Creativity in Restriction

Hook paced through the bunker, a smile on his face and a happy light in his optic band. He pried open a panel and ran a hand over the wiring. Hook sighed contentedly and purred, "Absolutely perfect."

Scrapper followed a pace behind him. He glanced at the wiring tiredly. They'd already done the checks twice, and the other Constructicons had already wandered off to the nearest oil house. What did Hook expect to see this time?

"Well, it is, you know," the engineer noted primly, looking a little hurt that Scrapper wasn't promptly agreeing with him.

For his part, the Constructicon foreman sighed and voiced, knowing full well the futility, "It's just a bunker, Hook. We build them all the time."

"This one, however, is particularly fabulous, and you know it," Hook insisted. He closed up the panel and smirked.

"It was a week late," Scrapper reminded sourly. Busy with Shockwave hashing out the details of the new Mark VI Guillotine-class cannons to replace the old Mark Vs that surrounded Darkmount, he'd delegated the simple task of bunker design and construction to Hook and trusted that he'd get it done. In retrospect, Scrapper probably should have put Long Haul in charge of that particular task. Sure, it'd be the most uninspired, formulaic bunker design ever, but it'd have been done on time. After all, if the project went overtime, Long Haul would just have to carry supplies around longer.

"And it was done right!" Hook snapped, optics flashing. His hands uncurled, and he added, a trifle calmer, "Honestly, would you hurry perfection?"

"First off, a bunker is the wrong place for perfection-" Hook squawked, protest ready on his lips. Scrapper continued as unstoppably as Devastator's first through one of Grapple's tin towers, "-and if it's a week late, it's not perfect. That said, we're done here. If you want to keep messing around here, you can, but I'm leaving."

"Hmph. If you're just going to go get all slagged up out of spite at my-"

"Did I say I was going drinking?" Scrapper asked airily, optic band glinting.

Hook's mouth opened and closed as whatever tirade he'd had in store for Scrapper was rendered irrelevant. He sighed and tilted his optic band upward. After a moment, he caved in and asked, "Well, then. Pray tell where, exactly, you intend to go?"

Scrapper waved vaguely, sketching out a skyline with a broad stroke of a hand, before answering, "Oh, I thought I'd go see what Hammer's been up to."

Hook now had a point to grab onto and seized it up with glee. He snorted derisively and scoffed, "Hammer is a pretentious little hack." Scrapper just looked at Hook for a moment before chuckling softly. The engineer looked cross and placed his hands on his hips. Then, he wagged a finger accusingly and insisted, "He is! He only has one style. The best that can be said of his work is that he's consistent."

Scrapper shrugged and headed for the lift. Construction was his trade, and it was good to see what others in the field were doing every now and then. Scrapper was genuinely interested in seeing some of Hammer's newer work.

Hook scrambled after Scrapper and touched a hand to his arm to slow him. When Scrapper turned to face Hook, his askew back shovel belying the question ready on his voicebox, Hook shrugged and explained, "I'm coming. You won't put that upstart in his proper place."

The Neo Vos Cathedral or Temple or Logic, as it was sometimes called, stood high, imposing, and, most importantly, unfinished. An Autobot attack had taken down the old one, much to the rage of the Autobot Logists, who still considered the cathedral sacred, for all that the Decepticons held it. Thus, the Decepticons had gone to work to build a new one, never ones to allow such insults for long. Scrapper could pick out a half-dozen ways to shatter this structure's dreams of completion right off the bat. Mostly, that was Bonecrusher speaking, but there was also the voice of experience and regret. How many of Scrapper's projects had been destroyed before they were even done? As such, he had taken to engineering structures that would stand up to a strike while they were yet unfinished, if at all viable. That Hammer did not spoke of his arrogance.

"A saboteur with a resonator could wreak ruin. Honestly, I don't know why that little fool considers himself in the same league as us," Hook noted, more amused than annoyed. Seeing a flaw in a competitor's work put him a good mood.

Had there been reasons why Scrapper did not go sightseeing often? Indeed, there had, and one of them was named Hook. The nominal leader of the Constructicons pushed past Grit and Stonecruncher, flashing his security clearance. Usually, his identity alone was enough to gain entrance to a site, but Hammer's crew, the Constructors, went out of the way to make life difficult for their perceived rivals, the Constructicons.

