Being trapped and enslaved by changeling teddy bears was a new experience for Beet Salad. He just lay in bed for a long time, watching the hallucinations dance and sing around on the ceiling while the ground ebbed and flowed around his tail. Loud noises sounded curiously muffled, while sharp banging noises from far away sounded loud enough to make his head ring. The doctor from before swam effortlessly into the room, looked into Beets' mouth, and turned into a chicken before strutting away. Or at least it looked like a chicken. It was vaguely familiar to him, and as the anesthetic slowly began to fade away and reality started to assert itself, the actual doctor’s office recovery room began to piece itself together out of the hallucinations and delusions fogging his mind. After taking a sip out of a glass of water held by Twilight Sparkle and a few deep breaths to make the cobwebs in his brain get less webby, Beets tried to speak.

“Wha furgle megapho… What?”

“You fell down when the doctor blasted you,” explained Twilight Sparkle, who looked a little less purple and more alien than Beets expected from the newspaper articles about her. In fact, she was beginning to look a lot more like a certain shellac-covered changeling as the drugs were slowly purging themselves from his system. “You hit your chin on the floor, so we dragged you into one of the procedure rooms.”

Beets carefully prodded the inside of his numb mouth with his tongue. “Teef?”

“Four,” verified the changeling. “Nothing you were needing. Impacted like heck and pushing the rest of your jaw out of place. You cracked one in the fall, and rather than just pull one and leave your jaw unbalanced, we pulled 'em all while Doctor Bonebreaker straightened and realigned your jaw. I cleaned about ten years worth of tartar off the rest while I was waiting for your lazy rear to get out of slumbertown. You should wear a retainer to bed for a few months, but it should make your breath livable and cut down on your snoring too.”

He glowered as much as he could while holding a hoof to his numb jaw. “Fanks.”

While time passed, the world seemed to ruffle the blurry changeling into odd shapes as she still continued to sway according to Beets’ untrustworthy vision. The world passed in erratic bursts of motion, gradually straightening out until the doctor returned and peered into Beets’ mouth.

“Sorry about that, Mister Salad,” said the doctor, prodding around in Beets’ mouth with a tongue depressor the size of a small tree and just as splintery. “I got a little excited when I saw your friend and let you slip after stunning you. You bit your tongue a little, so there's a stitch in the side, and of course we took out your impacted third molars. Did you want them for the Tooth Flutterpony?”

“Thure. Gonna need all my money to pay you.”

“Pay?” The stocky doctor took a step backwards and blinked in a motion looking far too owl-like for the bespectacled stallion. “I was the one who over-reacted to your presence near one of the Folk and assaulted you. I was hoping we could resolve this amicably without dragging the lawyers into it, which is why I left you under the anesthetic and attempted to make recompense with my craft on your obvious emergency. If you would like to make an appointment, I can work on your dreadfully misaligned septum next, and possibly the kink in your tail.”

“That’s—” Beets settled down into a low glower, made easier by the amount of painkillers in his system. The constant ache in his jaw from the misaligned teeth did appear to be gone, although it was going to take some getting used to the way his teeth actually matched up when he closed his jaw. “I’m not gonna sue,” he muttered. “Judge w'laugh me out of town 'n arrest us both. You're clear.”

“Good,” exclaimed the doctor with a deep sigh. “Anyway, your marefriend has a few dislocated ribs, two chipped teeth, and a cracked pelvis from where she fell after succumbing to Hivemind Shock after Queen Chrysalis had her rather impolite expulsion out of Canterlot. I got the teeth fixed, and your rather ingenious painting system is keeping her ribs protected while they knit, but the pelvis is somewhat problematic. I gave it as much healing magic as is practical for one day’s application, and I'm sending a full week of bone knitting potions with her. No bondage or sex of any sort until she's fully healed."

“Wait.” Beets held up a hoof rather unsteadily. “Marefriend? Weeks? Sex?”

“Relax, lovercolt,” purred the changeling. “I told him we’ve been sleeping together.”

“It’s no biggie,” said the doctor with a shrug as he rummaged around in a cabinet for a set of small bottles. “You’re not the only stallion with a bed bug.” Beets watched as the changeling began to frantically signal the doctor to shut up, but as he was presently turned away from her and sorting sample bottles of Skele-Grow, he missed the signal and kept going. “I’ve been married to my changeling for five wonderful years. She's been very understanding of my special needs, and I've provided her friends in town with medical attention when they need it. Having a special somebuggy can be a little strange at times, but I’m sure you know all about that.”

The doctor turned around with the collection of sample bottles hovering in his magical field. After a quick glance at Beets’ face and a second one at the rather upset changeling, he added, “Or at least I thought so. You two aren't sleeping together?”

“No,” snapped Beets, although he could not help but add, “Not for sex. She's not my type.”

“I don’t think he has a type,” added the changeling. “I’ll bet even his blood is ugly. He’s got this self-loathing thing going on where he tries to push away anypony who gets close. Has something to do with losing his family. He's a screwed-up mess.”

