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Starscream strolled along the opulent corridors, allowing his spent systems a little post-massacre cool down. Interior fans were whirring away conspicuously in their haste to flood his searing engines with fresh air. The breeze it created across fluffed plating dried the blood dotting his armour all the faster.
It was the ninety-sixth hour of their planetary occupation and the halls of the Grand Palace were deserted, it's guards long dead or defected. There was no one to stop Starscream from taking his little tour through it's upper levels, treading dirt into the lush cream carpets and trailing his soiled claws along it's walls, ripping the antique wallpaper.
He passed a portrait of the ill-fated Empress that had (ninety-five hours ago) called the palace 'home', and had to pause to admire her. Her beauty. Her jewels. The beaded diadem resting on her brow. The black, fur-lined cloak cascading perfectly from one bared shoulder. The rings, the stacked bracelets, and the gorgeous, tinkling row of diamonds resting in the hollow of her throat -the throat now slit, bleeding out some twenty stories below him, in the palace courtyard.
Starscream reached out to smear the blood from his hand across her painted face, distorting her features. There. Much more apt.
But petty vandalism, as cathartic as it could be, was not what he had climbed twenty prehistoric staircases for.
The vault housing the Imperial Jewels sat in the centre of the palace, surrounded by two metres of atomically re-engineered carbon on all sides. As thick as it's walls were Starscream doubted the security system on the door would be much of a challenge for a Cybertronian, and one who had been picking locks since before they could fly at that.
The palace was one great circular tower, with curved hallways and rooms. He continued his loop until he set optics on a dead guard; limbs sprawled, neck snapped. An effortless kill.
Interesting. Starscream hadn't anticipated anyone else wandering so far from the uproarious 'party' occurring in the courtyard. He wouldn't have delayed had he known this was a race.
Claws curled into fists as he wondered who might be foolish enough to think they could steal the treasures residing in that vault. Treasures that belonged to him by right. He was the first lieutenant. He held the rank, and those diamonds were-
He marched the last length of corridor leading up to the vault and stopped short when he was met with the sight of the huge circular door. Or the half that was left of it.
Never mind the intricacies of safe picking, his competition had blown open the vault with heavy artillery. A mech-sized hole had been shot into it, straight through to the other side. Starscream moved closer, prodding cautiously at the scorched edges of ragged carbon. He sniffed.
Fusion.
Starscream gingerly swung a leg through the hole, stepping inside, minding not to sting his wings against the still smoking border.
Odd, that Megatron would choose to raid the Empress's jewellery box over the Imperial Armoury. Perhaps Starscream had missed something in the pre-mission brief? Some great weapon she'd hidden away? A devastating piece of information it was rumoured she had held? It must be of great consequence to draw Megatron's attention.
Inside, the vault was set up like a walk-in wardrobe. It was a maze of mirrors, busts, and display cases, with shelving units reaching towards the high ceilings. There were stacks of gold bars, mannequins posed in ceremonial armour, jewel encrusted weaponry mounted on the walls. And the accessories. A set of crystal claws resting on a nearby shelf caught his optic. He paused, lifting them up in amusement. How impractical. He loved them.
A shame the Empress was dead. She had a lot to answer for with these.
"Why am I not surprised," a droll voice asked.
Starscream set down the claws before facing the warlord slinking up behind him.
Megatron was in a state; the black blood of the royal guards marring his armour from every angle. He had a splatter of energon across his nasal ridge and a dent in his cheek. Starscream thought it all made him look charmingly rugged.
"What are you doing in here?" Starscream demanded. "You know none of this would fit you."
"Don't insult me, Starscream, you know full well I have no interest in this tasteless tat," Megatron rounded the display cases to better intimidate him. "You were sent to the South Tower to coordinate the destruction of the docks."
"Onslaught doesn't need me holding his grimy old hand to blow up a dock. I know what busy work looks like when I get assigned to it," Starscream sauntered a little closer, starting to pace around his leader in a slow, wide circle. "You were trying to distract me."
"No, I was keeping you on task. This is a distraction." Megatron gestured to the towering shelves of treasures around them. "One I knew you too simpleminded and materialistic to resist."
"That's rather unfair, isn't it? You were so keen to get in here you blew a hole in the door."
Megatron didn't answer, looking away sharply.
Starscream squinted, closing in. "What is it? What are you looking for?"
Megatron's gaze met his own for a glancing instant, "...I haven't found it yet."
"Perhaps I can help you look?" Starscream offered, thinking if he looked busy Megatron might not notice if he slipped a few priceless sceptres into his subspace. "What is it? A weapon? The deed to a planet?"
