So this is like, my first work ever... I've always loved reading about this pairing, so I decided to try and make my own story about it! Please be nice considering I may not be as experienced as some other writers you've read works from, and any reviews, compliments or criticism, are very appreciated! Okay, have the story now :P

Two crimson optics stared blankly at the metal walls, not really finding anything of interest. Starscream sat in his chair, twiddling two of his claws together as he yet again refused to pay attention to whatever battle plan was being explained at that moment. This by no means meant that he didn't try his hardest to reach the deception cause. No one - save maybe Megatron, of course - believed in it more than he did. It was just that from vorn after vorn of speeches, the air commander generally saw how they would go. Same old tactics, which no matter how many suggestions Starscream kindly contributed, never seemed to change, same old speech of how the deceptions were to triumph any day now, which was technically true, but...

Sighing, the second in command changed his seating position to get a little more comfortable. At least this gave him time to think about other, more important things, whether it would be how he could make his own modifications to their strategy, or how his next scientific product could be improved. Though as of recently, there seemed to be one thought that cropped up into his mind more than the others. Or one mech, so to speak...

Starscream turned his head towards the mech in question. Megatron was currently delivering his words with as much enthusiasm as possible, though after the millionth delivery most mechs thought that his voice defied the very definition of enthusiasm. Starscream was not one of those mechs. He could probably stare all day at his leader, and marvel at his bright ruby optics, whether he was being praised or scolded. It was usually the latter, but still, that never put him off from the wonderful view he always had.

And as of recently, Starscream had begun to see why everyone else had flocked towards his every word. Sure, maybe they weren't as independent, clever, or absolutely witty as the air commander was, yet they still needed someone to guide them, and Starscream doubted that he could make such buffoons have such worth as Megatron did. Then again, one thing that did always puzzle him was why his advice, brilliant as it was, would be ignored every single time, when anything from other mechs would be gladly received, or at the very least politely declined. Not once could his processor ever record a time where he had been praised with a phrase such as "good idea", or even a "well done for trying" for his input. It was always "that's a ridiculous idea", or the timeless classic "try again in another million light years". Starscream often thought of correcting his leader to the fact that light years were technically a measurement of distance rather than time, but somehow he doubted that would bode well for him either. Thinking about these things just seemed to make the air commander feel depressed, an emotion that he was more familiar with than was healthy. In an attempt to get rid of these nasty feelings, Starscream leaned his head on one of the armrests, and slowly closed his optics just so he could...

Frag.

Instead of his usual stretch of waking up in his own berth, Starscream violently shot awake like a bullet. Frantically, he rummaged around to check his internal chronometer, to see how much valuable time he'd spent snoozing. Strange... It'd only been a matter of minutes that he'd been gone. From the view straight in front of him, no one seemed to be in the room anymore. Perhaps he'd got away with it; that'd be a nice stroke of good luck for a change. Thanking Primus that no one had spotted him or tried to draw a squiggly moustache with non-washable ink on his faceplates, he slowly pushed himself out of his seat to briefly stretch out his joints, before creeping towards the door in the hopes that no one would notice him-

"Ah, Starscream! Glad you finally decided to join us." The deep voice that rumbled behind him so suddenly made the seeker jump considerably, almost misbalancing on one of his thrusters upon landing. Preventing the frightened squeal from escaping his vocaliser, he spun on one heel to find Megatron himself leaning one elbow onto his chair casually, as if he'd been waiting for him to wake up all this time. He looked forward at his leader, who although didn't sound too amused, held a playful expression on himself. Starscream however, was too clever to fall for this charade, and knew that he was only offering the air commander a false sense of security.

"So tell me, my dear second, what exactly makes you think that recharging during a meeting would be a good idea?" Megatron said, taking long strides to bring the two mechs closer together than Starscream would have really liked.

"I wasn't recharging!" Starscream snapped back, though all aggression that he'd meant to place into those words only came out as fear that currently seemed to be overriding his systems at an alarmingly fast rate.

"Oh yes, just 'resting our optics'? Was that how you put it last time?" Megatron teased, now at much too close a distance for Starscream to even see anything else behind him, despite his quick shuffles back. After a few awkward seconds of silence, his head very painfully hit the wall behind him, allowing Megatron to bend down to his height and remain mere inches away from him.

"I was... I-I was...!" The air commander stuttered, unable to pick one of the dozens of poor excuses running through his processor that could possibly save himself from punishment. Instead of arguing back with words, Megatron took one of his large servos and lightly squeezed the tip of Starscream's wing, which although not too painful, was enough to draw a high pitched squeak from the seeker.

"Everyone else seems to be able to keep awake when I'm speaking..." Megatron murmured, his red optics practically burning into his second in command's, who currently eyed the floor to avoid meeting the stare. "Surely, given how much better you seem to think of yourself than them, you should be able to do the same?" He questioned, now running two fingers along the edges of Starscream's wings, causing him to tremble in fear, as well as some other emotion he didn't quite recognise. Not like he had any time to with his leader invading his personal space like this.

