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"No."
Optimus sighed hoarsely "Star, please."
"I am not letting you go out in that condition! Primus, look at yourself - you're basically melting!"
The Prime still pushed against the smaller mech who had been pressing his two servos (covered to the elbow in thick, clean gardening gloves) against his massive chest for the better part of the last half joor, in a futile attempt to prevent the workaholic truck-former on his quest to participate in yet another day of mundane and draining council meetings and bureaucracy.
Another sigh. "What would you have me do? They need me."
Starscream let out an angry huff, standing his ground. "Most certainly not while you are in such a state. You're barely standing on your own two pedes."
Optimus' two exhausted, dim optics shuttered. "I know. But it's better than nothing, surely. You've seen how hung up they can get on the smallest issues without someone they consider authority in the room."
Starscream's wings angled in a gesture Prime new signaled frustration. The push on his windshields loosened, before Starscream let them fall away to his sides entirely, a defeated expression on his dark face. "Fine", he muttered, "But you have to at least take a cold shower. You'll overheat like this."
Optimus smiled. "Of course."
They headed off to the washrooms together, Starscream's arm on Optimus back to help his tired gait. Upon reaching the doors though, Starscream all but shoved Optimus in, which elicited a surprised shout from the larger mech. He then shut the door behind the Prime immediately and locked it with a mechanical key which immediately overrode the commands Optimus could give the door to reopen.
“Starscream! What are you doing?!”
“Calling in sick for my stubborn conjunx obsessed with overworking himself”, the jet replied briskly, a communicator already in hand, and his comm on.
“Starscream!” Optimus yelled again, supplanting his complaints with desperate knocking on the door.
“Hello?” sounded Ironhide’s voice from the speaker Starscream deliberately turned on.
“Hiiii ‘Hide”, Starscream started in a sing-song tone, “Got some less-than excellent new for today. You see, Optimus managed to get himself sick. He’s coughing, bed-ridden, and can’t even get up, less so speak - to put it short - in no condition to participate in whatever your pretty little council is at today.”
“STOP.” Optimus banged on the door again, louder this time.
“Really?” the speaker on the other side of the line asked, always suspecting something on the Seeker's end.
“STARSCREAM.”
“Yes, really”, the Seeker hissed through his dentae, exasperated and already annoyed with Ironhide’s voice.
“I AM RIGHT HERE!”
“What are those sounds I keep hearing in the background?”
“Why haven’t I just told you? Terrible, terrible coughing. I can feel the foundations of our home trembling with their might. Now, will you please write him up as absent for today? You’re all grown mechs, I’m certain you can manage on your own without him.
“...Alright. I will. Goodbye, Starscream.”
A deep groan came from behind the washroom door.
Starscream made sure to plaster the widest grin known to any Cybertronian living or dead before unlocking and peeking open the door, theatrically turning his comm and communicator off with an audible “peep”. “Thank me later.”
Optimus hasn’t looked this done with him in millenia.
“Can you at least take those ridiculous gloves off?”
Starscream’s expression looked disgusted and insulted at the same time. “And get the germs you likely brought from the tech on that little dirt planet of yours? No thanks.”
The Prime couldn’t, or perhaps, didn’t bother to argue. He exited into the hall, back turned to Starscream. “They’re going to start another damned war in there.”
The Seeker shrugged. “Let them.” He circled around Optimus to face him again. “Now, as for you, get into berth and rest. I’ll bring you some warm energon. Or do you want me to call Ratchet next?”
The threat of his old medic shook Optimus down to his pedes, and he looked at Starscream with puppy-like, surrendering optics. “You wouldn’t.”
The jet pursed his lips. “What makes you think that? Now-” He pointed at the room. “Get under that blanket.”
Optimus chuckled cheekily. “Whatever you say, commander.”
Starscream returned to the room a few minutes later, warmed energon as promised in hand, to find Optimus laying on his back, the thick, red blanket pulled up almost to over his nasal vent. Starscream snickered at the silly sight.
“You know, this is kind of nice”, Optimus’ voice came muffled through the soft fabric. Starscream, for his part, sat on the edge and outstretched his still-gloved servo, offering a cube. “Told ya.”
The Prime sat up slightly, retracting his battlemask and accepting the drink. “You’re really not giving up on those gloves, are you?”
“Let me put it this way, had you not had an already built-in one, I’d be wearing a mask as well.”
Optimus snickered as he downed the cube before setting it aside on the cupboard and settling back under the warm blanket. “Delicious”, he smiled, raising up his arm to Starscream. “Come cuddle?”
The Seeker crossed his arms over his cockpit. “No.”
The Prime’s optics turned into two shining, appalled plates. “Why?”
“You’ll get me sick too!”
Optimus’ servo dropped heavy on the berth, and he turned away from his mate with an offended whine. “You are so mean to me.”
Starscream gave a lopsided, but sympathetic grin. “ I try my best.” He sent out a loud air-kiss, waving his arm, to his sick conjunx. “Now go rest. The sooner you get better, the sooner I can cuddle up to you again.”
That seemed a motive enough, the Prime making an affirmative mumble from his side of the berth. It didn’t even take a breem until his engine started gently purring as it does in recharge. Primus, Starscream sighed, that mech could be stubborn sometimes.
It was tempting, though, the thought of pressing next to that relaxed, warm body. Optimus essentially looked like one of those terrarian animals in “sleep” as they called it. The bulky, furry and brown masses of muscle and snouts that Starscream, for once, found endearing - bears, right? He felt himself relax on the edge of the berth as he watched the Prime recharge, knowing he had other business to do.
“Screw it. Who am I to deny any thought that crosses my sappy processor?” he whispered to himself, snuggling under the blanket and wrapping an arm around Optimus’ back, his servo (still fully gloved) warmed by the air cycling through his abdominal grille. He leaned his head comfortably just in between the truck’s neck and back, careful not to literally breathe down his sensitive cables. He’d get up in half a joor or so, and then he’d get back onto his own business. Optimus then won’t wake up to discover Starscream’s hypocrisy.
He’d regret that decision soon enough, as in a decacycle’s passing, Starscream was sick.