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There was something almost titillating about being doted on— all the more so for being doted on by an Autobot, in any other context a hated enemy. Blurr bustling in the background, working at preparing an energon cube with his usual energetic flare, was a pleasant sight to the weary optic.
“Don’t trouble yourself,” Longarm said, faint even to his own audials. He waved a servo with the intent of dismissal, mildly unnerved by how they shook from cold and strain even at the slightest movement. All of his systems were running at a lowered capacity, some parts shut down entirely for repair while others worked double to accommodate for the loss, making him feel a terrible cold and unpleasant heats in randomly distributed pockets all along his frame. Decepticons had good general firewalls against insidious code, but these Autobot viruses had had millions of years of separate evolution to ferment into something particularly ruinous for an unprepared war frame’s internal defenses. “I can still do things for myself, you know.”
He said the words even though he knew very well Blurr would not be deterred by them. Shockwave expected Blurr to ignore them or wave them away; the racer’s bullheaded insistence upon caretaking was not only amusing, but stoked a small fondness for him that Shockwave had been developing in the deepest pit of his spark.
“We need you healed and running back at your normal capacity as quickly as possible, sir, and any additional strain on your systems will keep you from reaching your peak output, so I really don’t mind helping you out like this in the least,” Blurr, impudently bold as he could be when he was sure that someone else was wrong and he was right, darted across the room and pressed a servo to Longarm’s extended wrist, evidently feeling enough internally powered self-confidence to push it back down to the cushions.
Longarm exhaled an amused vent, the only acknowledgment he gave to Blurr’s tirade. Blurr’s optics swept up and down his form, seeking other problems to correct, but he turned back towards the counter and the cube when he found nothing but Longarm’s faint, eternally patient smile.
Shockwave folded his servos obediently over his stomach, deriving a strange pleasure from Blurr’s fumbling around and insinuating himself as the authority when that could not have been further from the truth. Longarm was, after all, a Prime, and a considerable deal higher up the ranks versus the agent (even if Blurr’s tenure at the Cybertronian Intelligence Agency had been longer)— not to mention the little secret that lurked beneath the stout prime’s plating, claws that could easily eviscerate an impetuous blue bot that dared to mouth off to him about not recharging enough or moving too much while he was infirm from Autobot pathogens.
“Aren’t you concerned that you might get sick, agent? That would be terrible for both of us.” Shockwave briefly allowed a new thread of imagination to fracture off from his main processor; Blurr’s wiry frame shivering desperately, so addled by the virus working through him that he would not mind the presence of an enormous warframe, desperate to nuzzle against the gargantuan heat conjured by ancient, less-efficient systems. Shockwave, immunity developed from this viral strain, would be incapable of keeping himself from pressing close in return, stroking him comfortingly through the Autobot’s irrepressible shivers, providing energon nourishment to a quasi-resisting fuel tank and a ravaged body by pressing a cube to slightly resisting lip-plates. Velocitronians, Shockwave knew, went through illnesses extremely quickly at the cost of intense periods of disability; they, in essence, froze or cooked out the invader to the point that their systems could barely manage to escape death themselves. Cybertronian war frames, by contrast, went through long periods of ever-so-slight misery as their systems slowly, methodically hunted and destroyed the infection.
“Sir, I think it’s more important for you to get better than to worry about me getting sick, as you very well know your position is much more important than mine and I have no field operations scheduled for at least the next few orbital cycles so all I’ll be missing is the routine desk duty and reports, and though I am sure we both are well aware that datawork is an integral part of our operations, sir, I will say I believe that interplanetary exploration and operations are far more tooled into my skillset,” Blurr said, tapping his digits lightly against the energon dispenser. He was impatient, as always. Shockwave loved that impatience, especially when it was over something like this— trying to make Longarm happy, irritation that the cube he was making for his boss was not finished steeping. “I had the routine antiviral code injections for this season, as well, I am sure that if I do catch it my symptoms will be very mild.”
“I can assure you that, in any form, you don’t want this,” Shockwave told him, internals in his chest suddenly squeezing, prompting a sharp welling of heat from within. His fans, insidiously, had been the most severely hijacked by this viral infection, making it harder to cool or draw in warmer air. He was wracked with a sudden cough, just to expel a little heat that was building in his fuel tank and keep any volatile substances from igniting. “Ugh.”
“I believe I will take my chances, sir.” Blurr turned around, holding the cube of energon carefully between his servos as he trotted over. It steamed in a way that was almost inviting but the unappetizing color- a wan shade of pink that indicated its lack of potency- and equally as unpleasant scent reflexively triggered a wince. It could be hard to recall facial expressions, to use them correctly when Shockwave was distracted. Repressing tells upon his countenance when they were not wanted, or conjuring them when they ought to appear, had been difficult at first- owing to his former empurata status and his newness to Autobot social cues- and making the right ones for the right circumstances or for the right length of time had been difficult while he was otherwise occupied. He’d had moments where one of the Autobot Council had told him he’d been vacuously smiling for ten cycles and it was a little creepy (he had forgotten to remove the expression), or seen a little reflection of hurt in Blurr’s optics when he’d laid an important data-file on his desk and expected a reflection of gratitude in his face (he had unconsciously intended to tilt up his sensory antlers in an acknowledgment of a job well done, but they were welded into the mouthguard of his disguise and he had forgotten that). “Here you are, sir, this is an old Velocitronian recipe that will take care of that infection in no time, I promise.”
