corpse in the spotlight of energon with anything else blurred into the background, Knockout somehow managed to get Starscream's ragdoll frame into the medbay before his internal tanks ran dry all over the ship. And he seemed to completely forget that he'd once had Arcee restrained to the same table Starscream was bolted down on, at least he didn't stop her when she followed with sticky hands over the Seeker's still leaking wing wound, having to ignore the beckons of her fellow Autobots behind her and push past a horde of curious, confused Vehicons.

"If I'd known you were going to take out Megatron, I'd have just let you go," Knockout muttered with a smile as he hooked Starscream up to a drip, maintaining his stasis lock as he worked on sealing the wide gouge. The doors were locked, leaving the drones and a furious Dreadwing pounding outside, but to Arcee they were miles away. Stasis couldn't mask the pain etched into Starscream's face, the wincing veil over the shadow of his smug smirk.

"Is he in any danger?" she asked, no longer caring if anyone knew how worried she was about him.

"No, no, he's just in a whole other league of agony. The shock would be more likely to kill him than the wound," Knockout replied, pulling out tools that Arcee dimly recognised from when she has to install Starscream's T Cog. "As soon as its patched up, I'll bring him out of stasis so everyone can worship him and Dreadwing can threaten to tear his helm off. Just another day on the Nemesis." Knockout laughed to himself but it was a forced sound, his entire facade put on like an elaborate play. Though no one could blame him, blame anyone in the same situation where the mech in charge for so long was so suddenly struck down.

Arcee's hands were clean, but energon speckled her peds and trickled down her knees. By contrast Starscream was a gruesome patchwork of stains, most of them on his claws. Even with the rest of his body lost to stasis, they still managed to twitch because he was just that stubborn.

"Can I have a klick to talk to him, before everyone else comes in?" she asked, just as Knockout finished welding the dripping wound into a jagged scar. The medic had an eyeridge quirked, optics passing from her to the disabled Seeker and then back again.

"I suppose so," he said slowly, setting the welder down and flicking a switch on the console beside the operating table. "But just one klick. Even from here I can feel the drones pressing against the walls and I am not looking forward to walking out in the middle of that." Though Arcee fully expected him to just stand by the door and shamelessly eavesdrop, he actually left the medbay through a tiny slit in the door, all that was allowed to open before it was squeezed shut again.

And as Arcee watched him go, Starscream's optics flickered open like sparking embers, and his vocaliser was thick with groans. "Please don't tell me I was dreaming the whole thing..."

If that was the case, Arcee couldn't help wondering if she really would have been the first thing he saw in his dreams. "You weren't. Actually, most of the energon on you is Megatron's."

Starscream tried to laugh, but all that came out was a louder groan as he clamped his optics shut again. "That would explain why I feel like I need a shower in acid..."

Though Arcee would have been strangely content just staying by his side in silence, she didn't have much time left to get the answer to the that question still flashing in her processor. "Why did you kiss me, Starscream?" she asked.

He looked up at her, maybe trying to see if she was angry, though his optics said what his mouth, even with its grin, couldn't quite manage to get across as the pupils flared ever so slightly. "Why not?" he answered, knowing just how much Arcee wanted to slap him even when he was already ringing and alight with pain, maybe just because she wanted to feel him once more before he slipped away again.