The vaulted ceilings lost in the dark were all classic Hammer. However, the squared corners and warm, bright colours were jarring, the copper and bronze bouncing light in odd direction, as if to focus it into cutting beams. Scrapper hadn't thought the tiny architect had it in him. He glanced back, suddenly feeling an absence. Grit had waylaid Hook and seemed determined to see every bit of clearance and identification that the surgeon had, right down to the serial numbers he'd been stamped with out of the factory. Scrapper chuckled and moved on, knowing that Hook would be along soon enough. If he had been really worried, he'd have come to Hook's aid immediately. Constructicons generally didn't let outsiders harass their own for long, but Scrapper knew that Hook could handle himself here and that this might be his only chance to get take in a bit of the cathedral without the picky engineer always over his shoulder.

The foyer led to the main auditorium, which was done in cooler colours but was perhaps a bit more brightly lit. The pews somewhat resembled assembly lines, and motifs lifted from factory drones patterned the walls. An underlying theme started to become clear.

Hammer himself knelt before the podium. He stood, disturbed by Scrapper's coming. Praying or planning, whatever Hammer had been doing was not to be observed by another. He turned to face Scrapper, titled his head upward, and drunk in the structured light. Voice cloying polite, he inquired, "Why Scrapper, I didn't know you were a Logist."

"I'm not," Scrapper replied, shrugging.

"Keeping tabs on the competition?" The question was simple enough on the surface, but it hid a trap.

Scrapper paused, mulling over how to avoid the concealed trap, and Hook came clanking into the auditorium, walking sacrilege and irreverence incarnate as he tramped heedlessly through this hallowed space.

Hammer's optic band flashed, taking Scrapper's lack of answer as admission of defeat and nodded to acknowledge Hook. "Oh. I see. I should have expected that where one is, another will follow." Unsaid but hanging in the air all the same was, Should I expect the rest of the clattering horde?

"And I shouldn't have expected anything new from you." Hook was openly sneering. Scrapper glanced at his teammate questioningly. "The bright colours in the foyer and the factory motif are all very cute, but you're up to your old tricks again. The light may be dished out in greater portions, but it's strictly controlled all the same."

Hammer turned away, again facing the podium. "And the emphasis on creation?"

Hook smirked, took a place next to Scrapper, and leaned on him as if he was an inanimate pillar. The Constructicon foreman grunted but didn't dislodge Hook; it would be poor form to quarrel in front of an outsider, especially one who was just dying to spot some weakness to exploit. Hook waved dismissively and said, "Right, right. The copper and bronze of the entrance connote a smelter. So the worshipper is melted down when he enters and in this auditorium," he gestured vaguely, "he is reconstructed by logic and sees the light. Hence a change from your usual oppressive darkness. I understand, and I'm sure the Logists will love it - insofar as they feel anything. However." Hook raised a finger like a gladiator raising a sword for the finishing strike. Hammer visibly braced himself. "The rationale behind that clever motif is the same as always. You're going for fear and control. The smelter that creates is the same smelter that destroys, and any machine that doesn't fear it is showing galling disrespect." Much as Hook himself was. "So they get a fright as they enter and lovely little logic soothes that scare away."

Hammer was shaking now, and he spun around, glaring at the two much larger mechanisms. He sliced a hand through the air, pointed at the nearest exit, and instructed hoarsely, "Leave this place."

Hook looked quite willing to stick around and eviscerate their 'host', but Scrapper grabbed him by his lifting arm and dragged him away before he taunted Hammer into shoving Hook into a real smelter. Once at the outskirts of the Temple of Logic, Scrapper released Hook and hissed, frustrated, "Can I take you anywhere?"

"Scrapper! That pint-sized drone doesn't deserve the time of day. His structures may be bearable, but he himself is not," Hook snapped, tapping his fingers along his arm.

"Just once, I'd like to be able to look at something without you chiming in about how flawed it is."

Hook snorted, "You see the broad strokes but miss the details. Sure, that cathedral looked different on the surface, but in the vaulted ceilings, the heavy-handed emphasis on fear, and the rigid control of light - pssh, typical Hammer."

"So what if it is? Creativity flourishes in restriction. Look at the row barracks. A dozen designers, a dozen styles, and they all look the same. Abstract art? It's all just throwing around materials right? But if you actually sit one down and force him to make something recognisable, then you have a decent result. There need to be limits and restrictions or else you can tin exhaust and call it art."

"Hmph. I think it's just that if you're Hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

"I suppose I should top up on energon," Hook noted, glancing around their common area.

Scrapper finished setting the electronic locks, sighed as he realised he'd likely just be heading out again, and said, "We could check up on the others."

