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Knock Out’s office was quiet.
Starscream sat on the side with his arms crossed and staring at the alleged and unconscious patient that was hooked up to more machines than he liked to see and more monitors than he liked to notice. Damnit Soundwave, he cursed in his head.
Soundwave, however, didn’t stir from where he was laying and remained as he was. His frame was limp across the metal table, arms laid flat by his side, head still. Not even a twitch or sign of life. The scene of raw energon lingered. But Starscream didn’t dare to wipe it or move. He scanned the room and sighed instead.
He then put his head in his servos and groaned. The wounds he had suffered from fighting Optimus Prime and his Autobots earlier felt small in comparison. He felt small in comparison. He had gotten in the way, Starscream remembered with a shuffle of bitterness, forcing his tired frame to stand and stare at Soundwave.
Slowly, he took a few steps until his digits kissed the edge of the table and his faceplate hovered right over Soundwave’s cracked visor. “If you don’t wake up soon…” Starscream paused while whispering, “I’ll never forgive you for this betrayal of yours…”
His throat feels dry and scratched after, like he was forced to swallow shards of energon shards tainted with bad rust. But the only thing in front of him is Soundwave and the beeping of the machines that keep him around. Starscream glanced around the room and realized that the door was still unlocked and that he should take care of it quickly. No one was with them right now and no one should see what he was about to do.
He joined Soundwave on top of the table and carefully curled his frame around him like how Ravage used to whenever one of them was injured. He tried to even mimic the subtle purring of her engines and the warmth that would radiate from her core when she was curled on top Soundwave acting as his personal radiator of heat, but with his cold seeker frame, it was near impossible.
Yet, he tried anyway. It was a childish idea. Laughable, but he didn’t know what to do to express his thanks for Soundwave saving him when he could’ve left him. He didn’t have to open the space bridge near him and pull them both out of danger when he was already in an unstable enough condition from fighting Blaster, but he did and he had got them both to Knock Out in time before collapsing.
Starscream mused it was due to Megatron’s orders and dimmed his optics while lying there in Soundwave’s arms, servos awkward in where they shuffle and move. He wants to put them somewhere on Soundwave's frame, but gives up, and his spark aches each time he tries to grab onto the table. It doesn’t feel right. His servos want to hold Soundwave—even a sliver of him, but his mind doesn’t want him too.
However, the smell of rich polish carries him through those thoughts and into doing it. And gradually, he brought his servos from the cold metal table and towards the immobile frame that lay beneath him. The edge of his pointer digit touches Soundwave’s chevron. He traces it and looks down at Soundwave, recalling how they used to hold each other when he needed to nest.
“There’s this thing my trine, and I used to do whenever someone was injured,” Starscream said. “I always thought it was dumb and unnecessary, but they liked do it. Insisted we did it. No, Skywarp did. Thundercracker simply went with it like the snide twig he was. Metal to metal contact, they liked to call it. Weird, I know.”
Starscream wonders how long it’s been since he tried "metal to metal contact" with someone and how long since there was a significant change in Soundwave's vitals or a sight of hope that he would wake soon. Starscream frowns. It had already been a few cyber-weeks since Soundwave fell into his self-inflicted shut down protocols, but he had yet to awaken and report back like he always did.
He stares at Soundwave and sighs, debating if he should continue talking to his still companion's frame. “I'm sure you're also wondering who had the bright of idea of trying something so stupid. Well, someone read it in an old data pad…and it was probably Thundercracker who mentioned it first. You know him. How he is...was. He liked to read a lot in his free time. Well, not anymore. He can't do that anymore can he?”
Starscream laughed at his own bad joke and shifted his frame until his head was positioned near Soundwave’s chassis, desperate to fight the urge that stirs in him to go back and sit where he had been just moments ago—and wait for Soundwave to wake on his own or for Knock Out to return with good or bad news. But his lips act beyond him and they press against and to the space of Soundwave’s chassis where he once imagined a sparkling would attach one day, fly from.
Starscream turned his head and held his cheek into the caved in an open space before letting out a deep sigh. “Hurry and wake up you, idiot. You’re the only thing holding me down in this stupid war now. I need you.”
Something warm coils around Starscream’s frame. It wraps around him, squeezing everything but his tank—his gestational tank, of all things—but he’s too groggy and cloudy from recharging to question why. He considers it another strange dream.
Maybe an attempt from his sub-conscious to remind him of when he had laid with Soundwave during his nesting period. His mind always had something to think about when the nights got too lonely and he could do nothing but accept it.
He tried to roll over, imaging himself in his nest again despite the old thing being long gone and discarded. Nothing of it remained. But his frame was caught before he could slip away and he pulled back—he felt warm.
Did he finally wake up? Starscream asked himself. He tried to rub his optics and power them back on, but then something wrapped around his head and obscured his vision—Soundwave’s data cable. He laughed at his companion's childish trick, but raised his servo and tapped the slithering data cable until it removed itself from his faceplate.
“Awake?” Starscream asked hazily. “Or have you been messing with me the entire time?”
Soundwave responded to his question with a simple and quiet stare. His data cables wrapped and squeezed around Starscream again, minding where, and he leaned forward to connect their foreheads. Metal on metal. The clinking of it, as if to confirm what he had asked of him.
Starscream chuckled. “It seems you’re doing rather fine then and can attend to your duties per usual, let me get the Doctor and tell him you’re…” The data cables around him tightened and his optics softened. “Fine, I’ll tell him you’re awake later, Soundwave. But warm up by frame first. I'm still cold.”