The sound of a door clicking shut awoke the two sleeping coupes in an instant. With the both of them being trained agents for their respective countries, they'd learned to sleep lightly and remain alert to any sounds. Though their respective missions were now over, this didn't change their sleeping habits in the slightest. Before whoever entered the room had even made their presence known, Finn and Rod looked towards the entrance.

A small white forklift met their gaze; a cart of medical instruments and equipment beside them.

"Ah… Good morning. I didn't mean to startle you."

The forklift smiled kindly as he pushed the cart towards the two larger cars.

Finn relaxed on his suspension quickly, realizing this was just a nurse, and let out a yawn before returning the forklift's smile.

"Not a problem at all."

Rod lifted the right side of his mouth into a makeshift smile and nodded his hood slightly.

The forklift drove up to the equipment attached to Rod. He began inspecting the little screens, and checking the lines that led from the computers and into Rod's hood and trunk.

"Your voltage is still wavering a bit, but it's a remarkable improvement from yesterday morning, sir."

Rod again nodded his hood.

Finn simply rolled back and out of the forklift's way; watching him curiously do his job.

"Before I go further, may I ask how you're feeling this morning? Any discomfort or pain?" The Forklift asked kindly as he drove up to Rod's front; clipboard and pen ready for note taking.

Rod's glance jumped between the forklift and Finn, contemplating.

Finn took notice. Does he not want me to know something?

"Would you like me to step out for a moment, Rod?" Finn asked.

Rod's eye quickly shot over to Finn. He put another sideways smile on his bumper, though it was obvious to Finn that it was fake.

The forklift simply smiled and awaited Rod's response. He'd been Rod's primary nurse since he came in, and he gave the muscle car plenty of time to gather his thoughts knowing how traumatic this whole experience was for him.

Rod shook his hood slightly from side to side.

"...No.. No you can… Stay.." Rod then returned his attention to the nurse and took a breath. "...Yeah… still hurts.."

The forklift scribbled away on his board for a moment before glancing back up at the muscle car.

"Can you describe it for me?"

Rod drew in another breath and shut his eyes for a moment before opening them again.

"The dents…. Are sore…. engine stings… bad…"

Again the forklift wrote on his clipboard.

"That means it's time to put on some more solvent and check on things a little bit. I'm gonna need you to pop your hood, that okay?"

Rod again glanced towards Finn for a moment. He then released the hood latch, and bit his tongue. The damaged hinges stung as they were forced into action.

The forklift drove up close to Rod's front, placing a small ramp in front of the muscle car so he could look down into the engine bay. He drove up on it, and carefully slid his fork under the gap, and gently began to lift the hood up.

Rod shut his eye tight, and bit down again on his tongue. His hood screamed the hurt signals as hard as the muscle car thought they could; begging him to stop the movement. But he persisted, it would stop being such violent pain once his hood was propped in place.

Normally, Rod's hood had gas struts that would keep his hood open. He could pop his hood, and with a gentle upwards motion, engage the struts to lift it gently up, and a gentle downward movement would lower it back down into a closed position. This of course was yet another thing broken, and the nurse had to physically push the hood open, and secure it in place with two props. Both ends of the props had soft rubber tips, making it less irritating on the car they were used on. Rod was thankful for this, as the entire underside of his hood was incredibly sensitive right now.

Finn couldn't help but roll forward, and stretch high on his suspension to get a glance at what Rod's engine looked like. From what his vantage point allowed, Finn could see what remained of the muscle car's V8.

Rod's engine looked exactly like what had happened to it. It was blown to pieces, and had been pieced back together in a rush to set it properly so it could heal, even if just a little. The whole thing looked like an egg that had been pieced back together, and held with tape. Surprisingly, Finn noticed that it was not charred black like he'd expected. Instead, there were clearly silver colored pieces, and colorful bits of wiring. He assumed the wires were new, even a well maintained car rarely had such clean wiring, and the doctors had probably cleaned the engine of carbon build up.

The nurse reached over to his cart and grabbed a bottle with a slightly less than viscous liquid in it. He turned it upside down, and carefully began to squirt bits of it onto various parts of Rod's engine.

Finn could see the muscle car cringe slightly each time the liquid hit a new area, but quickly relaxed again as the soothing solvent eased the pain.

After squirting the fluid all across the engine bay, the nurse placed the bottle back on the cart. He carefully removed the two makeshift hood struts and gently brought Rod's hood back down, gently clicking it back into a fully closed position. He then drove back off the ramp, and looked up at the muscle car.

