Medical Masters

[Nightbeat]

Month 1, Week 2, Day 3, Open to Autobots and Maximals

Muzzle is lying in a Maximal-sized recharging berth in the Event Horizon's medical bay. Since he does not, strictly speaking, recharge, some of the machinery has been removed from the berth and replaced with soft bedding, suitable for squishy organics. Nightbeat, idling in car mode, sits beside the bed, keeping his best friend/head company.

The Nebulan is going to be in here for a while, and he's not happy about it. Being a cyborg, he heals faster than a normal organic would, though he still can't be repaired as quickly as a robot. And seeing as how his hips are fractured in multiple places, there's not much he can do but wait it out, now that the breaks have been set.

[Blurr]

Haywire is probably the last person on the ship Muzzle wants to see right now, but he can't not visit his fellow Nebulan when the guy's down like this! Suited but without his helmet, he peers comically round the doorjamb after the door whooshes open; one presumes he's spotting for Muzzle's bed or at least for Nightbeat, who's certainly visible enough, parked beside his partner. He's also trying to check for any of the medics, just in case they're inclined to shoo him off as being too much for the recuperating Headmaster.

"Hey!" he calls, waving to Muzzle, once the coast looks clear. Tucked in the crook of one arm as he makes his way over is a vase holding a sprightly flower arrangement. Flowers are a perfectly appropriate get-well gift that Botanica couldn't possibly take offence to since they're artificial. "How're you doing? I mean, other than the obvious part. Obviously you're stuck in bed and not happy about it, but other than that." Inwardly, he grimaces.

Blurr, you're rubbing off on me again. An amused snort is all the answer he gets.

[Nightbeat]

Nightbeat calls "Hey," the voice emanating from somewhere around his dashboard, with Muzzle echoing a slightly groggy "Hey, kid," through his pain medication.

Normally he wouldn't say anything about the other Nebulan's greeting. It's only natural for -Master partners to have a bit of personality bleed-over after a while. Not everyone is lucky enough to get bonded to someone who's practically their robotic doppelganger. (Pity poor Quig.) However, some things just bear mentioning. "You better be careful, Haywire," the detective says with a cough, a grin cracking across his face. "You're starting to sound like Blurr."

[Blurr]

Undaunted, Haywire gives Muzzle a sheepish what can you do? sort of grin and pulls up a chair on the opposite side of the bed from Nightbeat, resting the vase on his thigh.

"Funny," he says, "I was just telling Blurr the same thing. So!" He looks from Muzzle to Nightbeat and back, giving them both a wide, sunny smile. "It's nice to know you can manage a grin. You know, I used to think you didn't know how to smile at all." But he shrugs that off and edges his chair a little closer, giving the other Nebulan a look that manages to fall somewhere between ingenuous and conspiratorial. "You've got me for a while," he declares. "Anything I can do to keep you cheered up?"

[Nightbeat]

Muzzle's grin vanishes when Haywire mentions it, quickly replaced by a hard-boiled scowl. "Of course I can smile! I smile all the time!" Of course, the forensic evidence, in the form of the lines on Muzzle's face, indicate that he frowns far more often than he smiles. Sometimes, though, a good detective has to fly in the face of the evidence and trust their gut.

He sighs. "Kid, unless you've been secretly pulling a Farlane since we met, about the best thing you can do for me is find me a bottle of single-malt and a pack of smokes. I'm down to one slug in me since the plant lady and her crew cut me off."

Nightbeat, for his part, makes no sign that he's heard any of this. It makes it easier to deny knowing about it later. He has to share Muzzle's withdrawal pains, after all.

[Blurr]

Much as Haywire protests being just a kid, he shows his age too often. Like now, when Muzzle's reference to Farlane flies over his head higher than a Seeker on a strafing run; he blinks and frowns a confused, uncomprehending little frown that makes it obvious what an ill fit on his face that expression is.

"Farlane?" he asks. He's only seen the very pink, very feminine carbot in passing. They haven't exactly chatted, though he recalls that Farlane looks rather flashy and sleek, like a dancer. Something like a few of the dancers in that club on Pz-Zazz, in fact, in their bustled costumes. His frown deepens as he considers this, and as bemusement slowly creeps into comprehension, Haywire looks more annoyed than anything else. He gives Muzzle an unimpressed, arched-brow look and adds sarcastically, "Very funny." His grip on the vase tightens perceptibly.

[Nightbeat]

Muzzle smiles weakly and sits up, then clutches his side and sinks back down onto the berth. "Hey, I gotta get my kicks where I can," he says, eying the vase.

"So how's life with Blurr?"

[Blurr]

"You know how it– hey, now, take it easy!" Haywire cries, setting the vase down beside his chair so he can fuss over Muzzle. "You wanna sit up? Hang on." He fumbles with the controls on the bed, running through everything but what he wants – legs elevated, whole thing tilted downward at the foot, tilted downward at the head– "Gah!" Haywire sounds strangled as he frantically mashes buttons to correct the problem. Finally, just the upper half tilts up. He slumps, heaving a relieved sigh.

