Seattle

Rodimus rolled over, tan arms spread wide on the dirty mattress. It's not unusual to find him sleeping in, despite it being the ungodly hour of 11:46. The flagrant display laziness is almost enough to make him sick, just the lackadaisical way Rodimus coasts through the day (through life, really) is enough to get him riled.

"Rodimus, I refuse to repeat myself. You have fourteen minutes until midday and you have nothing to show for it,” Magnus snaps from the open doorway, hands busy with an iron and a crisp light blue button down. Rodimus groans loud enough for him to hear, he frowns, “Rodimus, I still have three more shirts to iron and steam clean. I cannot stop this process to come get you out of bed.”

“Twenty more minutes!” a dozy voice calls back, and he can hear the muffled sound of rustling sheets.

“In twenty minutes it will be 12:06 PM. That is unacceptable,” he replies firmly, methodically smoothing out any wrinkle in the cotton fabric with a knitted brow. One, two, three, four, five, six to the left. One, two, three, four, five, six to the right. One, two, three -

“Magnus, please. Waking up after 12 is actually fine with me, you know I don’t have work today,” Rodimus whined from the bedroom and Magnus frowned, recounting the six strokes before bothering to dignify that with a response.

“You are wasting time. Also you do not work,” Magnus doesn’t comment on the loud groan and subsequent sheet rustling that followed his words, instead he hangs the starched fabric and puts it on the short bar beside the stacked washer/dryer before reaching for another.

“That’s totally subjective, Drift says that helping the temple is rewarding enough,” Rodimus stretches in the doorway, dark red hair tousled from sleep. Magnus wrinkles his nose. The last thing he needs is a spat so early in the morning about Drift. Again.

“Make the bed,” he says instead, earning a snort and a smile from the smaller man.

“I’ll do it later, did you make food, I’m starved,” Rodimus waves him off, scratching at the exposed skin of his tan stomach. Magnus swallows disapproval at his state of undress, the man is far too comfortable with his own body. One, two, three, four, five, six.

“Breakfast was four hours ago,”

“But why? You don’t have’ta have breakfast every morning at 8 on the dot. Live on the edge a little Mags, try eating at 8:01 for once in your life,” Rodimus makes his way over to the fridge, bending to try and find something that tickled his fancy. Fickle thing.

“Unacceptable. Schedules are paramount and must be strictly adhered to,” something that Rodimus clearly had no respect for if the soft scoff was anything to go by.

“Ugh, Mags, you’re lucky I like a challenge,” Rodimus’ voice was a little muffled by the fridge door.

“Do not call me ‘Mags’,” his complaint is drowned by a loud, melodramatic groan.

“You seriously have nothing to eat in here, what am I supposed to do with this? There’s so much soy in this fridge, how do you even find something edible to eat?” Rodimus complains loudly, in his hand is a carton of almond milk as his other hand fishes around the back of the fridge for something ‘edible’ - direct quote, “that’s it, we’re going out.”

“Out?” Magnus hums, not really listening. One, two, three, four…

“Yes, get your coat and I’m putting on pants. We’re going to that cafe on the corner because I am a growing boy and fucking Tofurky is not on the menu. Chop chop, day’s a-wastin’.”

Magnus just hummed again before straightening.

“We are not going out. I have a sufficient amount of food here,”

“Maybe for a rabbit,” Rodimus laughed back, earning a deep frown, “Oh lighten up buttercup, you’ll have plenty of time to… iron or whatever when we get done. It’s my only day off this week.” Magnus frowned.

“You don’t work,” he snaps but Rodimus just smiles, sliding over to his room to put back on his jeans from yesterday - gross.

“I do it for the kids, man. Come on, pedal to the metal, I’ve got a craving only waffles can satisfy,”

“It is too late for breakfast to be served,”

“Did I say waffles? I meant a burger, let’s go, it’ll only take like ten minutes!” Magnus just sighed, glancing down at his half-ironed shirt in dismay before unplugging the iron. It would be a while before they got back.

***

“So when I walked back there were like two random guys there and I didn’t know what to do so I just joked and shit, turns out that they were homeless and hadn’t eaten in like, four days, so Drift and me took them over to McDonald’s at like 4 AM and just shovelled burgers for an hour. Apparently these guys had been some big shots over on the east coast but got busted by some lowbrow cop. Some sort of immigrant bullshit about papers or something. They were real cool, though,” Rodimus was rambling, one hand on their shared umbrella and in his other was a cup of coffee. Magnus had to hunch his shoulders to stay under and out of the cool rain.

“You remember I am a member of the law enforcement,” Magnus glances around them through the light afternoon drizzle. Cars were bustling through the narrow streets, eager to get to their lunch breaks or back to the office, and people were walking on the sidewalks and eating in the tiny, dim cafes lining the block.

“Yeah, but you’d be cool, right?”

“It is my duty to enforce the law, I would uphold all rules and regulations - ”

“So yeah you’d be fine if I asked. I mean, these guys can play the guitar like rockstars, it was awesome! I think their names were, uh, something… I don’t know. I think they were foreign,” he smiles into his coffee, taking a big swig between words. At least it’s not too cold out, Magnus can’t help but sigh as water soaked through the back of his jacket. No worse than usual for the time of year.

xxxxxx

Ultra Magnus’ alarm goes off at 5 am every morning, and Sunday is no exception. On the other side of the bed Rodimus groans quietly and rolls over, shoving a pillow over his head as Magnus gets up and heads over to change into proper workout attire. By the time Rodimus’ heavy mouth breathing starts back up again Magnus is already halfway out the front door for his morning run.