A little feeling of nausea perked up at the mention of an old Velocitronian recipe. He could tell his tanks would not be keen on it. “...What did you say was in it, agent?”
“Well, I didn’t sir,” Blurr swayed slightly just when standing, like a metronome keeping time, though his sense of balance was such that the cube did not even slosh. His inability to sit still outside of vehicle mode was legendary at the agency. “Oral painpatches,” Shockwave had already switched off his own pain receptors the nanocycle he felt the symptoms coming on (something easy with a little Decepticon knowhow, but Autobots seemed remarkably unkeen on disabling their pain outside of a medical technician’s code injection; he was certain the vast majority of them didn’t even know how to disable their own sensory net) but the thought was appreciated, “nourishing minerals,” so vague as to mean anything, “and a little splash of sweetener.”
Blurr thrusted out the unappetizing cube, offering it to Longarm’s mouth. The wafting steam immediately loosened the energon-swollen capillaries in the delicate lining of his nasal ridge, and he had to hold a finger to the apertures to keep the abundant sickly coolant-lubricants from oozing into the offered drink. These nasal passages were, obviously, ones he did not have in his true form, and it half-irritated, half-embarrassed him to have them now. The gooeyness of a viral infection was an Autobot feature endowed by the form of Longarm, not a feature you commonly found in Decepticons; it was not just the physical manifestation of weakness, but a socially-spawned mechanism of caring, the visible display of illness to prompt comfort and show signs of physical impairment in a densely populated social species like the Autobot servant frames.
“I can do this myself, Blurr,” Longarm told him, optics dimming with amusement. Blurr started slightly, realizing his position, and quickly pressed the cube into Longarm’s servos rather than intimately leaning over him and tipping it into his mouth. The slight pinkish flush to the racer’s bluish-white facial plating made Shockwave purr with a sense of internal satisfaction. Seeing him flustered was always a treat, no matter how easy it was to get a rise out of him.
“Of course you can, sir, ha, I didn’t mean anything by it, I just want you to be better as soon as possible, we would be lost without your leadership at the agency,” Blurr’s forced laughter teetered the line between amusing for how simpering it sounded and painful to listen to for how obviously artificial it was. The racer’s servos briefly fluttered around, not knowing where they should be, but ended up folded over his front while he straightened out his spinal struts, in a proper and dignified military posture.
“At ease, agent,” Longarm said, fondness in the guise of amusement. Perhaps it was merely the illness rolling through his frame, the goopy misery making him overly sentimental, but he felt a little worm of affection curling through his spark. Blurr’s eagerness and desire to please, perhaps, cooling any irritation he might’ve developed over his condition. “Thank you very much for coming over to make sure I was alright, Blurr.”
He had a sip of the cube’s pallid concoction. The immediate undisguised grimace made Blurr squirm in discomfort, biting down the little malleable paneling of his lip.
“It’s good for you,” he offered. Shockwave’s response, and the response of his body, was to immediately force him through another round of shell-shaking coughing, and drooling more liquid out of his stuffed nasal passages as the heat intensified his symptoms. It was disgusting to wipe it away, but Blurr’s cute-faced wheedling kept his wrath at the indignity stemmed. “I promise you, sir, it will work because Velocitronians are very good about fast-acting medicine, you have to heal quickly when you’re a racer or else things get rather boring, bedbound infirmity means no races after all!”
Blurr pushed his little hands against Longarm’s broad, thick servos, an imploring look on his faceplate as he tipped the cube upward towards Longarm’s mouth.
Damn Blurr to the Pits, damn Shockwave’s treacherous Autobot-shaped frame for making him feel so terrible, and (though not seriously, as thinking it seriously was tantamount to treachery) damn Megatron for Shockwave having to live with these squishy caring social creatures…
Shockwave drank the whole cube at Blurr’s gentle insistence, feeling compelled by the reassuring pat of his little digits upon his plating and the pattering cadence of his voice. Blurr remained long enough to wash the cube out, and at his own insistence, do a partial clean of the Longarm’s hab. Shockwave did not miss the way his digits lingered- touching Longarm’s- when they passed the empty energon cube between them, or how he glanced furtively over (expression soft and adoring) when he thought Longarm’s optics were closed and he was resting (not considering the possibility of jeweled red spot on his forehead having its own visual capacity). Blurr lingered at the apartment door, clearly wanting to stay longer but finding no adequate social excuse to do so. Shockwave, sitting on his couch and vaguely missing him now that his excitable presence was gone, wished briefly he had asked him to stay.
Shockwave was partially grateful, partially furious, when he woke up completely void of symptoms the next day, and came up negative in an antiviral systems scan. Grateful, obviously, for not having to suffer the indignity of illness as a Prime (and a proud Decepticon warrior) but furious because he’d nursed this miserable cold for five long solar cycles before Blurr had insisted he come and help, and could’ve been rid of it far earlier. Regardless, he would have to thank Blurr for his assistance, somehow, in a way they’d both enjoy…
When Longarm heard a faint sneeze outside his office door two days later, he allowed a few titillating, work-inappropriate but plausibly deniable gestures of thank-you to come to mind.