"If they need to be checked on, they're not worth checking on," Hook noted primly, with the casual ruthlessness common to Decepticons.

Scrapper chuckled and glanced over at the storage cabinets. "Well..."

Hook tossed open the cabinets, rummaged through the cubes, picked one out, and considered it speculatively. "You have to be a bit down, too."

Scrapper undid the locks and asked, pretty sure of the answer, "You want to go out for something?"

"Oh, if you're offering, I don't see why not," Hook replied, rubbing up alongside Scrapper.

Scrapper grabbed the pest around the waist and growled, "I ought to take you to the Superior. You'd make an interesting trinket hanging off my arm there."

Hook looked startled but relaxed quickly in Scrapper's grip and cut back easily, "A trinket? Please."

Scrapper clutched his teammate a bit tighter and replied innocently, "That's what it'll look like. All the squadron leaders take their favourites there."

"You're not a squadron leader."

"And you're not my favourite," Scrapper chuckled and let Hook go. "I've still got the clearance to get in. It's clean, and the fare's better than the slop at the mess hall or anything in that cabinet."

Hook admitted slowly, "Sounds tempting, but I'm not going as some vapid ornament! That role would better suit you."

"Ah-ah, did I ever say vapid?" The mess hall, repackaged rations, and scummy bars must have been getting to Hook, Scrapper observed. He took Hook by the hand and led him off to the Superior.

Scrapper flashed his identification and excused, gesturing to Hook, "He's with me." The bouncer, as even the ritzier Decepticon restaurants tended to need them, nodded with a smirk and allowed them admittance. Hook looked a bit miffed at the bouncer's expression, but Scrapper hastily dragged him into the Superior before he could cause a scene. He glanced at Hook thoughtfully for a moment. If Scrapper despaired of Hook at times, the surgical engineer did do a keen job of keeping Scrapper sharp, much as he did his own surgical tools. Without Hook, there were so many things that would have never worried Scrapper! Now there was a thought to warm his igniter.

"What?" Hook asked, giving Scrapper a questioning look at his teammate's stare.

The foreman shook himself and excused, "Nothing. Let's sit over there."

He'd selected a cosy little booth a bit out of the way. The Seeker gaggles tended to get a bit noisy. Glancing over, he saw one who had four fawning over him. Slap wings on a robot, and he suddenly became the height of fashion. The theory didn't work so well when one was a payloader, he remembered ruefully.

Hook was studying the menu gravely, as if it was a list of hazardous materials. Between Mixmaster and the low-brow dives that the Constructions often frequented, he was perhaps justified in his suspicion. Hook looked up and said, "When will the serving droid be around?"

Scrapper couldn't help his snort. He leaned back, noting that the booth did not creak and that there was no mysterious stickiness and drawled, "There's a waitress."

Hook's optic band brightened. He glanced around appraisingly. "This place is rather more posh than usual. I don't see why you don't dine here more often."

"I drink with you all, that's why. Could you see Bonecrusher or Long Haul here? Mixmaster just makes a mess, Scavenger over-tips, and you..." Hook looked indignant. "...are a pest," Scrapper finished mischievously.

Luckily, the waitress arrived then, taking down Hook's hopes of a counterstrike. See, a solid foundation would have been handy there. As for the waitress, she was a solidly built refuelling plane with long wings folded away on her back. She sported an obvious purple symbol, denoting her as one of their kindred, rather than a serving slave. Hook had been correct in his assessment of the level of posh at the Superior.

The waitress looked from one Constructicon to the other, evidently unsure of which one to address first, as which technician ranked the other was unclear.

To complicate matters more, Hook spoke first, "Standard grade, light on the additives."

"High grade, with a turbochaser," Scrapper indicated.

Hook looked archly at Scrapper. "Any reason you need that much of a buzz?"

He folded his hands. "I would hope so."

Hook locked up this time. He was visibly pleased, but as always, found something on which to comment. "At least you only had one of those."

"I know my limits. All I wanted was a little extra pep, not a soporific drowse and shaky hands."

"Have a project in mind?" Hook busied himself tidying their table. No doubt Mixmaster would be complaining tomorrow about being unable to find anything.

"Always. Don't you have better things to do than sort tchotchkes?

Hook puts his hands on his hips and tilted his had to one side, crane arm twitching. "That was a nice meal, but don't think that I'm-"

"What? Going to go soft on me? Look, you don't have a single soft component in your system. You're all edges."