"Nothing so practical," Megatron murmured, considering a glass tiara in the nearest display case, so delicate it looked as though it would snap in half if he so much as picked it up.
"I doubt much of this would even fit over your armour," Starscream managed to make his honest observation sound like an insult, even as he stood and appreciated the generosity of Megatron's large frame.
Megatron sighed heatedly, "There is nothing here I want. I was seeking a gift. For another."
Green flashed across Starscream's vision, all playful humour dying in his tone. "Oh," he said quietly. "I see."
Oblivious, Megatron hummed, lifting a necklace from a bust. The silver chain looked like fine silk draped across such thick, blunt digits, the diamonds twinkling like distant stars. "What do you think of this?"
"Gaudy." Starscream lied, folding his arms angrily.
Megatron moved towards a pair of golden shoulder paldrons, "These?"
"Hideous," Starscream sniffed. "Oversized and clunky. Who are you picking this out for anyway? Soundwave? He couldn't pull off something like that. Few can wear gold with blue."
"Could you?" Megatron asked absently, still surveying the treasures.
"I can pull of anything," Starscream told him snottily. "I even make an old rustbucket like you look good, just by standing next to you. You're welcome by the way."
"Does it ever get tiresome?" Megatron asked, picking up a regal-looking crown, flipping it upside down to check the velvet cap lining. "Being so unpleasant all the time?"
"My unpleasantness is often justified," Starscream muttered through gritted teeth.
He turned away, finding the sight of Megatron too infuriating to stand, choosing instead to study the large tapestry behind him. It wasn't to his taste, so he sunk his claws in it and began to drag them down, shredding it to ribbons. "And what right do you have to complain? Being unpleasant is your natural state."
"Not always," Megatron sounded much closer behind him now. Starscream stilled in anticipation, waiting, frame held tensely as he felt the brush of bulky armour against his wings. He saw Megatron reach for his head in his peripheral and whatever he held glinted.
"I'm known to be pleasant, when it suits me."
Something heavy settled atop Starscream's head. His optics rolled upwards to see what, but the huge mirror to his left revealed it first. The crown.
Smug satisfaction warmed his tanks and puffed out his chest. He ran his fingers along the jewel entrusted arches supporting the sapphire top. He tipped his chin up to admire his profile, smiling to himself as Megatron inched closer to his neck, his large nose brushing a cluster of cables he had clear intentions of kissing, and Starscream had every intention of allowing him-
Until something glittered, and caught his optic.
"It is nice," he agreed, brushing Megatron away and pointing. "But that one is bigger."
Megatron's mouth twitched into a smirk. "I won't be baited into spoiling you."
Starscream let a wing drift back and brush his leader seductively, tipping his head back to look up at Megatron through dim and shuttered optics. "If you can't spoil me during palace ransack, when can you?"
Megatron appeared conflicted, but he gave in fairly quickly, leaving his side to fetch the larger crown. Starscream whipped the current one off his helm and tossed it carelessly away, knocking a few rubies loose and denting the silver arches when it hit the floor with a hollow clang.
Megatron returned bearing the new crown. He planted it atop Starscream's head with a noted lack of reverence. "There. Happy?"
Starscream's optics darted to one of the necklaces next.
"Almost," he purred.
The vault's high ceilings worked like an echo chamber, amplifying and firing back the racket of clattering, clinking metal and precious stone as bracelets and bangles and necklaces and chains bounced up and down against Starscream's armour, the shelve at his back rattling and shuddering noisily as Megatron drove him against it with an increasingly desperate pace. Starscream clutched at Megatron's shoulders, his fingers stacked with rings, as the fifth and final crown he had tried on slipped down over his optics.
He tightened his legs around Megatron's waist, paying no mind to the sword hilt digging into the underside of his thigh where it was strapped to Megatron's hip, nor the foul alien blood being smeared across armour.
Megatron buried his face against his neck and bit into the cables there to muffle the latest of increasingly desperate grunts. Starscream tipped his head back towards the ceiling at the sting, mouth falling open as tears of coolant steamed from his optics. He held his breath to draw out the throbs of pleasure swelling through his frame.
His silky cape had slipped off one shoulder, exposing more of him for Megatron to devour. Priceless marble statues were tumbling from the shelves around him, knocked over by their rough, quaking pace. The glass bracelets, too large for Starscream, had slipped his wrists and fallen to the floor around Megatron's big clumsy pedes to be trodden on and crushed. And he couldn't care less.
