“Gonna be sick,” she warns Inferno as they pull into the hospital parking lot. “I’m sick.” She doesn’t mean it that way.
“I know, Red.”
“I don’t feel well.”
“I know, Red. Come on.” Inferno’s strong hands on her upper arms. Out of the car.
She sees herself in the window. Tangled hair. Unkempt. “That’s not me.”
“Yes, it is.”
“‘S not.” Inferno never believes her. “You never believe me.”
Walking across the parking lot. It’s dark, evening or early morning. She can’t tell which. Something in the pit of her stomach feels cold, and she swallows reflexively around it.
Lobby. Hospital lobby. Colors burst around the lit-up signs and Red Alert takes a moment to look her fill while Inferno speaks with the receptionist.
“...Happened before. She’s schizophrenic; I don’t know if she’s been—”
“I’ve been taking my meds.” They always think she’s stopped taking her meds.
“...Okay. I just. I need some help here.”
Drift has been… Ratchet wouldn’t call him delirious, but he hasn’t been doing well. He’s not fully lucid, hasn’t been for a few hours now. For once, Ratchet’s glad for Rodimus’s presence in the medbay. He hasn’t left Drift’s side since they arrived and Drift is clearly taking comfort from his presence. Drift hates being alone when he’s not well, and it kills Ratchet that he can’t call off his shift and dedicate himself to taking care of him. One of their agreements at the beginning of their relationship had been about not letting it interfere with their professional lives, and Ratchet isn’t about to break that over a painful but ultimately mild illness.
“Rodimus,” Ratchet scolds as he approaches their berth. “Stop warming him up. You know it’ll just hurt worse to cool him down again.”
Rodimus groans and pulls the thin sheet covering both of them up further over his helm and finials. “He’s cold, Ratch,” he whines, but already he’s bringing his internal temperature down. Rodimus using his ability to warm Drift up had played a large role in Drift’s earlier fever, and none of them want to repeat the agonizing process of bringing it down again. Right now, Drift’s sensory suite is registering most things as pain, and listening to him plead with Ratchet to stop bringing his fever down, that the coolant hurt, was not a particularly enjoyable experience.
“He’s not cold,” Ratchet says. “He’s a perfectly normal temperature. It’s his sensory suite that’s gone screwy.” Ratchet runs another general scan on Drift’s frame before attempting to rouse him. “Drift?” He doesn’t so much as twitch, staying loosely curled around Rodimus, forehead pressed to the top of his helm. Ratchet touches his shoulder as Rodimus starts extricating himself from Drift’s arms. “Hey, kid. You in there?”
Drift mumbles something into his pillow and reaches clumsily towards Rodimus’s retreating frame. “Huh?” His optics online, dim and unfocused. “Ratch…?”
“Welcome back to the land of the living.” If Ratchet pets Drift’s finial on his way to manually check his helm temperature, that’s no one’s business but his own. And Drift’s, considering the way he presses his helm into the touch. “How are you feeling?”
Drift offlines his optics again, dragging Rodimus back towards him. Rodimus goes without resisting. Even sick, Drift is much stronger than him, and moving his frame where Drift pleases is nearly unconscious. “Really tired,” he says into the pillow. “My legs hurt.”
“Give me a number out of ten.”
“...Seven?”
Ratchet frowns. The pain medication should have at least taken the edge off. Rodimus seems to come to the same conclusion, because his engine rumbles as he says, “Thought you were supposed to help, Doc.”
“Leave him alone, Roddy,” Drift chides. “It’s not his fault I’m all fragged up.”
“Rodimus is right,” Ratchet admits. “The meds should have at least dulled the pain by now.” Another symptom not responding to treatment. More and more, Ratchet’s favoring a psychosomatic cause over a Rust-related one.