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“Starscream, now what is it?”
The seeker turned over a semi-blank pad in his digits before setting it rather roughly on the nightstand. “It’s been an hour and you’ve not returned.”
Ratchet made a yelp on the end of the line as he ducked down. “I’m- You know I’m busy. I’d be there if I could.”
Starscream grew more impatient at the realization his own dolor was driving him to sound a martyr. The knowledge the call was a fruitless errand wasn’t enough to make him stop. “But what am I to do here on my own? I’m famished.”
That was the third time that excuse had been passed around; Ratchet remembered himself being so restless once. “I know, I know,” he said blindly, his scalpel loudly unsheathing by the comm. “I won’t be out much longer.”
“But it’s been an hour,” Starscream reminded, servo skittering across the berth mat he sat upon. Ratchet had warned his compulsive scratching would one day puncture the cover on it. The SIC squinted as he considered it if he’d come home sooner over such an outburst.
Ratchet actually began to chuckle, his intake halting as his blade went through another vehicon. “Well, I’m out here battling the drones you deployed last cycle.”
Idly, the seeker stared into the ceiling, frame tiring of immobility. “Well I have to make it look as though I care, don’t I,” he said plainly.
Optimus lunged behind his medic, murmuring something Starscream wasn’t privy to. The commander kept his servo to his audial in the long silence that both preceded and followed the second conversation. Not that he had anything better to do.
“Starscream? Are you still there?”
“Of course I am. Unlike you I’m still reeling from you abandoning me.”
“You know where the dispenser is, you have my and Optimus’ permission to fuel,” he said, curbing the talk back to what he knew was merely bait.
Grouchily, the seeker curled back within the sheets. “But now I’m exhausted.”
Allspark, save him. “Then rest until-” Ratchet punched clear into a drone’s helm, one of the few that remained, “I get there.”
Arcee darted behind the team’s medic, thrusting herself up onto one of the mine’s support beams. She noticed his servo to his audial again. “Primus, tell your boyfriend we’re busy! When does he leave again?!” She swung around the pole and flung at full force into a mining bot foolish enough to draw his blaster.
Ratchet stood straighter, bladed left hand resting by his side. His exaggerated dismay at her comment went unseen by all parties but Optimus, who jogged passed him with a smile. “Ugh. Starscream?”
“Please come back.”
Ratchet’s mouth curved upwards at the neediness. “Soon, Starscream. We’re wrapping up.” The seeker was pressing a patience that Ratchet was far from known for having. Something in the way his own mind twisted the whiny, insufferable behavior into something entertaining to care for should have made him sick. Starscream was a customer that sure knew how to bend the medic to his whims.
Not that Ratchet was being purposefully inflexible.
Optimus signaled down at the end of a cavern. Something about another shaft in the area. Ratchet trotted off behind the front-flipping two-wheeler to investigate.
** ** **
When he returned as promised, the berth was in disarray and the patient: in the washracks. Starscream tended to overgroom in the absence of preferred company. Apparently Bumblebee coming in to check on the flier hadn’t turned into a distraction like Ratchet had hoped for him.
His fist rapped on the door to his personal bathroom. “Starscream?”
Over the wash, he’d be lucky to hear Ratchet yelling. Not surprisingly, the medic received zilch for an answer. So, Ratchet took his time to look mildly presentable. Starscream had never been bothered by his gruff appearance or chiseled pout, but he could at least tidy up the room and unload his subspace.
Some grime lined the containing unit inside him but he thought little of it. It wasn’t much other than oxidized iron and random sediments, the likes of which were fairly fresh. He’d clean it when the seeker finished, but he wasn’t opposed to waiting. He’d just have to make sure none sprinkled out when he and Starscream had one of their little romps.
The recollection made him blush; last cycle was the first occasion he let Starscream recharge directly atop him. After all his own complaining of how uncomfortable it must be for a patient, Starscream hadn’t relented, even if his spinal strut ached the following morning.
Ten minutes of giving his only two knick-knacks a dusting, Starscream sauntered out from the shower. However much water he’d wasted in his pity-party, Ratchet would bring up later. For now, the seeker seemed pleased at his presence and no problem could shatter that glass-thin emotion.
“Medic, you’re here,” he announced, coming forth from the steamy doorway.
Ratchet filled in the barbs for him, “And to think I’d given you up forever.”