This was a far better celebration than what had been proposed by the Decepticon Morale Officer. No pompous ceremony. No sprawling crowd of ugly, useless subordinates clapping themselves on the back for doing the bare minimum. No barbaric display involving mounting helms on pikes or using entrails to embellish battle standards.
No, the time that would have been wasted making an unseemly show of their victory was being far better used defiling an ancestral vault and stealing the bounty of a ten-thousand year old fallen empire. This was their victory after all, just his and Megatron's. The work of weeks planning, of days fighting.
Starscream pushed Megatron away from his neck and caught him in a desperate kiss, opening his mouth and sweeping his tongue past his leader's lips. Megatron's pace faltered, his grip shifting on Starscream's aft as he hitched him up and tilted his helm to return it, tongues twining fluidly.
Their kiss was as messy and dirty as their fragging, as their fighting, as they were. The jewels and fabrics Megatron had begrudgingly dressed him in were now torn and dented and ruined. Their senseless destruction filled Starscream with a perverse sort of glee, that he had used them and destroyed them and thrown them aside like they were nothing. No one could enjoy them now. Having something and breaking it was always better than keeping it and risk having it taken away.
Megatron broke the kiss and hissed sharply against his audial, hips stilling in overload. Starscream stroked the back of his helmet, crooning soft nothings into his audial as he waited for Megatron's vents to even out. The fingers on his aft loosened, and after a pause, he was let down.
He knocked a diamond with his pede and kicked it away carelessly, leaning back against the shelve, not trusting himself to stand under his own power just yet. Megatron lingered over him, an arm braced against the shelve above his head, still venting hard as Starscream slipped the cape off his remaining shoulder and used the expensive silk to wipe himself down. He screwing it into a ball and threw it aside. The bracelets followed, then the rings-
"Wasteful," Megatron grunted.
"You called it tat," Starscream reminded him, plucking off the crown and flicking away. It bounced twice before rolling away on a wobbly path. "I'm not interested in taking any of this with me."
"Really," Megatron murmured exhaustively, pushing himself upright and turning away to readjust his armour. "Then what did you come here for?"
"To destroy it," Starscream yanked the necklace from his throat, snapping the chain and sending the diamonds scattering across the floor. "I don't want it. I don't want anyone else to have it either."
Megatron fixed him with a calculating look. Starscream didn't care for it. He sniffed and turned away, shedding the rest of his finery.
"...We'll burn the palace, before we leave." He heard Megatron speak.
"I expected as much," Starscream ambled towards the fusion cannon'd hole in the vault door. "Are you coming? They'll be executing the survivors soon. We won't want to miss out on that."
Megatron surveyed the carnage they were leaving in their wake. Starscream wondered at the distaste in his expression. Was it the decadence of it that he found unpleasant? How the Empress had stolen and hoarded so much treasure, only to keep it hidden, locked away in her vault?
Or was it Starscream's senseless destruction of it that had irked him.
"Megatron?" He prompted.
"The crown suited you," Megatron stated.
"It did, didn't it?" Starscream agreed, narrowing his optics at the back of Megatron's helm. "So you'll have to commission me another one just like it."
Megatron snapped out of his melancholy with a snort, turning away from the mess and following him out the vault. "So you can destroy that one too? I'd rather spend the credits on artillery."
"I'd rather you spend it on that too," Starscream smirked, letting Megatron barge past him and take the lead, conceding to his authority now that they were soon to rejoin the troops. He followed a half-step behind, watching the roll of a Megatron's powerful shoulders. He'd left scratches across them. Whoops.
With any luck no one would get too close a look at their commander before Megatron had a chance to slip away from the revelry for basic maintenance. No one else needed to know how'd they spent the penultimate moments of their battle.
They were supposed to be setting a good example after all.
Megatron stopped him just before they stepped out into the courtyard where their forces were resembling, catching him by the chin. Starscream blinked up at him, stunned, wondering if he was going to kiss him here of all places-
Then Megatron turned Starscream's head to the side to pluck a stray diamond from where it was nestled in his throat cabling. He flicked it away, releasing him. Starscream's disappointment swooped low in his tank.
"Shall we?" Megatron gesturing to the growing crowd of chanting Decepticons awaiting their return.
Starscream bowed mockingly low, sweeping out an arm to gesture him on, "After you, Mighty Megatron."
His antics earned him a derisive snort.
But before Megatron stepped out into the light, he wrapped a hand around Starscream's forearm, pulling him along with him to have him stand by his side when he unsheathed his sword and lifted it towards the sky in victory.