Hook smiled thinly and bowed ironically. Then with his customary haughtiness, he replied, "No. Don't think that I'm done with you. Sightseeing, drinks... are we not missing a critical step in this chain?"

"I must cave to your astute powers of observation" Scrapper answered, gentle sarcasm lacing his voice. "Over to a recharge berth?"

"Probably the best option. The lock on your office is faulty, and the workshop is a mess," the surgeon said with equal parts thought and disdain.

The Constructicons had been assigned six recharge berths, but all six rarely recharged at the same time, and they were just as inclined to nip off for a nap on one of the medical bay's berths as they were to return to their own quarters. So Mixmaster had taken one apart, and Scavenger had claimed the flat space of another to house part of his 'collection'. Luckily, the standard size recharge berth was built to accommodate a Seeker's length and width, including intakes and wings. So the more compact Constructicons had a quite generous amount of room, for all that Scavenger was looking to fill up a second berth with artefacts of dubious origin.

Scrapper pulled Hook down onto the nearest berth without preamble, knocking a set of handcuffs off the berth as he did. The surgeon sighed, as if he was much put upon by his partner, and settled himself on top of Scrapper. "Would it kill you to be a bit more romantic?"

"I took you out sightseeing and for drinks! What more do you want?" Scrapper lay back, trying to balance with the extra weight.

"Something a little less brusque than being shoved onto the berth?"

"Details, details," Scrapper dismissed, the words worn with time, and nuzzled Hook's face. Their argument was ages old, and the day it was resolved was the day one of them died.

"Sloppy," Hook hissed, unable to summon any real venom, and reached down to stroke Scrapper's shovel. For his part, Scrapper examined the swivel deck of his partner's alternate form. A course of action formed, and he struck. "Scrapper!" Hook cried, grimacing.

The structural engineer paused but did not withdraw the knife from Hook's swivel deck. Genuinely puzzled, he inquired, "What?"

"That cut is crooked." Hook scowled.

Scrapper eased the knife in a bit deeper, appreciating that Hook didn't even flinch. Working on a moving canvas was quite difficult. "Of course it is. I was going for a rustic, freehand style. If I wanted it to be straight, it would be."

"That is a weak, weak excuse, and you know it," Hook insisted, running a finger down Scrapper's faceplate. "I don't think you could carve a straight line if you programmed a surgical armature to do it for you."

Scrapper slid out the blade and tapped it scoldingly on Hook's crane arm. "I'm not going to let you bully me out of this."

"Perish the thought. I know how important your art is to you. However, I will not be party to slipshod craftsmanship."

"Can't you accept a variation in style?"

"Allow too many so-called variations in style, and you get tinned exhaust passed off as art. Besides, carving is unusual for you. Better not try anything too fancy."

Scrapper shifted the blade to Hook's crane arm but did not press the cutting edge into the metal. "I like to experiment now and then."

"You like to slack off now and then, you mean. What was it you said? 'Creativity flourishes in restriction.' I've set some restrictions. Let's see some creativity, shall we?"

Scrapper grunted with annoyance, flicked away the carving knife, and withdrew a blade more suited to Hook, a surgical scalpel. He studies his partner/raw materials, re-evaluating his options. "I think I can come up with something." He mulled over ideas, pondering recent events. "Yes, I think I've got it." Scrapper carefully slit a neat, shallow incision on the top panel of Hook's crane arm, calling on his medical talent rather than his artistic ones. "Satisfied now?"

"It'll have to do, I suppose."

"You're insatiable," Scrapper said, tone perfunctory, as he'd said it before, he'd say it again, and still they'd continue this dance. He scribed out his designs, quick with the scalpel from long eons of use.

"Always. Someone has to keep you striving." Hook smiled and kissed Scrapper, claiming the complaint as a badge of honour.

"Striving to keep you quiet," Scrapper sniped, finishing up with the designs on the crane arm.

"What are you doodling, anyway?" Hook asked, suddenly inquisitive. He wasn't just being petty and difficult. His actual interest made him all the more unbearable.

"Something you ought to find rather familiar." Scrapper moved on to the cabin, opting to leave the glass unmarred.

"Could you be any vaguer?"

"Would you like me to try?" Scrapper cut a crisp arc, connecting a pair of vertical lines.

"You're very trying as it is, my dear."

"I'd like to see how long it takes you to figure it out. Aren't you supposed to be the smart one?" A hyperbolic curve.

"Something abstract?" Hook hazarded, lips pursed.

"You wound me." A set of hash marks.

"And you wound me," was the wry reply.