He’s less than surprised when he gets back to a dark apartment still being filled with quiet half-snoring into messy sheets. Magnus has time to stop for a quick drink of water, put on a kettle to boil, shower, change, drink his pressed coffee, and open the fridge to start breakfast before Rodimus moves enough to peel the dried, drool-stained cotton sheets of the left side of his face. Magnus can’t help but scoff at the flagrant display of laziness.

It’s already 6:47 for chrissake.

Frowning to himself, Magnus dumps some leftover spinach and veggies into the tofu scramble he’s currently frying up. He also pops some toast in and puts on another pot of water for the french press because even though putting Folgers into his nice press is absolutely barbaric, it’s the only coffee Rodimus will take.

It’s disgusting and his stomach withers at the thought of what all that processed junk has done to the man’s innards. It’s a miracle he’s even standing at all, Magnus supposes, if all the four AM McDonald’s runs are anything to go by. He forces himself to pay a bit more attention, scraping the bottom of the pan so it doesn’t burn and chances another glance to the clock. 6:57. Unacceptable.

“Rodimus!” he calls towards the open door, keeping a wary eye on the food, “Rodimus, get up! It’s nearly 7!”

There’s a quiet shuffling of blankets as the redhead apparently tries to pretend he can’t hear him. Magnus frowns harder.

“Rodimus, I cannot stop cooking to come get you out of bed. It is a process and I will not skip steps!”

This time there’s a loud groan but no words and for a moment Magnus is half tempted to walk in and flip the damn mattress anyway before finally he hears the telltale complaining of the old springs.

“Why has God forsaken me?” croaks Rodimus as he shuffles into the doorway, eyes bleary and a sheet wrapped around his naked shoulders. Magnus sputters and turns away.

“For the love of - put on some pants!” he demands but Rodimus just shuffles into the room towards the counter and collapses half on top of it, “What is wrong with you!”

That seems to wake up Rodimus, if only just a bit, “With me? What’s wrong with you! No one on this damn green mudball wakes up at fucking,” a pause to look at the clock and his eyes widen, “seven in the goddamn morning?! Magnus, what the hell?”

Magnus pointedly doesn’t look towards his mostly naked companion (the indecency!), opting to focus on stirring breakfast and digging into the fridge for some morning star strips of bacon, or what Rodimus has lovingly dubbed “fakon”. Honestly, Magnus doesn’t understand why because it all tastes about the same to him and really, this is much better for you instead of the greased soaked slabs of pork that Rodimus shovels.

Said redhead groaned loudly from the countertop he was half lying on.

“Mags, darling. My dude. Seriously. Why the hell am I awake at 7 am on a Sunday? Unless you’re telling me you’re renouncing vegan-cy and we’re going to an all you can eat meat buffet I seriously would rather be dead than awake right now,” Rodimus whined, voice pitched to be about as annoying as he could make it. Magnus rolled his eyes at the theatrics, focusing on reheating the strips so everything will finish up at the same time.

“Get the plates,” he says instead of correcting the name choice and assumption of veganism, but Rodimus doesn’t move, instead narrowing his eyes, looking like he’s had an idea. Uh oh.

“I will if you make me real bacon,” he offers and when Magnus looks like he’ll protest he pipes up, “Come on, I’ll even take it out of the container and throw it in the pan and shit, you seriously just gotta fry it!”

“Absolutely not,” Magnus wrinkles his nose at the thought of the grease it would leave on his pans but Rodimus has his mind set on it now.

“If you do I’ll totally forgive you for waking me up at an ungodly hour that shouldn’t even exist, hell, I’ll even throw in a blowjob for free,” Rodimus grins, already looking more awake and Magnus sighs, ignoring the blowjob comment.

Is it worth it to listen to the man act like an absolute child for the next few hours or does he even feel like dealing with that on his only day off this week? The choice is unfortunately obvious.

“I refuse to touch it,” he concedes finally, already reaching for a clean pan when Rodimus jumps up from the counter and skips his way to the fridge ass naked. The audacity! This is truly anarchy that he’s invited into his own home and there’s nothing he can do about it now short of changing his locks.

And God knows how well that worked the first time.

Switching out his pan of tofu scramble for the new pan Magnus backs up a few steps to give Rodimus and his gross pork strips a wide berth.

“You need to wear clothes if you’re going to be in the kitchen, have you any idea how unsanitary this is?” Magnus grumbles but Rodimus waves him off, already tearing through the saran film and pushing half the damn package onto the poor skillet. His frown deepens, he’s going to have to clean that twice.

Though, as disgusting as it is, he supposes it’s but a small casualty in the grand scheme of things. He much prefers two scrub and rinse cycles to Rodimus crowing all morning about his beauty rest.

“Clothes are for the weak,” Rodimus replies.

“For the weak…” It’s almost like speaking with an entirely different species. Magnus frowns and waits for the redhead to pick up the styrofoam tray of bacon he’d insisted on buying, “And what if there was a home invasion. Then what would you do?” he says it as dryly as possible but it’s either too early to pick up the sarcasm or Rodimus just doesn’t care because he laughs.

“Well, that’s why I’m sleeping over at a cop’s right?”