Starscream picked up on it immediately, rolling with it just fine, “Precisely what I thought.” The flier lowered his agitated wings in the presence of his physician; he hadn’t felt riled up in several minutes but he wanted Ratchet to understand his fit had subsided.
The white mech watched the gray one sink back into the neatened covers. “Have you stayed in bed all day?” Ratchet inquired.
“I left after I recuperated from that paralyzing crick in my strut, I’ll have you know.” The seeker sounded indulged, presumably from remembering what he had traded in for it. “At least your pillows aren’t made of metal.”
Ratchet lost his prepared words as he watched his berthmate stretch.
His patient purred, “Your scout was a clever way for you to wake me, I must say. I should give you Autobots credit for provoking a dangerous Decepticon.”
Ratchet flicked off a discolored mark from his armor. He wasn’t sure what it was but he wouldn’t die tonight over tarnishing his seeker. Better yet, he should play it safe. “You should credit us with much more than that. Like dismantling your vehicon soldiers,” Ratchet told him cooly, making his way to the washracks.
Starscream straightened the cloth over his lap, looking at it for any annoying folds. “Ugh, I know. I informed Megatron that sturdier alloy would up their defense by seventy-nine percent, but he claims manufacturing would become expensive,” he griped. The rest he mumbled, “As if credits have some sort of play in this war. He’d only need to steal it.”
Ratchet was in and out in record time. The inside of his subspace itched with leftover bristles from his scrubber. Lazily hasty wasn’t the way to go, but he wanted some attention of his own tonight. Starscream was notoriously a night-owl, more so now he claimed than when aboard the Nemesis though he never claimed to do so on a night with morning shifts.
Ratchet knew he had lied. His thumb had stroked over the drained metal beneath his optics many times. Seekers were considered useless blind, Starscream had told him once. Ratchet knew tiredness never led to something so serious but the strain on his optics would certainly do some sort of damage over time. His extracurricular worry had stopped feeling alien many visits ago.
The air captain had spaced out in his berth, arms folded and shoulderplates raised as if he were reminding himself to complain about something during his ‘lengthy’ wait. Ratchet set his small drying cloth down somewhere the seeker wouldn’t complain about it. “Was there anything else you did while I was away?”
Starscream stared forward, “Other than moodily dialing you, no.” His optics finally darted to the medic, much to Ratchet’s relief. “Apologies if that disappoints you.”
When the jet’s optics moved off him again, Ratchet dove into the berth, “No, you’re still recovering. I’d be distraught at you getting up and, Primus forbid, walking.” It was thickly laden with sardonicism, the kind he knew Starscream was familiar with among his own cohorts, but Ratchet’s spin on it never made him complain.
Settling after providing Ratchet with his wide-frame’s needed space, Starscream retorted, “I did get up, you fool. And I cleaned your two belongings out of pure tedium before strolling throughout your poorly guarded base,” he said harmlessly.
Ratchet’s face reflected his pondering, “Wait, I cleaned those when I came in.”
Submerging himself in the berth further, the seeker eyed him, “Must be insanity creeping upon you.”
“Unlikely for that to have started until your arrivals here.”
“So you do despise your houseguests.”
“Only should they be more talkative than you,” Ratchet said, fingers brushing against his patient’s under the sheets.
“That reminds me,” the seeker began, claws reciprocating the contact, “Tell that two-wheeler of yours to cram it.” Ratchet fought hard to not laugh aloud at the unbelievably casual usage of what he thought would be on the list of ‘human phrases aboard the Nemesis; use, and offline.’
“I take it you heard the comment, then,” Ratchet said, unaffected by her brazenness after the previous three years.
“I could hear an insult if it were a bolt dropping in sludge five thousand kliks away.”
Ratchet pushed his helm closer to his guest, responding fondly, “I’m sure you could. But this reminds me to give you something.” The medic turned away, unable to cover the telling sound of his subspace as he removed the item in secret. Starscream picked at the angles of his back, servos falling away as his doctor rolled back over. “Here.”
Clinking quietly in Ratchet’s palm was smaller than a pebble to Cybertronians. It was a wavy, opaque rock, that much was clear. Light caught its rough, dirt-pitted edges anyway.
The seeker pinched it with his needle-esque talons. “… Is this mutated energon?” he asked seriously.