"That should soothe some of that discomfort under there. The repairs are looking good so far! Nothing of note to report, other than allowing some more time for things to bond together. But I see no misalignments, no infections, nothing to cause any alarm."

Rod nodded.

"I'd like to get you in for another fuel line cleaning. Hopefully get the rest of that gunk out of there." The forklift said as he jotted down notes on his clipboard.

Again, Rod nodded.

The nurse smiled and clicked his pen shut, placing it and the clipboard back onto the cart.

"I'll be back in a bit so we can start, do you want anything in the meantime?"

The muscle car shook his hood. He then gazed over at Finn who'd been quietly waiting diagonal to Rod's left.

"...Want food..?"

Finn's eyes stopped wandering, and he looked between Rod and the nurse.

"I'm alright for now. Thank you."

The forklift gave a curt nod himself, and then turned towards the silver coupe.

"No problem. Mister McMissle, I was asked to inform you that we're sending over a mobile workstation for you."

Finn looked at him questioningly.

"Ah, they must not have told you. My apologies. I'm with the Tokyo office; CIA."

The silver coupe relaxed again, and chuckled.

"You had me worried for a second. Thank you, and tell your higher ups I said thank you as well."

The forklift nodded.

"Not a problem, Mister McMissle. Consider it part of our thank you to you for keeping an eye on our loose cannon over here."

Rod rolled his eyes, though no one was looking at him to see it.

Finn smiled, returning the forklift's curt nod.

The nurse quickly gathered up his equipment and made for the door, he said nothing else as he exited. The two blue coupes sat and watched him leave.

As the door clicked quietly shut again, the two cars sat in silence for a few moments, wondering if the other would speak first. It would be Rod who caved.

"He's a… good guy… I… highly suggest him… if you… get banged up."

Finn chuckled.

"Come over… here…"

The British sports coupe's eyes trailed down to Rod's front right tire, which gestured for him to stand on that side instead. Finn quickly obliged, realizing he'd been standing in Rod's blind spot.

"Thanks… couldn't really… see you over there…" Rod let out a small chuckle at the end, trying to keep it all light hearted.

Finn smiled. He was still keeping unusually quiet.

"Not a… talker..?" Rod asked.

Finn cleared his throat.

"Sorry, chap. My mind is just racing a bit, I tend to get in my own head early in the morning."

Rod lightly nodded his hood.

"About…?"

Finn sighed, but then quickly started to grin.

"About all the paperwork. I've got a lot of reports to fill out with this whole mess."

Finn chuckled as he finished his statement. He never cared for the clerical side of his job that came up at the end of missions, hence his desire to be a field agent. He wondered how Holley managed to just sit at a desk most of the time doing the part of his job he dreaded the most all day every working day.

Rod gave a crooked grin.

"I have… other cars for that… we don't… do the filing… ourselves…"

Finn raised an eyelid curiously.

"Oh? You guys don't have to fill out field reports?"

Rod shook his hood.

"...No. We… dictate our statuses… as we go… or when we can… to the office…. Fill that stuff… out in… real… real…"

Rod began to pant a bit heavily, he needed to catch his breath.

Finn looked down at his hood and bit his lip uncomfortably, thinking of what to do.

Luckily, Rod caught himself quickly. And returned his gaze to the British coupe.

"..Might have to… work on that… a bit.."

The muscle car gave a small grin, and chuckled lightly.

Internally, Rod wanted to scream of course. This struggling to talk bullshit was getting on his nerves. But he didn't want to snap at Finn or drive him off. Being alone again to just sit in this room all day sounded like hell.

Finn smiled, his eyes moving up to meet Rod's. Kyoko's warning was coming to fruition, he could see Rod's left eye was now an incredibly pale blue, not dissimilar from his own paint job. It was actually very intriguing he thought, especially in comparison to the muscle car's rich azure right eye.

Finn went to speak, but Rod cut him off suddenly.

"I wanna… say sorry again… for last night… didn't mean to snap… at ya."

Finn nodded.

"You keep saying that, and it's okay really. I don't know if I'd be any less guilty of it myself if it was me in your tires."

Rod nodded his hood. The reminder of his position giving him that all too familiar unsettled feeling in his gas tank. Again, he wanted to lash out.

"...Yeah…"

The muscle car's response was short, and a bit snappy. He bit his tongue and looked away from Finn.

Finn simply shut his eyes for a moment and nodded. He was going to be patient this time, something he felt he should've maybe done last night as well.

