Advent Calender December 12
Even though a part of his back had already lost feeling due to the awkward way he was lying on it, Lightspeed stayed stubbornly still. He was hyperaware that any shifting or undue movement might provoke the horrid prickly, stinging feel of a rust rash halfway through repair. It had taken him several days to find a position that didn’t aggravate any of the remaining spots, and he didn’t want his hard work to be useless so soon after finding it.
This, of course, had its downsides as well, but the sheer relief at the simple comfort of being in an itchy-and-pain-free state helped hold back the boredom stemming from having processing capabilities better than most anyone else on the Ark, and having no way of exercising it. Even for someone who was constantly so low on energy they weren’t able to perform up to expected standards, this idleness was maddening, and still he didn’t even dare online his optics so he’d at least have the cracks in the ceiling to count. And recharge was out of the question. Cybertronians may not move very often in their defragmentation cycle, but that was when they were in a stable position to start with. He didn’t want to wake up frantically trying to scrape his armor off again. First Aid’s worry after the last few times was starting to make him feel guilty.
A sigh might have been warranted at about this time, if it weren’t for the nagging fear that running his systems any harder than they were would also lead to more unbearable discomfort.
He couldn’t have more than three days in medical, he told himself with as much patience - strained, flustered, and utterly false sounding even to his own mental audios - as he could muster. He wouldn’t go insane in just three days.
Maybe.
Lightspeed wondered how the search for some sort of fuel source that wouldn’t leave him in these sorts of conditions was coming along. His current state was the result of their most recent attempt. Obviously, it had failed. Quite spectacularly. Lightspeed was almost willing to say that this reaction was worse that his usual reaction, and he thought he should know. He was the one who had to put up with it every time he was forced to refuel. If he’d been anyone else, this might have been the point he started wondering if just starving to death might be the better option. (Ignoring that Scattershot had already displayed a disturbing willingness to get Nosecone to hold him down while he fed a fueling line down Lightspeed’s throat.)
(That hadn’t been pleasant.)
Especially not the part after, where they’d had to hold Lightspeed’s mouth closed as he tried to purge the energon, reaction hitting hard and fast. Lightspeed was only three weeks old and already it was becoming normal refueling procedure to have hands over his mouth, forcing him to swallow down the energon a second time when it inevitably tried to return. It wasn’t exactly a proficient way to refuel, and Lightspeed was always always well below normal functionality due to his lack of energy, but it was something. Better than nothing.
And there it was. Lightspeed could feel his thoughts slipping way from him. Idleness was apparently already taking its toll.
He again contemplated a sigh that he never set into motion, and tried to not think. Hopefully, in three days, their next attempt to give him a fuel source he could actually use would work. Hopefully.
He had a lot of time to dream.