The shallow cuts were naught but mere nicks. Scrapper didn't even cut through the armour to the machinery below. Hook had suffered far worse in battle and due to jobsite accidents. Still he was sensitive to tactile stimulation and the thousands of gouges added up. As he finished with Hook's back and moved on to his chest, Hook gasped quietly, his first indication of any pain. Scrapper did not pause. Acknowledging Hook's slip would only insult him. He wouldn't appreciate a respite from the tracery. Scrapper sighed happily as the designs took shape. Their back and forth verbal sparring continued intermittently, fading when Scrapper had to concentrate on a particularly tricky part and when Hook's optic band dimmed with growing hurt.

Hook patted his own back, fingers seeking out a pattern. He'd guessed a number of things already, none of them correct. Hook's problem was that he knew too much and saw too many connections. Between that and his arrogance, he went off on tangents based on the details that he perceived, completely missing the big picture. His lips pressed into a thin frown, and he said, "It's a bunker."

Scrapper caressed Hook's thigh with his blade and whispered, "Took you long enough."

"You picked a horribly generic design. It could have been anything."

"You don't recognise your own blueprints?"

Hook visibly blanched and sputtered, "Not drafted by your clumsy hand, no!"

"Shh, don't shudder so. You wouldn't want me to go crooked, would you?" Scrapper's optic band glinted wicked amusement as he etched in a doorway.

"You're as crooked as they come, you miscarriage of medicine."

"Perhaps I should carve your face next."

Hook gaped for a moment and was silent. Of course, Scrapper would carve his face anyway. Now, Hook simply postponed the inevitable. Walls, support struts, passageways, ductwork, and more were scribed onto his legs and later his arms, continuing the plans.

That delay consumed most of Hook's body, leaving only his head and hands untouched. Then Scrapper tapped the scalpel on Hook's nose and waited for the reaction. The surgeon slid an arm around Scrapper's neck and smiled faintly. Scrapper paused and studied the tensions. If Hook lost consciousness, those tensors would contract and snap Scrapper's neck. A trifle disappointed, he scolded, "Don't you trust me?"

"You won't put your neck on the line for your art?" Hook replied, challenge flashing in his optics.

"That's not the point here. If you don't trust your life in my hands-"

"What do you think I do every battle?" His grip didn't loosen. "You can't take what you dish out, can you? When have you ever put yourself at my mercy?"

"Offhand, there was that time when my lasercore got cracked, and-"

"Scrapper!"

There were reasons why Scrapper didn't much like other artists, and one of them was becoming evident now. Yes, they'd mock him for consorting romantically, but they would mock him more for placing his life above his art. Call Scrapper weak, but he figured he was a lot more useful to his art alive. Corpses made wonderful supplies, but they weren't very creative.

"Well?" Hook asked quietly, unable to keep the smugness of certain victory out of his voce.

Scrapper's reply was to incise a sewer line on Hook's nose. Necks could be replaced, but annoying partners were forever. The risk of injury was worth seeing Hook's optic band light up with surprise and momentary fear. The surgeon, now a vista of cosmetic surgeries, murmured, "I either need a better bluff or saner partners."

Scrapper didn't rub in this victory. That he had one over Hook at all was enough for now. Instead, Scrapper pressed in the scalpel and continued carving. The armour over Hook's lips was fairly thin, the better to allow him to evaluate his fuel before he imbibed it. Thus, despite Scrapper's careful attempts, he cut clean through the armour there. Hook's grip on Scrapper's neck tightened reflexively, and he said, self satisfied, "I knew you'd slip up."

"Mixmaster would be howling leaking murder right now," Scrapper observed, thankful for small mercies.

"Mixmaster would have got bored and left long before," Hook replied curtly, turning his head to give Scrapper better access to his helmet. For his part, the carver didn't have anything to say and instead took advantage of his canvas's compliance. That snippet of sewer aside, he'd mainly saved the security system for Hook's head.

Once that was complete, he put away his scalpel, and Hook took his arm from Scrapper's neck. Scrapper caught up Hook's hands in his own. Those hands were paradoxical pieces of engineering, strong as befitted someone who tossed around tonnes like nothing yet clever and deft as the surgeon that owned them. Scrapper's hands lacked the truly exquisite accuracy of his partner's, but they were stronger.

"Hand rub?" Hook asked hopefully.

"Not today." Scrapper let go of one of Hook's hands, snatched up a nearby pair of handcuffs, and clipped them around Hook's wrists, thereby freeing his own hands for other uses.