[Nightbeat]

Muzzle makes various exclamations of discomfort as Haywire goes through the obligatory Adjusting The Hospital Bed sequence. Once the torment ends, he gives the younger Nebulan a pained look and surreptitiously hits the button that increases his painkiller drip.

"It's not as bad as it looks, really. The 'bots fixed me up pretty good. Woulda been worse if I didn't already have robot parts." The detective is silent for a moment. "Do yours ever itch? The implants, I mean."

[Blurr]

Now there's a question Haywire never expected to hear, right up there with the one about lapdances.

"Say what?" he blurts out with a deer in headlights look. "My implants? I… guess I never really thought about it, actually." Absently, he scratches the back of his head where an itch cropped up almost on cue. But that's just dried sweat in his hair; boy, does he need a shower. "Some of 'em do, every once in a while," he says. "Especially if I forget to wash properly. The worst is when the one along my left side fires up." He lifts his left arm and pats the armour over his ribs to point out the exact spot. "Scratching it is kind of tricky since," and he bites down on the words before he can admit he's ticklish right there, "it looks really awkward to stand there scratching my side, y'know?" Haywire punctuates that with an anxious chuckle, then looks at Nightbeat. "And how're you holding up, big guy?"

He can't imagine quite what a pain and inconvenience it must be; Blurr can get on fine if Haywire isn't attached to him, but without Muzzle, Nightbeat doesn't have a head! Then Haywire tries to imagine what life would be like if he was Blurr's Headmaster partner instead and he grimaces unconsciously at the thought of that stream of consciousness he's only caught snatches and bits of over the years running through his mind constantly. He adores his friend, certainly, but that's a little too much Blurr.

[Nightbeat]

Muzzle nods, commiserating. "Yeah, I had some kind of allergic reaction to something in Nightbeat's optics when they first put them in. Got a horrible rash in the middle of my back. I've gotten over it since, though. Doesn't really act up anymore." At the end of the day, having some of your insides replaced with gun parts is equally as weird as having them replaced with head parts.

"I'll be better once my worse half is up and about again. It's not enough I have to feel some of his pain, I have to listen to his whining, too," Nightbeat replies, the somewhat flippant voice again emanating from his dashboard.

"Eh, go soak your head," Muzzle shoots back.

[Blurr]

Haywire snickers, then turns a sly, boyish grin on Muzzle.

"You? Whining?" he cries, blatantly teasing. "Big, tough guy like you? No!" He picks up the vase again, surreptitiously checking for nearby medics as he does so. As though in apology for the ribbing, he tips the vase just enough as he sets it on the little shelf-table beside Muzzle's berth that the detective might spot what looks like the glint of a bottle cap among the flower stems. "Sorry," Haywire says aloud, "sorry. That was kinda low for me, I admit. But here. Hope the flowers cheer you up." And he sits back down with a perfectly ingenuous look on his face.

[Nightbeat]

"I don't whine!" Muzzle protests. "If people don't want to hear how I'm feeling, they shouldn't ask," he growls, shooting a dirty look across the room at the car.

To his credit, the detective's face doesn't even twitch when he catches a glance of the illicit cargo within the vase of flowers. "Oh, my favorite kind-" Damn, what's a kind of flower? Muzzle knows nothing about flowers. What was that flower that one thief kept leaving behind as a signature back on Nebulos. Curses. He can't remember through the haze of "-Morphinias. Those are my favorite flower. I'll just keep them right here beside the bed. Thank you."

[Blurr]

The relieved grin that threatens to split Haywire's face in half probably oughtn't look so genuine, but it comes easily to a guy as given over to sunny expressions as he.

"So I made a good guess! Whew!" He slumps backward in his chair and pretends to wipe sweat from his forehead. "I'd have brought some snacks, too," he adds with an apologetic grimace, hand over one eye, "but I didn't want a lecture about your restricted diet." That and he can't stand the acrid smoke, so he didn't really try very hard on that count in the first place. His hand still on his face, he looks at Nightbeat again. "Is there anything special I can get for you while I'm at it? Blurr's on watch… a lot," an understatement if ever there was one, "so I've got plenty of free time."

[Nightbeat]

If Haywire was a Headmaster instead of a Targetmaster, Nightbeat would ask to borrow him for a little while so he could go for a walk and stretch his legs without bumping into things and looking ridiculous. Sadly, he is not, and Nightbeat doesn't have the right kind of peg-holes to mount a gun on his neck anyway. "No thanks, I'm alright," he responds.

"Thanks ki- Haywire. I owe you one," Muzzle says, glancing at the door and pulling the bottle from the vase. Ah, single-malt. Excellent. He pulls off the top and is about to take a swig, but then he offers it to Haywire instead, tilting the bottle toward the younger Nebulan. "Want some?"