"Of course... Uhh, master." He hastened to add, feeling that a little bit of flattery might grant him safety. To his surprise, Megatron stood in thought for a moment, before replying "Good." His digits still travelled around Starscream's wings for what he deemed to be an unnecessarily long amount of time, before his leader finally let go, and turned to walk in the other direction, satisfied that he'd gotten his point across.

"Shouldn't you be getting on with something useful for a change?" Megatron asked in a nonchalant sort of way. Starscream nodded despite not being able to be seen, and as swiftly as he could skidded out into the corridor, leaving only the sliding sound of the door to accompany his commander.

Although Megatron seemed to feel relatively empty headed after the discussion, Starscream currently had a whole whirl of questions inside him, strangely occurring in both his processor and his spark. On the one hand, things had gone very well for the silver seeker. He'd been able to recharge off the less than interesting speech, and hadn't received any consequences for doing so. Yet on the other hand, he felt like it had been... Different from what he had expected. Instead of the violent poking, shoving or even hitting that Megatron usually dished out to him in plentiful supply when he did something wrong, the warlord had merely stared at him, and then had the nerve to touch the flier's wings like they belonged to him. True, it hadn't really felt too bad... But still, wings were a very sensitive and private area of a seeker, and to touch them so carelessly was very disrespectful. Though Megatron was far away from a stranger, Starscream still didn't feel fully comfortable with it.

And then there was the feeling in his spark. It was unlike anything he'd ever come across before. Some part of it felt all warm and tingly, like his whole frame was full of top quality energon. And yet, another part of it felt like it was thrown to the floor and cruelly trampled on many times over. Though he had experience on psychology, since Starscream made it his mission to learn about anything and everything science, he couldn't come up with a conclusion for what he felt. There was one theory which could be the answer, but... No, it was ridiculous. Starscream was absolutely sure there was no way a calculating and determined personality like his could never feel that way for someone. Then again... Some small part of him did feel better when he thought about Megatron... And then it felt absolutely horrible knowing that he would never be complemented like he wanted to be, or even noticed in some way.

Didn't Megatron see his obvious attempts to get attention when he purposely formulated plans that would fail to overthrow him? Wasn't it clear to him that no second in command would actually try and hurt their leader? But of course, no one else was smart enough to see what he was really planning. He couldn't even talk to some mechs because they were too afraid that Starscream would go after their jobs should they say something bad about him. And the seeker himself then had to act so obnoxiously or otherwise people would figure out what he was up to. And especially with slaggers like Soundwave in the deception ranks, he really did not want to see that happen.

About to head back to his own quarters and sulk like he usually did, Starscream was suddenly interrupted when a purple blob came out of nowhere and landed directly on him, resulting in the seeker sprawling all over the floor like some stupid sparkling unable to walk, with the mysterious purple object still pinning him down. It only took a few moments for the confusion to scatter from Starscream's processor, therefore figuring out exactly what currently sat on his back.

"Skywarp..." He growled through gritted teeth, desperately squirming under the weight of his fellow trine member.

"Hiya!" An overly active seeker replied, wriggling about uncomfortably just for good measure.

"Get... *huff*... OFF!" Starscream yelled in characteristic fashion, giving a powerful kick which sent the violet seeker sprawling along the ground and rolling to thud against a metal wall. In response, the purple jet rubbed his own helm tenderly with one servo, and shot a sad look at his attacker.

"You're always so mean to me, Screamer..." Skywarp whined, beginning to pick himself up before he was hoisted to his feet by a larger, blue seeker.

"Maybe you shouldn't teleport on top of him all the time then. It does get pretty annoying, you know." The newcomer added, gently nudging his friend along with a carefree servo. Skywarp glared at him and muttered something about not being fat unlike some mechs, but decided to drop it nonetheless. Starscream gave a subtle thumbs up to the seeker behind Skywarp's back, which was gratefully received with a gentle smile. The trio hadn't been walking for long before Starscream found that he needed to fill the silence with some conversation. His trine where some of the few mechs he actually enjoyed being around, after all, besides Skywarp when he'd stayed up past his recommended recharge time set by the blue seeker.

"So, Thundercracker..." He began, "how have things been with you? Managed to keep our dear Skywarp under control?" The purple seeker made a good attempt to clip Starscream on the wing for that comment, whilst Thundercracker simply laughed it off.

"Not too much has changed, I suppose." He said in an almost monotone voice. "When you have such a well behaved roommate, things can get pretty boring."

"It's a good thing you don't have one, then!" Starscream blurted out, unable to control himself. Thundercracker had to literally hold back a feisty Skywarp from tackling the sassy seeker, whilst try not to laugh at the same time. It really wasn't an easy task. Skywarp continued to struggle until a wicked thought came to his mind, and so he acted more obediently to be out down and trusted to walk on his own two pedes.

