The medibay’s waiting room had hosted plenty of visitors lately thanks to the possibility that they may have been exposed to a scraplet infestation. In Siren and Hosehead’s case, it may have been when the supposed carrier, Tailgate, had whizzed past them in the hall earlier.

“Where’s that guy who was walking right behind us?” Siren asked. “He’s going before me, but he’s still not here!”

“I dunno.” Hosehead shrugged. “There’s still a few minutes. And you don’t have to go all panic mode either, cause if he doesn’t show Ratchet will probably just switch you two around.”

"Excuse you! My panic mode is great, it's yours we have to worry about!"

Ratchet poked his head out from the inside as his previous patient left, ready for the first in this section of the lineup. “Hosehead?”

“Here!” He said, following him inside and leaving Siren to his own devices.

Siren sat, arms crossed, one leg on the other, in a space-consuming yet thoughtful pose, wondering as to the mystery mech’s whereabouts. Not that he got away from his desk much, but even then he knew that he rarely made public appearances, preferring to slink around in the shadows.

He could be getting up to anything. His life sounded like it was a cerebral action movie, which Siren had watched plenty of since joining the Lost Light. Something like that had to be more fun to live than to watch (but it probably didn’t help that a datapad with its dinky speakers in a well-lit room didn’t lend much to the cinematic experience, either). So far, Siren was more than a little disappointed that his time on the Lost Light had, for the most part, been him being in positions of needing rescue and babysitting the fire department’s office to take care of administrative duties and be present to operate the low-tech dispatch system. Had he stayed on Cybertron, he could have had the same job with much more freedom of movement, but space adventures were just so tempting. Long swathes of being confined were the trade-off for the glimpses of action he got—or, at least, that’s what he told himself.

Besides, Cybertron was a political nightmare. Trying to establish democracy after millions of years of stratocracy was no easy task. By comparison, the Lost Light with its straightforward mission and small population was preferable, even if it was no democracy.

At least, it had been before they were assigned their new co-captain...

Siren shook his head. Now was not the time to think about things like that. Instead, he let his imagination run off, picturing what sort of trouble that mysterious mech got into—he only had rumors to go off of, but it definitely sounded like something he’d want in on.

Lost in thought, Siren hadn’t noticed that the mech in question finally showed up and had taken a seat across from him. It as if he’d sprung from his thoughts. He couldn’t help but jump back in surprise. “You—?!”

“Me?” He asked, similarly startled by the sheer volume with which Siren questioned him. “What? Is there a problem?”

“No! Sorry! I was just wondering why you hadn’t shown up yet, and then you were suddenly there! Maybe try not sneaking up on people? You never know who’s easily startled!”

“Oh. Siren, is it? I'm Nightbeat, by the way—I figured you were just ignoring me, Siren. My entry was pretty obvious, I mean, we made eye contact and everything.”

“We did...?” Siren asked—knowing him, it was entirely possible. He was more than capable of intense focus in high-stakes situations, but if nothing was at risk, he had just never gotten the hang of forcing himself to be in the moment.

“Yeah. I take it you were off in the clouds, then. It’s okay, no harm, no foul, no need for small talk. It’s not like either of us wants to be here.”

What an impressive shutdown. Typically, Siren would have thought ending a conversation like that was more than a little rude. But this silence was strangely comfortable—Nightbeat’s confidence in existing how he saw fit eased the usually restless Siren on the other side of the room.

Nightbeat toyed with his communicator to pass the time. It was unclear what he was doing, but it sure didn’t seem like communicating. Siren could have taken his own out, but present company was infinitely more interesting, even if he didn’t want to talk. There was no doubt that Nightbeat could sense he was being stared at, but he didn’t care enough to intervene. Eventually, he finished his communicator business and the ever-exciting waiting room took most of his attention again. He flashed Siren a brief smile.

Caught off guard again, Siren gave an instinctive smile back. He got the feeling Nightbeat was messing with him by doing that but could understand that one had to make their own entertainment in a place like this.

“You’re a detective, right?” Siren asked. He hoped Nightbeat didn’t think he was forcing small talk—he was genuinely wondering.

“Got it in one, fire chief.”

“That’s so cool! What’ve you been looking into lately? You weren’t tailing me and Hosehead when you maybe got infected, were you?”

“As a matter of fact, I was. You didn’t hear it from me, but Ultra Magnus is onto you.”

Oh,no. Siren could practically feel his spark extinguish. The worst part is he couldn’t even be sure what the third-in-command had begun to suspect, between the break room pantry raids, the illicit Lost Light Insider subscription, and the mutiny...

“Kidding,” Nightbeat said, a touch of concern in his voice. “I was just on my way to an Internal Legal Affairs hearing.”

“Oh—good one!” Siren gave a still-uncomfortable laugh.

“And you and Hosehead must’ve been on your way from an incident. I think someone misjudged the shape of their helmet crest, got their head stuck in a vent, and needed your assistance?”

“Spot on! How’d you guess that?”

Siren expected Nightbeat to list off all the little clues that lead him to that conclusion, but there were no such clues. “You were shouting about how funny it was.”

Siren, again, gave a less-than comfortable laugh. He ought to try not airing everyone’s dirty laundry when there were detectives and undercover reporters afoot. At least he hadn’t named names—that time.

Hosehead was declared infestation-free and excused. Seeing that Nightbeat was present, Ratchet took him in. Hosehead sat back down next to Siren. “Oh, cool, he finally showed up. No wonder you’re not so freaked out any more. I heard you chatting—what’s his deal?”

“I wish I could tell you! He’s kinda hard to read. But he seems chill! He scared the crap out of me and I scared the crap out of him, but it was fine!”

“Well, that’s good. You made me knock over Ratchet’s scalpels, y’know. Most of that visit was him patching me up.”

“See, this is what I’m talking about—we’ve gotta work on that panic mode of yours.”

They kept chatting through the wait. It took a bit of effort, but Hosehead managed to steer the conversation away from the topic of Nightbeat, more conscientious than Siren that the very person he was trying to discuss could very well overhear them.

Nightbeat exited the medibay and left the waiting room with a subtle nod in the other two’s direction, to which Siren gave an enthusiastic salute back before shuffling off after Ratchet.

“Hey, doc,” Siren asked as Ratchet looked him over for the quick and standard check-up that preceded the exam he was actually there for. “You and Nightbeat know each other, right? From being high command’s go-tos? What can you tell me about him?”

“Sure do, and not much. Keeps to himself. Why? You got a job for him or something?”

“Something like that! Does he ever hang out at night? After my shift? You’d think, with the name and all!”

Ratchet finished with the actual check-up and moved on to pretending to check him for scraplets. “I don’t think he ‘hangs out’, really. Those little mysteries of his keep him busy.”

“Oh,” Siren nearly muttered as he realized how difficult it might be to get to know him better. He wished he hadn’t let him walk out without a word earlier. Despite living on the same ship, but they managed to live in completely different worlds. There was no telling how long he would have to wait before their paths crossed again, whether by coincidence or by force of will. The uncertainty was both exciting and excruciating.

“Siren. Siren!”

Siren snapped back to reality to the sight of Ratchet waving his hand in front of his face—by the look on his face, he had been for a while. “Yeah!”

“You’re good. Get out of here.” ✧