Title: The Difficulty in Letting Go

By: Ceris Malfoy

Summary: Five times Megatron forced Starscream to stay by his side, and the one time he didn't have to.

(In other words, the five times things are relatively cannon, and the one time the raging!fangirl said enough.)

Inspiration: A lot of Prime!verse fics, oddly enough. Apparently, fans love to angst the hell out of Megs/Screamer in that verse.

Continuity: G1/IDW

Disclaimer: Not mine.

"Possession isn't nine-tenths of the law. It's nine-tenths of the problem."

-John Lennon

"This is going nowhere," the seeker says to him one afternoon, looking out over the still-burning remnants of Kaon and Koth beyond it.

"What do you mean?" he asks, curious in spite of himself. The seeker before him is not the same one he recruited; Starscream had been a minor Lord down on his luck, half-feral from hunger and more than ready to tear the whole universe apart in his desire for revenge and the untamable need for more that burned so readily within his spark. Now, that bright and ruthless creature is quiet and thoughtful, cunning and patient and crueler than ever before. Dangerous now.

Starscream smiles at him, and the smile is slow and sweet, a smile meant only for Megatron. "The war, this relationship: take your pick. Both are meaningless in the long run; both are burning bright now, but both will become naught but ash and dust in the end." He sighs. "Most passions do, over time." He turns his crimson gaze back to the view, wings fluttering slightly. "I tire of it all, to tell the truth."

Megatron feels something not unlike hate, raw and ugly, gnaw away at his spark. He took Starscream as his lover fully intending on keeping this one at his side for as long as he lived; had forced himself to be patient and nurturing where he would have much preferred to simply throw the seeker on the nearest available flat surface and have his way with him. He did not appreciate being told in no-uncertain terms that it is all for naught. "You tire of me?" he asks, and though his voice is quiet, only a fool would miss the threat and promise that curls within like a predator, waiting only for the chance to strike.

Starscream sighs again, somber and quiet in a way Megatron has never seen him before. "You are nothing new to me, Megatron. I thought you were. I thought with you I could forget, for a moment, for a lifetime, the duty that even now beckons me away. But I cannot deny the pulling at my spark for much longer."

Megatron is silent when he moves, but no less strong, no less fierce. He grabs his seeker, pivots, and tosses the flier into the farthest wall. In the time it takes for Starscream to scramble to his pedes, Megatron is already across the room, growling in rage and hurt. Starscream does not make a sound when Megatron punches him, nor when he grabs a wing and with a violent, angry jerk of his large hand, tears it off. "You are going nowhere," he growls. "The only way you are leaving me is if you are dead."

Starscream merely stares at him, quiet and still, before he sighs again and falls to his knees. "As my Lord wishes," he says. But Megatron knows he is lying, knows that he will have to convince the seeker to stay many more times in the future. He knows, because Starscream betrays himself; there is a conniving light to those bright crimson optics, a sardonic lilt to his quiet voice, a strangely amused twist to those perfect lips.

Megatron also does not care. Starscream is here, now, and if he tries to leave again, well. He grips the seeker's other wing and clenches, hard. There are other ways to keep a seeker by one's side.