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WHO: Starscream and Jetfire
WHERE: The washrack/energon pools under Solus' temple.
WHEN: Around now~
WHAT: Cleaning up after killing some monsters! Simple.
WARNINGS: None

He'd almost thought to postpone the suggestion when the monsters appeared. It seemed a bit... frivolous. But at the same time given that neither of them had managed to stay completely out of the graps of the creatures of clean as they died... And especially given Starscream's penchant to dive down and start tearing up the critters for... ah. Parts. "Trophies" as it were, he was certainly not clean.

So Jetfire had suggested, then added the fact that there were energon pools here... The only thing missing was better lighting, but you couldn't have everything, he supposed.

"... So, what are you going to do with all those parts this time?" Jetfire frowned down at Starscream's back, and then just stuck two fingers in between the back of Starscream's helm and the bottom of the nosecone and yanked out a tangled mess of circuits ans cables dripping with... something. He didn't really want to know, and simply tossed it away as he stepped into the nearest pool, optics flickering flightly as he also activated the abient absorption circuits for the first time in... Well. Millions of years.

While it'd taken a good while for the energon crisis to become bad, all frivolous use of energon was quickly cut down as the war started to build, even in the beginning.

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"Hey! Some warning next time," he called out as Jetfire thought to just yank some pieces off of him. Granted they were things that weren't supposed to be there and somehow got stuck on him.

Blasted insect things.

He huffed a glare in Jetfire's general direction before following to get into the same energon pool. Now this? This was one of the things Shockwave actually got right. Too bad the rest of his leadership left something to be desired.

"Eh. I just like to keep count of my kills. Does it matter what I do with them? They're dead so it's not like they need them anymore. Though if the whole taking things from dead things really bothers you that much, I could take a few limbs while they are still alive."

"You were standing still," Jetfire said calmly, not even bothering to turn around while he disconnected his wing and booster array. It'd only be in the way, and the liquid could end up in places it wasn't supposed to go.

Following Starscream getting into the pool with a dry stare as he sat down, Jetfire frowned as something on Starscream's frame seemed... off. Maybe it'd come to him.

"You taking them isn't really what bothers me, though if you could keep it to dead things I'd be... ah, grateful. Keep it from being torture." Another dry stare and a shake of Jetfire's helm as he leaned back against the edge. "It's more that you keep them, and what you do with them afterwards."

He'd been more uncomfortable at the idea of those disembodied pieces early on. Nowadays, it stirred a sense of exasperated acceptance, though the fact that Starscream felt the need to make something of said "kill counts" was still... distasteful.

He let himself sink down deeper into the pool. He really should have done this sooner. How much of a chance would they really have to indulge like this?

Starscream shrugged his shoulders at Jetfire's statement. At the start of the war he started taking trophies because it disturbed others. Having his kill count publicly displayed was an easy way to ingrain fear into his comrades.

"Why? Did you want one?"

Oh, he knew the answer, but it was far more enjoyable to poke at Jetfire's sensibilities and bother him about it. At least it wasn't like he kept half of his little collection at Jetfire's place anyway.

If he knew what Starscream was thinking, Jetfire would certainly have agreed about that this should've been done sooner. Not only was it pleasant, literally good for them, and, well, indulging in it, but there really was no way to imitate the sort of refuelling that could be done like this.

"... No." Jetfire frowned, allowing patience to be set aside for the moment even if it was simply playing into Starscream's hand as his nasal ridge twitched slightly at the thought. "As you well know. Simply because you've found greater use from a bad habit doesn't mean I'm going to help you indulge in it by giving you more reasons to take you... trophies, Starscream." Jetfire cocked his helm, frown smoothed out for an arch look while he slid slightly further down in his seat and leaned his elbows against the edge of the pool.

Starscream sank down deeper and leaned his back against the edge. For a brief moment, he almost wished he could just stay in the pool forever. Or maybe he was just absorbing too much energon. Oh well, he didn't care either way.

"What does it matter? They're dead. They don't need them. Why let their bodies go to waste?"

Though at least he wasn't like Shockwave and doing random experiments. Starscream wasn't that bad. No, he just craved little figures out of pieces and kept them on a shelf.

There was nothing wrong with that.

"That wasn't exactly the point I was after. There's other ways to use... corpses if there was an absolute need of it, which doesn't involve carving little statues or similar out of pieces from them," Jetfire said with a snort, but there was no vehemence in the words. It was, really, a harmless if not completely heathly practice, so he wouldn't go out of his way to argue about it.

Didn't mean he wasn't going to poke a bit about it, however, but that was all.

