A/N: This story was started approximately one year ago, around early November. And while at the moment it's not quite complete, the fact that there are now nine days left until the end of the year was too good an opportunity to pass up. I need to get this one finished and moved out, and this seems like the best time to do so. This story will be updated daily until the end of the year.

Who better to start a series about phobias than good ol' Breakdown?

Breakdown

Ophthalmophobia: the fear of being stared at.

It was the eyes.

He didn't know why. Such a crippling weakness, and he didn't know what caused it. Why he was afraid, terrified of the eyes.

Staring at him. Judging him.

Breakdown had tried to rationalize his fear. It was unfounded, unwarranted, unreasonable. He realized this. In the small quiet places it was easy to recognize the fear as irrational. While he was safe and alone, the fear wasn't as great, and he wondered why the staring and the eyes bothered him at all. He was a Stunticon! Terror of the roads, destroyer of the Autobots! He deserved to be watched and envied and admired. While he was safe, he wasn't afraid of the eyes.

He couldn't be safe all of the time.

Outside, the stares followed him. Peeping out of air vents and lurking in shadowy corners. Optics, real and imaginary, watched him constantly, waiting for him to trip up and crack and live up to his designation. There was no escaping the stares in such a small and crowded base. No safe places to hide.

Sometimes he faltered, and the eyes got the best of him.

His team had tried to keep it a secret, but it wasn't something that could be hidden easily. Not when the very optics on a mech's face could send him spiraling into a panic, a panic that would attract more stares and drive his terror even higher in a vicious cycle. Eventually they slipped. The weakness was revealed, and the others latched onto it like the finest high grade. Scrabbling and clawing at the crack in the Stunticons' armor, trying their damnedest to force it open wider. To create new weak points and more fissures, more to exploit. They were Megatron's favorites after all, created by the warlord's very own servos, and plenty of bots would be more than happy to remove them from the bigger picture. To take them down a few notches. To break them down, crush them, grind them into powder.

Breakdown hated being the weakness.

Motormaster had tried to "help" him get over his terror. A weakness like his was insulting, infuriating. It had to be eliminated by any means necessary.

The stares hadn't gotten any less terrifying. Hook eventually tired of repairing him.

After Motormaster's failure his other teammates had offered their own dubious forms of aid. It was almost touching, how much they wanted to help.

Which was a lie. They were just tired of being picked on.

They had tried rewards and mantras and blindfolds. Nothing had worked. The staring still followed him, judging, laughing. Eventually they had given up, and he was left to fend for himself against the other 'Cons. Easy prey no matter where he went.

He didn't know why the staring bothered him so much. He wished he knew. That there was some reason or another, that he wasn't just glitched. That there was a cause for his shaking. For looking over his shoulder constantly. For never recharging completely because something could have crept into his quarters and stood over him in his defenseless state only to disappear as soon as he came online. For seizing up mid-battle just because some squishy inferior organic was staring at him and wouldn't stop and then Motormaster would come over to apply his therapy again.

There were eyes everywhere, and there was nothing he could do about it but find a safe place to hide. They were staring, and all he could do was cower.

Some fears were meant to be conquered.

Some were not.

And he would never escape the eyes.