Tales of the Barn (and Base)

Story 9: Fever Dream

It started with a cough.

She brushed it off saying that it was the dust, and Starscream believed her.

Then came the headaches, and flushed red skin. Those, he shouldn't have brushed off.

It all came to ahead one day, when Nya just didn't leave her courters in the morning. Communal morning fueling, or breakfast, was a thing at the autobot base. Nya would always be at these with some toast and a glass of juice while the bots had energon, and she eventually got Starscream to join her in this tradition. Though it was easier for her to join in these as she usually woke up before hand and went on a run, while Starscream preferred to sleep in.

So, it was quite worrying when not only the air major wasn't present at breakfast, but no one had seen her around the base at all that day. Eventually they found her still in bed, her flesh flushed scarlet and far too warm. Nurse Darby was summoned right away.

Influenza. That's the illness that was inflicting the air major. Starscream was quick look up more information on the human disease. No longer fatal thanks to modern human medicine, but that didn't mean the sickness didn't have a horrid track record. Merely a hundred of earth planetary rotations ago, it was on of leading causes of death.

Thankfully, despite her conditions, Nya's prognosis was a good one. Though, Nurse Darby still wanted someone to keep an optic on her to make sure nothing happens. That's how Starscream found himself, sitting at her bedside in his holofrom. His false fingers running through her sweaty hair. He could feel the heat of the fever radiating off of her flushed skin.

He didn't mind doing this, Nya had helped him a number of time if he was injured or having trouble sleeping. It only made sense for him to return the favor when she was unwell. And it wasn't like she was a bad patient. She most just slept and was actually quite compliant with all of the things that Nurse Darby advised him to do. Though, she was adamant on using the rest room by herself.

It wasn't all that hard to care for her anyway. Administering her medication, keeping fluids in her and try to get her fever down was simple enough. The hard part was just watching and listening to her. The raspy wheezing as she struggled to vent with clogged up pipes was like a stabbing knife to his audio receptors.

He dipped the washcloth in the bowl of cool water next to her bed, and twisted it before returning it to its place on the air major's forehead. Starscream knew it would quickly become as warm as her skin in a moment, but he didn't have any type of ice to cool her down. It was inefficient in his opinion, but he did it anyway, as it lessened the pain in her expression. It was a small difference, but it was a difference not the less.

He rose from his seat and checked on the soup he was heating up in the nearby barrack's kitchen. The timer he had set still had a few breems left to go, so, he returned to her bedside. Her hair was down and with all of the tossing she did in her shut down it would certainly be all knotted up once she recovered.

Starscream knew that Nya loved her hair. She always took so much care in it, and her work wasn't for nothing. The dark brown fibers were always shiny, smooth and thick. It would surely disappoint her if she found them all tangled. So, after some searching, he managed to find where Nya kept her brush and scrunchies. Carefully, he turned her head and began to brush through the dark brown hair.

After thoroughly brushing, he began to try to braid it. Which turned out to be much more difficult than Starscream had previously thought. Honestly, he practically needed another servo to handle the three clumps he was trying to twist together. Just the fact that Nya was able to do this without looking, amazed him. He eventually had managed to make something that looked similar to Nya's braids, of course it was in no way as pretty or even, but it would stop her hair from knotting.