After the war ended, Starscream gave long, serious thought to the idea of suicide. Living, or rather anything that made living worth it, was just too hard. Too many lows and too few highs. Pleasure heavily outweighed by pain. Without a war to fight, Starscream failed to see the point of it all.
He tried a few things in his newly abundant free time, anything that seemed likely to give him enough pleasure or purpose to keep going. Some drugs he’d had before, and a few he hadn’t. Anything worth the hangover would eventually get too expensive, and then he’d be broke and addicted on top of it all. He starved himself dizzy and then ate himself sick. Lots of sensation, but not particularly exciting. Had sex for the first time in a few thousand years. Best not think too much about that one. Spent money, reframed, read half a dozen books, flew until he couldn’t anymore and then walked back to his apartment. None of it made life tolerable. Nothing made him feel anything except worse.
Well, that wasn’t true. At some point during the war, he’d gotten in the habit of picking off bits of his own paint. It started off innocently enough, just peeling loose edges between retouches, but since the war’s end, it had gotten worse. He peeled perfectly intact paint from himself increasingly frequently, in increasingly large swaths. It was almost subconscious at this point. It hurt. He liked it. When he wanted to go out, he had to repaint himself to hide the marks. He hadn’t been out of his apartment in days. He’d redone his legs yesterday just to give himself new paint to peel.
He was sitting on the floor of the washracks idly peeling that new coat off his thighs when he came to the conclusion that life was no longer worth living. It wasn’t a calm realization. He sobbed himself sick and screamed and swore and broke two fingers punching the wall. Then, he sat back down. A deep, still sort of calm had settled over him, a trance deepened with every repetition of the thought, I can just kill myself. It was liberating. I can just kill myself, and it’ll all be over.
He picked some more paint off his legs while he thought through his options. As exciting as the prospect was, this was an irreversible decision, not one to be taken lightly. He’d thought of it before, of course, and it had been heavy on his mind the past few weeks, but never with this much surety. He could do it. Right now, he could actually do it.
In the absence of anyone who would suffer from his death, he only real argument against suicide was the vague idea that someday things might get better. Hah. That might have been a more persuasive argument at the beginning of the war. As things stood, even if the distant future somehow held a glimmer of hope for him, the agony of the present was still too much to bear. He had made up his mind.
Choosing the method was even easier than making the decision. He cleaned his apartment, destroyed a few datafiles and personal items, gave himself one last polish, and sat back down on the washrack floor with all the syk and system suppressants he had on hand. He poured himself a glass of high grade and put on some nice music, and then considered writing a suicide note. The idea was so ridiculous he had to put his high grade down to keep from spilling it as he laughed. A suicide note? To who? Saying what? Who in the universe did he have to write a note to?
Well, that was the note taken care of, then. His affairs were in order, had been for about a week now. The apartment was clean. He looked presentable. His favorite song was playing. The syk and suppressants went down quickly, and the high grade burned nicely after them. Things began to get fuzzy around the edges.
He felt as though he’d been out for a long, hard flight and was about to settle down for a good recharge. The relief was so acute it nearly ached. He laid down on his back, smiled at the ceiling, and waited patiently for his optics to offline on their own.
He onlined curled up on his side in a pool of vomit. Self-repair active, his HUD cheerfully informed him. All systems operating within safe parameters.
He rolled onto his back and cried until he offlined again.