“No, no, it’s raw diamond. Humans dictate its value to be one of the highest among gemstones, if not the most from what I understand. I contacted Rafael upon finding it, and while he is no petrologist or jeweler, I believe it. Regardless of its uncut quality.”
Starscream’s face was fairly unreadable as he fingered at his gift. For a moment, Ratchet was convinced he’d toss it to the corner of the room as refuse. “Did your pet inquire as to the nature of your questioning such a find?”
“I… no. I claimed it was purely out of curiosity.” And it was at the beginning. Optimus agreed they’d been deep enough to see such minerals and gems that they themselves had documented no such uses for. Slinking closer to the other, Ratchet daringly drove his digit from Starscream’s vent, over his jaw, to his chin. “Though you should know they are renown for their beauty.”
Ratchet’s mounting fears ebbed as Starscream looked up to him with some level of determination he wasn’t sure why it was present. “May I kiss you for it?”
They’d only shared one or two, but Ratchet had become remarkably entranced by the idea of getting them. The Second was notably picky about most everything; to him he supposed that would naturally include recipients of romantic efforts. But Ratchet didn’t want the others to know if it ever reached that true level of intimacy. Arcee was the one most dangerously close in her efforts to annoy the team doctor, if only accidentally.
One day they’d notice he could no longer hide a flush at even the mention of it in breezy jabs. He’d undo himself before Starscream ever did.
Starscream’s mouth was warm as he pressed his lips to Ratchet’s. The medic was weary to open for him more than the microscopic amount he had, but he wasn’t keen on disrupting the flow of their exchange tonight. Last night he’d excepted more than he could ask for directly; tonight had to balance at least some of that.
Even if it made him anxious.
Starscream lingered close to his faceplate as he curled the small rock to him. On Cybertron had either been in a courting situation it would seem a last-minute attempt to salvage a forgotten rendezvous or creation date. Ratchet burrowed at the embarrassing connection he’d made to his own actions.
“If you’d allow me to, I’d like to laser-cut some of it. I think it would be a striking stone.”
The medic nuzzled his helm against Starscream’s red crest- if only, he told himself, to get his attention- and confirmed, “You may. I agree.”
“I’ll have to take it to the ship when I go next week. I’ll delude the mad doctor into letting me borrow his light stylus.”
Rendered still by the mention of Starscream’s departure, Ratchet joined in at the touching of the rock. He didn’t wish to talk, but he forced himself to, “I know it’s nothing to be coveted, but please do keep your optic on it. I don’t need Megatron breaking it for sport.”
The seeker’s wings tucked down, “You have my word, the brute won’t lay a finger on my prize.”
While Megatron’s active temper wasn’t reassuring, at least the seeker seemed confident. Then again he was confident about many things. Ratchet had no idea when the next chance would be for him to ask about the present’s whereabouts. Starscream hadn’t lied to him yet about anything other than the frequency of his naps, which weren’t as often as Ratchet dictated they be. The medic’s HUD inundated with medical notes he’d made about it a few cycles back about it as reminders but he wouldn’t send Starscream into another defensive tangent again. On medical matters, the seeker didn’t stand a chance against the ambulance’s rebuttals.
Ratchet turned out the light and nestled in, venting and reaching over Starscream haphazardly to shut the other off too. He wasn’t wasteful, but he didn’t like increasing the chance of his weight coming down on the brittle wings. It had happened once already and Ratchet wasn’t eager to relive the week-long ornery attitude that followed.
The medic felt a small clatter hit his audials as the seeker set down what he probably thought- in all his self-preserving coding- was some sort of pacification device, but Ratchet truly hoped he didn’t. What he did with the raw crystal would be the only telling answer regarding his feelings.
Starscream set his wings into a comfortable formation as his medic leaned over to lay the sheets over them in a cozy fashion. The flier’s optics were already offlined when Ratchet settled back, but he let himself stare at the seeker’s features under his azure optical lighting. After long enough, the older mech retreated to give the jet some room; after the incident of his overheating, Ratchet had promised not to burden him with his own output, even if that meant not “mistakenly” decreasing his recharge proximity in the hopes the seeker would make some sort of move on him. That game was his favorite.
“Good night, Autobot,” Starscream’s voice came in the dark, startling his berthmate.
“To you as well,” Ratchet said quietly.
He felt movement not a minute later as the flightframe huddled to him, helm tucking underneath the physician’s chin, and the old medic had never before found the idle murmur of an engine to lull him so completely.