"If you ever want to talk about it we can, I won't storm off again if you need to yell… I'm sorry I did that by the way. I overstepped."

Rod gritted his teeth, but once he realized he was losing his temper again, he released his jaw and let out a sigh, returning to a neutral expression and returning his gaze to the British coupe.

"I'm… not so good… telling my feelings…"

Finn nodded again.

"Neither am I. Our line of work makes us push a lot down, huh?"

Finn chuckled.

Rod nodded his hood, and pushed a grin onto his bumper.

"Heh… yeah…"

Finn sat and thought for a moment. Who'd have thought that the hardest part of his job would be the part where he's supposed to tell his feelings? Certainly not him before starting, but here he was now, back in that same uncomfortable spot where he knew what he was supposed to do, but just couldn't bring himself to do it. He imagined Rod felt much the same way right now.

And oh how right he was. Rod learned well before becoming an agent to deal with his own emotions and his own problems alone. Both of his parents just weren't equipped to help him with it. His mother tried but her own problems were already too much for one car to handle, so Rod would almost never share his true feelings, instead saying he was fine and good for the sake of not worrying her. His father, a deep burnt orange Dodge Challenger, just wasn't around enough to talk to Rod. Even when he was there, his father struggled to connect emotionally with him. Since he turned eighteen, Rod had barely spoken to his father, and his father barely reached out to him. They both seemingly just realized they weren't really a father son pairing, and didn't want to hurt the other. It was easier to just ignore it and walk away.

Then Rod got a job with the CIA, and he only bottled his emotions up more. His feelings were largely just surface level, and shallow. He'd slept with some girls, he felt nothing. He learned his father passed away… he felt nothing. He wasn't even sure he knew what love felt like, or what having an emotional connection with another car could ever be, or mean. What he knew was that things had been fine up until this point. His world view got him through what would've been plenty of jarring and hurtful experiences without any trouble, it was only now that it just wasn't working anymore.

"I'm.. going to be… honest with you… for a moment…"

Rod's gaze locked onto Finn's.

Finn sat silently in anticipation.

Rod took a moment to gather his thoughts; He took a deep breath.

"I'm fucking… scared… about what's gonna… what's gonna happen… to me."

Finn said nothing, he simply stared into the muscle car's eye.

"My mom…was sick… I watched her suffer…. Like this…"

Rod stopped for a moment to breathe, he didn't want to knock the wind out of himself again.

"...It killed her…. I don't… want to end up…. Like she did…."

Rod broke eye contact and settled low on his chassis and shut his eyes.

Finn looked down at his hood sadly. He opened his mouth a couple of times, but he couldn't think of what to say. What could he do?

Rod opened his eyes again. His left eyelid as usual, no longer opening fully, and vision only came to his right. He'd stopped hoping for the other to start miraculously working days ago. He then gazed back at the British coupe.

"...Just… thanks for… being here… for coming to… see me…"

Finn returned his gaze to the blue muscle car. He opened his mouth to speak, and chose his words carefully.

"Would you…. Do you… Do you want me to stay, Rod?"

Rod gently nodded his hood, his reply requiring little to no thought.

"...Yes… please… if you can… just… hang out…"

Finn forced a smile, and lightly nudged Rod's right wheel as if to tell him 'I got you'.

Rod lightly returned the wheel bump, and smiled his crooked smile back at the British coupe.

Author's Note:

I keep writing these chapters when all the ghouls come out to play their silly little tricks. I apologize for missing yesterday's upload, I actually slept normal hours for once. I certainly hope y'all are enjoying this. I'm a Rod Redline fanatic, and tbh I'm not too thrilled with the way a lot of fanfics tend to characterize him, so I'm here to show the girlies how it's done periodt. THAT IS TO SAY headcannons are of course a thing but dammit I'm here to give you the raw and unfiltered Rod Redline truth. This story is literally coming out of my ass and I'm really enjoying the writing process. I certainly hope you dear readers are also enjoying our journey here, and please feel free to comment! Would love to chat with some of y'all in the comments. Also I highly recommend you go listen to "Nobody Does it Better" by Carly Simon because that song is literally one of my main inspos for this story.

Also PS if you read or have seen my other story "Late December Back in '54" no the fuck you didn't idk what I was going through with that one but it terrifies me and has gotta be some trauma or some shit cuz literally what the actual fuck. I leave it up cuz it might be like someone's fav story, I know I've had some guilty pleasures in the past saved myself so no tea no shade. ANYWAY see y'all next time for more gay angst. Slay the boots house down.