This fic is based in the Prime universe. I have not seen any season past season 1 but I do know that Breakdown at some point dies, so I figured I'd do my own take on it. This will be a romance, with a non-con scene on the first chapter and some character deaths throughout. I don't know how long it will be. I haven't written in a long while, so I hope I'm not too rusty.

Fanfiction key:

Eradicons are the flying drones and Vehicons are the ground drones.

In brackets and quotes are ["comm links"]

A meta-cycle is a year.

An orbital cycle is a month.

A solar cycle is a day.

A cycle is an hour.

A breem is ten minutes.

A klik is one minute.

A nano-klik is less than a minute.

Starscream stalked down the halls of the Nemesis, probably to meet his doom. He wasn't sure; he'd messed up bad this time, but Megatron always found him too useful to kill him. Whether it be sexually useful, or useful on the battlefield, or useful for his own sick violent entertainment, he had some use at the time that Megatron found too valuable to squash. But this time he'd caused the death of his medic's partner, as well as a very powerful and valuable officer, and Megatron will have no mercy. He might even kill him accidentally this time. He debated flying away, but the Eradicons would be after him in a sparkbeat, and if he ran the Vehicons would give chase. Escaping in a shuttle wasn't an option as none were functional; he'd checked a while ago, after a particularly hard beating.

Starscream sighed as he sat in the hall and recalled the incident that will probably lead him to his doom.

It was on their last energon raid, this time Megatron had gone mad and decided that heading under the Earth into an occupied human mine to fetch the energon the humans had stumbled upon, "kind enough to dig out for us" as Megatron had put it, was a good, safe idea. That big moron had obviously took one too many hits to his processor in his gladiator days, because he also thought it would be fine and the Autobots wouldn't go after them as they decimated the mine, the ores the miners had took, and of course, the human organic miners. Starscream had of course warned him repeatedly that he was walking into a deathtrap, but he threw him into a wall, which caused the wall to crack and collapse a large heap of rocks, effectively blocking their exit, which of course was Starscream's fault. The delay gave the Autobots time to find them and ground bridge into the mine, and as Megatron was so sure that wouldn't happen, he forwent bringing any drones at all, so it was only Decepticon officers against the Autobot troops.

Prime was calling orders to his troops as he fought Megatron, who couldn't possibly care less about his own officers. Arcee and Bumblebee fought Starscream as Soundwave and Knockout went crazy on the wall, and the star of this flashback, Breakdown, challenged Bulkhead, his rival. Bulkhead and Breakdown were heatedly fighting far past the time that Soundwave and Knockout had gotten past the wall and started gathering all the energon they could, and as such, were still fighting when they retreated. Starscream had yelled orders at them, stayed long enough dodging the little yellow scout, the femme, and the Prime, and even went as far as firing on them both just to get them to break apart so Breakdown could retreat and fight another day, and perhaps Starscream would be saved a beating. None of it worked, and firing on them only seemed to piss off the airheaded ball of retarded iron they called Bulkhead, who turned to throw a wrecking ball at Starscream, throwing him into the same place as before, causing another fault line to collapse, this time burying Breakdown under a pile of rubble. Starscream retreated, and a party had been sent out to find Breakdown later, only to find his spark chamber devoid of any signs of life. He was permanently offline. That's when Megatron sent a violent, furious comm message to Starscream, blaming him for the death of Knockout's assistant and a "mech far more valuable to the cause than you will ever be", and to report to him in the bridge immediately. He started moving immediately, but he wasn't about to fly off, afterburners on full power, to meet his end.

"Sulking, murderer?"

Starscream glanced up with little patience to see the face of Knockout, his pretty princess face burning with hate.

"Megatron demanded your presence more than a breem ago. He's going to slaughter everyone on this ship if you're not there within a nanoklik."

"Oh, excuse me for not wanting to race off to meet my death with open arms. Maybe I'll start my own army of Decepticons in the Pit, and when Megatron kills you out of his madness, I'll place you for housecleaning duty like a filthy, faceless drone."

That did it. Knockout was so furious his prod lit up like that Earth holiday Christmas, and he shook and creaked as half his joints and struts ached to race towards him and the other half held him back. "Go to Megatron before I stop your spark right here, myself."

Starscream gave him an "oh, I'm so scared" look before walking off down the hall to the bridge, where Megatron paced back and forth, livid and fuming.

"STARSCREAM! Have you become so useless and incompetent that you forgot how to walk down a hall!? Did you get lost on the way to the bridge!?"

When Starscream didn't answer, he backhanded him so hard the red spike on his head had flown across the room and embedded itself in a monitor screen, nearly having to go through Soundwave in the process. The wings on his back scraped so painfully on the floor he cried out as all the sensors ground against the metal beneath his weight.

"Because of your incompetent foolishness in distracting that filthy Autobot from Breakdown's personal battle, he is now offline! I hope you are proud of yourself! Breakdown was powerful and merciless, not such a cowering fool as you are! What do you have to say for yourself, you putrid pit-spawned coward!?"

The volume in Megatron's voice was causing everyone in the room to wince, and Starscream, being so close to him, was dazed before he could reply. "I-it was an accident, Master! I was trying to get him away from the Autobots so he would not be offlined by all of them!"

Whatever he had said sent Megatron into an even worse fury, causing him to land blow upon blow on Starscream, beating him to an inch of his life, tearing off plating and armor until he barely looked anything like himself. Starscream looked up at his lord, his superior, barely conscious, eyes and expression begging for his life to be spared, only to see his leader with the most sickening grin you could see on any mech.

"Knockout...keep him awake."

The medic walked over and attached a device to his head, usually used for torture, that keeps the person in question online, but at the same energy levels; awake, but unable to fight back.

Megatron tore off Starscream's interface hatch and laughed as Starscream begged and cried for mercy. "I want to have that pretty little port once more before I offline you, traitor..."

The room went silent as Megatron coaxed his own thick spike out and slammed himself home inside Starscream's dry port, causing the treasonous seeker to scream and beg for mercy, clawing weakly at the cold metal floor as his energon spilled from his wounds and Megatron's large spike tore through his most sensitive area, each thrust threatening to break Starscream's pelvis from the power of it. Thrust after thrust tore sensors and cables, searing pain emanating from his pelvis, Megatron's thick sharp claws tearing open his armor like a hot knife through butter, energon spilling and creating a pool underneath them as his claws tore at his thighs, his hips, his chest and back, the device Knockout had attached to him keeping him awake through all of it, long past when he would have offlined from the pain and torment. Finally, after four cycles of tearing and teasing and overloading, Megatron had finished with his toy, tossing him on the floor and leading his officers out for a meeting on who will replace the "late" Second in Command.

So this was it. This was the great Lord Starscream's final moments. Laying on the bridge room floor, publicly, spark and interface equipment showing (or what was left of it anyway), emergency power loss and offlining imminent warnings flashing desperately at him, in a pool of his own energon and his greatest enemy's transfluid. Perhaps it's not so bad, at least he got to see the tormented, horrified looks of the officer's last threads of trust to Megatron snapping before him as he was violated and viciously abused. Maybe that unicorn Knockout would overthrow him. It was Megatron's fault that Breakdown is dead, out of neglect and lack of care for any of his followers.

A light bathed Starscream as the bridge door slid open with a soft hiss. A single eradicon was standing there, staring at Starscream in horror and...pain? Why would a faceless drone be pained to see Starscream dying? Drones see others just like themselves offlined by at least a hundred every orbital cycle, sometimes every battle. What did Megatron do to Starscream to possibly set off a drone this way?