Despite the topic, a smile slid over Jetfire's face as Starscream relaxed into the energon, and briefly his processor dragged up a memory of the last time they'd done this together. The room had been more well-lit then, matched to the glow of the energon in the pools... he couldn't even remember what or why they'd been in one of the more high-end establishments, but there were a few reasons it could've been.

If he cared to drag up the audio and connect it to the visual memory he was focused on, he'd know, but it didn't matter. What Jetfire was more focused on at the moment was the similarity, and differences, between then and now, and Starscream's frame partly submerged in energon...

"... Starscream, why are your thighs not black?" That, Jetfire suddenly realised, was what had been nagging every now and then, and was the biggest difference in comparing the memory to the reality, besides the difference in frames due to changed altmode design.

Jetfire always had to ask the most inane questions. Starscream's head tilted downward as he just gave Jefire a look. Seriously? He picks now to ask about his color scheme?

Starscream hadn't really even thought about it himself, it was millions of years ago!

Still.

"I don't know. Why aren't you still asymmetrical?"

Jetfire used to have a scrawny waist and his nose cone on his arm and he looked all awkward. Not as awkward as say ... Shockwave, but still awkward enough.

He gave a small shrug after he finished talking and went back to enjoying the pools.

Well, they haven't seen each other for a few million years, and even if they've been around each other closely for over a year now, it wasn't until he had a similar imagine to draw from that the difference struck him.

So Jetfire just met Starscream's optics with his own, expression blank.

"Because it was easier to incorporate all pieces of my altmode into my actual frame when I added mass for the radiation shielding, though even before that I'd been considering designs to streamline and tie together everything a bit more coherently." distractedly brushing a hand down his front and down over the armour-glass of his cockpit, Jetfire tilted his helm.

"You would've preferred I'd keep my old design? And you didn't answer the question." Because he didn't really think 'I don't know' was adequate here. Just up and disappearing a bit of colour wasn't that easy, unless he was just continually painting it over, and Jetfire... doubted that.

He'd also have noticed that, as well.

"Blah, blah. You talk to much about insignificant things, who cares?"

Starscream shrugged before letting his arm drop into the energon, purposely hard in order to create a splash in Jetfire's direction. He didn't know why the Autobot was asking so many strange questions.

Really. It didn't even matter why he changed slightly. After all Jetfire went from having a scrawny waist to looking like a giant, white, brick.

"You often claim you don't," Jetfire said, eyeing the splash that mostly hit harmlessly just short of him, but drops spattered up against an arm and the lower parts of his chestplates.

And yet he ended up proving he still listened, which, Jetfire supposed, was the important point here. Even if those things sometimes ended up being used against him.

"Anything you'd prefer I talk about, instead?" Inquiring tilt of his helm, and he'd really been about to point out that Starscream shouldn't let himself get overcharged, but the Seeker was surely aware of the possibility and could, after all, take care of himself.

"You can talk about how you should build me a throne room," Starscream smirked and leaned back again.

He was halfway serious and halfway envisioning himself sitting within his own fortress on a glorious throne as he overlooked the entire universe in which he ruled.

In this daydream, Jetfire was probably off to the side bowing at his feet. Elita and Arcee were also there, of course. Megatron's head was stuck on a mantle.

As he thought about these things, he looked almost glazed over.

"I'm a scientist, Starscream, not an architect or a construction engineer." Shaking his helm, Jetfire dragged a hand down his faceplates and when it was done and he let it fall back into the water, he was confronted with Starscream's imagination-fuzzy expression.

Optics narrowing and tilting his helm, Jetfire settled back and looked up into the dark ceiling, only slivers of it visible due to pink and blue glow reflections from the pools under it.

"I have a feeling I don't want to know what you're thinking about. Be aware it most probably will never happen, whatever it is."

Starscream snapped out of his delusion and glanced at Jetfire. A small smirk crept up his features as he gave a light shrug.

"Oh, that's too bad. I think you would have enjoyed it."

No, not really, but he'd let Jetfire think that. And no he wasn't going to elaborate any more about his thoughts.

He would just sit there looking incredibly smug instead.

Edited 2013-02-12 05:20 (UTC)

Barely redirecting his glance down from watching the reflections in the ceiling, Jetfire stretched a leg out, scooted down some, and used the tip of his foot to poke Starscream in the nearest kneepad.

"I highly doubt that." It was hard not to smile at the smug expression, however, because that was, for better or worse, quintessentially Starscream.

"What am I going to do with you..." He shook his helm and settled back again, watching the faintly shifting reflections in the barely visible cables and metal sheets of the ceiling as the energon was stirred with their movements.

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