Chapter Text
As the cycle continued, lunch time finally came. Most miners didn’t eat breakfast as that would require waking up even earlier than the city lights that were still in night mode.
D-16 waited in line to pick up both his and Pax’s rations. His would get the standard cube that came rather chewy while Pax’s would be in its liquid state so that D-16 could mix in the nanites. Hopefully the impurities won’t upset Pax’s fuel tank.
Throughout the morning, it was just watching over an exhausted Orion Pax. He didn’t do much other than heavily vent and let out garbled words from coding. It had been a slow morning. Slow enough that D-16 got through watching the news and writing in his journal. D-16 would glance up at Pax and each time there would be nothing changed.
The background noise of the barracks was soothing to his audials, but it was missing the voice of the mech that he cherished most across from him. Without Pax’s usual conversation, it felt like lunch would never come. He was grateful for some quiet and not feeling like slag after several shifts, but it would have been better if Pax was just awake.
As the lunch line crawled forward, D-16 thought of what he would’ve been doing for the day. They would’ve met up with Elita-1 and the other miners at the train station to make it to their shift. Maybe, he would be bailing Pax out of trouble. They could have been talking about the latest strat ball stats over the sound of drills. Oh, and the Iacon 5000 will be coming soon this season. They could have entered the early betting pool! Not to mention… Wow, he just really, really missed Pax.
D-16 sighed as he picked up their energon and made his way back to Pax. He was just like how he left him. Time to rouse him again from his recharge.
“Pax? It’s time for you to refuel.” D-16 stood in front of him as Pax came online. D-16 mixed the nanites into energon, but he realized something.
Pax was still far too weak to hold himself up much less feed himself. Oh, ok. Guess I’m going to have to do that, too.
D-16 grabbed Pax’s chin between his digits with as much gentleness as he could muster before tipping the energon into Pax’s intake. He watched as Pax’s throat swallowed the energon. Embarrassed at staring, D-16 refocused on Pax’s faceplate. He had less condensation and the color of his frame seemed to be more vibrant than before.
There was a running joke that Pax had a face only Primus would love but D-16 would full-sparkedly disagree. It was handsome when the light glinted off of his cheekplates. His optics shown brighter than energon crystals. It was a lot better than when he was sick, D-16 swears .
It was a face that D-16 adores, but he hasn’t had the words to phrase it to Pax. Maybe another time when he isn’t slagging up his systems.
When Pax finished his cube, D-16 ate his own.
The cycles passed by like this. With each new cycle, Pax seemed to gain some of his strength back. He was able to feed and bathe himself around the third day. His venting seemed to be calmer the next, and he could hold conversation without too much static on the last cycle of the week.
When they visited Ratchet, he gave Pax a full bill of health.
“Thanks both of you for taking care of my aft.” Pax trilled.
“Oh, yeah sure, but D-16 was the one to be watching you this whole week. Anyways, you two head back now. I got to head out into the mines soon.” Ratchet waved them off.
As they walked to the barracks, Pax kept glancing over at D as though he wanted to say something.
“What Pax?” D-16 turned his helm with a slight nod of his helm.
Pax had that smirk on his face when he said, “Did you miss me?”
“Oh, yes. I definitely missed your quirked up ideas and your incessant talking points.” YEAH HE DID BUT HE COULDN’T JUST SAY THAT COULD HE?! Not to his best friend. He's just glad that Pax didn't seem to remember those forehelm kisses...
Pax laughed.
D-16 felt relief wash over him to hear it. Tomorrow they have another shift to survive, but they’ll survive it together.