“Hey!” objected Beet Salad with a fierce scowl and a vicious glare at both of the other beings in the room. “I don’t have to take this from you. Stay with your little bug-bumping buddy here, and I'm going home. I've had enough of you for a lifetime.”

“Whoa, wait a minute,” declared the doctor, backpedaling towards the door. “There’s no way I’d be able to hide your marefriend at my apartment. We entertain, and she’s going to stick out like a sore hoof until she moults and can disguise herself reliably again. Besides, I’m already feeding one changeling. I’d dry up and blow away trying to feed two.”

“Well, what in Tartarus am I supposed to do with her?” snapped Beets. “Take her back with me and slip her past my landlady again?”

“Me and my big mouth,” muttered Beets, floating the lumpy pile of blankets in through his doorway and dropping them on his pull-down bed. It took a few moments to fasten the door and all of the locks before he called out, “Okay, you can come out now. Honey.”

“Thanks, Snookems,” whispered the changeling as she kicked off the blankets and vanished into the bathroom. “You know, I like honey, and you don't have any in your kitchen. You should add it to your shopping list.”

“Screw you,” muttered Beets as he stomped into his kitchenette and looked over his meager supply of canned food.

“Hey, Honeybuns,” called out the changeling from the bathroom. “How about some food for your poor crippled houseguest?”

“I’ve still got some dog food left over,” said Beets, looking in a nearby bag and waving away a few gnats.

“I was thinking something a little more filling,” called back the changeling.

“If you add water, it makes its own gravy,” said Beets, looking at the side of the bag. “Want me to make you a bowl?”

“How about some soup or something?” replied the changeling as she emerged from the bathroom and hobbled past Beets. “Can you bring me a bowl in bed? I’m exhausted.”

"Get it yourself," grumbled Beets, rummaging through his cans again. "Besides, all we have is split pea and artichoke chilli."

"We can split the split pea," she called back. "Artichokes give me gas." She remained silent as Beets dug out a pan and began to practice the ancient art of bachelor cooking, but after the soup had been put on to cook and the silence was getting fairly thick, she added, "Thanks."

"Just trying to save my own nose," he said in return. "If I have to sleep with you, the last thing I need is your ass gas."

"Not that," snapped the changeling. "The… uh… Other thing."

"What thing? The part where I dragged you halfway across the city only to get my face zapped, or where some crazy bug-bumping doctor pulled out my teeth?"

"Err… Never mind." The changeling remained hunched over the edge of the bed until Beets brought out her bowl of soup and placed it on the nightstand, complete with a spoon and a few grass crackers. "Where's yours?" she asked while picking up the offered spoon.

"Don't want none," he responded. "Teeth still hurt."

"You're supposed to take food with your pills, right?" she asked while tasting the soup.

"Don't need 'em. They don't hurt much."

"Well, go get mine then, and a bottle of the bone calcium booster. My rear hurts. Just because you want to be a suffering bastard, doesn't mean I have to be." The changeling tasted the soup again with a grimace while Beets dutifully brought over the pills and one of the small sample bottles. She struggled with the bottle lid for a moment before floating it over to Beet Salad, who popped off the top almost effortlessly and floated it back over to her.

"Thanks again," she said before slugging down the bottle of calcium booster as if there were a contest.

"D'mention it." He took the empty bottle back from her and tossed it into the trash can, but stopped when she dipped the spoon into the soup and held it in front of his face.

"Does this taste funny to you?" she asked. "I mean I don't normally eat pea soup, so I'm not quite certain how it's supposed to taste, but you eat it, so here." She stuck the spoon full of soup into Beets' mouth and watched as he swallowed. "Good?"

"It's not too bad. It was on sale," he added apologetically.

“Still tastes funny to me, but then again, I had a bone surgeon play with my teeth today too.” She took another spoonful for herself, and held one out for Beets, who accepted it with a suspicious look.

“Is this some ploy to make me eat something before we go to bed?”

“Of course. If you're hungry tonight, it’s going to mess with the taste of your emotions, so all I care about is my sleepy noms. Open your mouth and close your eyes, and you will get—”

“I can get my own spoon, thank you very much.” She remained silent as Beets retrieved a plastic spoon from the kitchen and gingerly ate his half of the soup from her bowl, and even managed to stay shut up after he helped her get settled into bed, but as she stifled a long yawn, she added, “You better go brush your remaining teeth and hop into bed too before you fall over. It feels like those pills are kicking in.”

Beets stopped running water over the dirty dishes long enough to give her a long stare. "I didn't take any of the pills."

"I put 'em in the soup while you were distracted," said the changeling with another wide yawn.

In the end, Beets barely managed to get his teeth somewhat casually brushed before the changeling had to help the stumbling stallion to bed, tuck the sheets around them both, and get comfortable. The last thing he remembered was looking into the unreadable face of the changeling and her dark blue eyes as they both drifted off to a drug-assisted slumber.

Author's Notes:

Waiter, there's some soup in my fly...

Ah, changeling jokes.