"Speaking of how things are..." Skywarp smiled sweetly, angling his pleasure particularly towards Starscream, "how goes things with you know who? Have you finally gotten Megatron-Senpai to notice you yet?" This time it was Starscream's turn to seethe with rage, though he could at least physically restrain himself better. He tried desperately to think of some sort of comeback that would help cover his embarrassment, and to his annoyance the flier failed to find a thing. He instead ground his dentas together so hard that sparks almost flew off from his mouth.

"Give him a break, Skywarp." Thundercracker intervened, now choosing to step between the two seekers to avoid any further conflict. "A little sparkling like you probably can't imagine what our Screamer is going through right now."

"But I'm older than him!" Skywarp pouted, his stuck out tongue really not helping to support his argument.

"Maybe you should act like it then." The blue mech replied firmly, turning away from Skywarp so that none of his looks, threatening or pleading would have an effect on him. Starscream had to hand it to him, Thundercracker was just about the only mech on the entire base who was able to deal with these childish antics the third trine member seemed to possess, as well as dealing with any real sparklings (who admittedly, could still be better than Skywarp on multiple occasions). Starscream was about to celebrate when he thought the topic was finally done and dusted, when the blue seeker seemed to think it would be a good idea to bring it up again.

"But speaking of which..." The blue seeker began, curiosity replacing the apathy in his voice, "what are you really going to do? You know this can't just be ignored."

"It has been, and it will continue to be until I'm over this silly little phase." Starscream huffed, refusing to see why everyone overreacted so much. They could have their little crushes, couldn't they? Why was it so awful for the flier to have his?

"You think this is just a phase?" Thundercracker questioned, and he would generally be intrigued by whatever answer he was given. It was strange that Starscream had developed such a large attraction to one mech over such a short period of time, yet he'd never had this remotely before. If he had, the seeker had at least been able to keep it to himself. The constant nattering and dreaming he did about Megatron didn't seem to fit into this category.

"I can't think what else it could be." He replied flatly. From being around the seeker so often, both Thundercracker and Skywarp could easily tell that he was lying through his teeth. And if it wasn't temporary, then the only other possibility was...

"Well, I'll just be off then, catch you two late-"

The seeker was cut off as two servos grabbed each of his arms and hoisted him away from his oh so comfortable quarters. How he longed to be able to escape there and be left to himself. Apparently, his trine did not see that idea with the same appeal.

"Come on, Starscream. We need to go get our rations, remember?" Skywarp teased as if he were almost enjoying this. "You can't get Senpai to notice you on an empty stomach!" A sharp knee to the abdomen from Starscream was enough to bring the purple mech to his knees, who frantically cycled in air as part of a recovery.

"That really hurt!" Skywarp wailed, looking as if he felt much too sorry for himself. Instead of picking him up, Thundercracker decided to just roll the purple ball along with one of his pedes, whilst it took even more effort to drag Starscream along when he desperately clung to any wall or banister in an attempt of escape. Life was always hard for the eldest trine member.

When they eventually arrived in the mess hall, Thundercracker plonked both siblings down at the nearest table, not really in the mood to put in the extra effort for reaching their normal seats. Skywarp sat next to him, still pouting like a spoilt sparkling. Starscream on the other hand, acted incredibly unlike himself. Swirling his energon cube unenthusiastically and staring at it with blank optics. Thundercracker felt a slight pang of regret at being the cause of such sorrow for the red and white seeker, though after remembering that it was for his own good, was able to begin the 'interrogation'.

"So, Starscream..." The blue flier started, deciding to go nice and simple and see the reaction he would get, "how do feel about your, uhh, attraction?" He said, making sure not to startle Starscream with any overly sensitive topics or sudden movement. This would of course eventually be disrupted by Skywarp, who looked even more restless than useful, but it would allow Thundercracker to sneak his way into the heart of this predicament.

"It's a burden." The second in command bluntly replied.

"A burden from what?" Thundercracker said, swirling his energon round in a gesture to get him to elaborate.

"Just… everything!" The seeker groaned, folding his arms out in front of him and slamming his helm dramatically onto them. "Whenever we're even in the same room, I can't work, sleep, argue, or just…" Starscream stopped whinging, apparently changing his mind on letting his problems out. Starscream had built up a very good reputation over the vorns for being strong-willed and tenacious, and no one was going to tear that down. Not even Megatron, though he certainly seemed to be trying very hard to do so in the flier's opinion.

"TC…" Skywarp murmured, ensuring that Starscream was out of audio range whilst he spoke, "you look like you have an idea…"

"Maybe, but it's not going to be easy."

So... How was it? And what is this brilliant plan of Thundercracker's?