"I should have used those on you from the first," Hook said, narrowing his optics at the cuffs as if it was their fault he'd neglected to use them. With his free hand, Scrapper withdrew a surgical microlaser smaller than his little finger. Hook's carven lips trembled. "You wouldn't."

"Would you have me leave this job unfinished?" Appealing to Hook's sense of perfectionism was a surer way to cut him to his core than any blade, and so wounded, he could not help but surrender. Scrapper went for the backs of Hook's hands first, relatively less sensitive as they were. Hook still grimaced and gasped, finger twitching reflexively. So despite Scrapper's earlier comment, he ended up massaging Hook's hands to soothe out the nervous tensions and the sting of the microlaser. Once Hook was calmed enough that his twitches wouldn't disturb Scrapper's carving, he resumed with the microlaser and engraved Hook's palms.

Hook's head snapped back and his optic band flashed star-bright as an agonised moan escaped. Frantic and wild, he vainly tried to undo the cuffs and kicked at Scrapper's legs.

Instead, Scrapper grabbed the cuffs' chain and said, voice gentle as he could make it, "Hook... Hook? Look at me. Do you want me to cut your voluntary motor control? Keep thrashing like that, and I will."

Hook's optic band ceased its chaotic flickering to lock with Scrapper's own. He trembled still, but he'd stopped the larger tremors. With a shaky voice, Hook gasped, "No, no, no."

"So you'll behave when I do this?" Scrapper cut a section of electrical work into Hook's pinkie. The surgeon crumpled, optic band blinking out after a metal-tearing screech. With his free hand, Scrapper pried open one of Hook's panels and one of his own. He linked himself to his beloved victim and dragged him kicking and screaming back to consciousness, overriding Hook's emergency shutdown. The optic band brightened as consciousness was forcibly returned to Hook, its dull light barely filling the glass, but did not focus. Scrapper whispered, nuzzling the side of Hook's helmet, "You never behave."

Hook spasmed and croaked, "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why... why have..." Hook struggled with himself, clearly determined to form a complete sentence, "you stopped?"

Scrapper resisted a sniping comment about Hook's loss of consciousness and instead continued inscribing Hook's fingers, coping with his partner's convulsions as best as he could. When he went astray, Hook snarled, no longer capable of coherent criticism, which was perhaps the most telling of his agony of anything.

Several times, Scrapper had to deny again Hook his rightful unconsciousness. He could feel Hook's growing frustration mirror his own but kept such feelings out of his carving. Here the draftsman had his own plans drafted into his own armour. Here creation met its creator. Here pride was made to wear its cause. There was a beauty in that, and Scrapper would not sully it with his ephemeral ire.

With the last stroke of the microlaser, Scrapper allowed Hook to claim unconsciousness.

When Hook awoke, Scrapper was ready. He quickly poured a cube down Hook's mouth before he could protest. The surgeon was such a sight when he was groggy, his usual overbearing perfectionism forgotten. Moaning, he held his head and graced Scrapper with a singularly dirty look. Conversationally, Scrapper said, "Scavenger radioed in. They're going to be a while. Someone called Quake a treadhead, but Bonecrusher overheard and thought he meant him." He paused and sighed. "They're still looking for all of Long Haul's pieces."

Hook continued glaring scalpels and demanded, "What was in that cube?"

"Relax. Medical energon with an extra dose of supplements to help fill in those cuts and just enough anaesthetic to take off the sting - I know you don't like having your tactile senses dulled."

Hook growled and shoved Scrapper off the berth. Apparently satisfied by that simple revenge, he smiled and said softly, "I'm going to play all of this back to you a thousandfold when we combine."

Scrapper stood up, thinking that maybe he should have got a cube of medical energon for himself. He said gravely, mock-serious, "Hook, remind me why I love you?"

"What art critic," while Hook could claim the title of artist, master artist even, as any of the Constructicons could, he preferred to refer to himself as arguably the more dangerous creature, "would consent to being canvas for a cracked carver like you."

"I knew there had to be a reason."

"Although if you keep playing Mixmaster with my energon-"

Scrapper seized one of Hook's hands and stroked it, explaining, "You're still going to be plenty sensitive. In fact, what with the shiny new connections filling in, you're probably going to be hypersensitive for a while."

Hook collapsed on the berth with a whimper, this time of pleasure rather than pain. Scrapper let go of Hook's hand and reached over to tickle his crane arm. "The lead up is a killer, but I think the payoff is worth it."

The End