I totally wasn't planning on waiting until the last minute to post this, partly because it's not Halloween fic exactly, it's unbirthday fic and I thought today actually being Halloween would be confusing.
But then I came home from work last night, sat down, booted up my laptop... and the transformer power thingie on the spiffy pole at the end of the block sort of... exploded. And while I eventually discovered that I can crochet by candle-light, one sort of needs power for that whole internet thing. *sigh*
Be that as it may...
Here there be fic of the usual, somewhat lame, un-birthday kind. In fact, we have fic of the Karma kind. *sigh again* Yeah... EyePatch!Duo just won't get out of my head and shut up. Boy doesn't seem to get the concept of 'One Shot'. ~_~
Usual disclaimers apply... language and such stuff. Heero POV. Your milage may vary on the humor aspects. You know the drill. ^__~
Karma III
While Duo Maxwell may be my partner, he is also a big boy... I had not anticipated needing to go to the clinic the day of his ocular replacement surgery. Winner had been lined up to take him to the hospital, the procedure was a tried and true one, Duo would be too out of it for hours after to even care, and it would be a day or two before he was released. Neither of us had seen the point in a ton of people sitting around a waiting room for the duration. I had, in fact, planned on spending the time in the office working on some paperwork I'd put off until the last possible day.
But that was before I got the somewhat confusing phone call from Winner, babbling about mud, computer card games, and my partner.
Which is why I ended up making the drive in to the clinic after all, risking Commander Une's wrath if the resultant delay kept me from getting my B877 forms filed on time. As much as I hate forms, I hate irritating the woman who can assign you to public relations duty even worse. Kindergarteners do not seem to enjoy my lectures on the dangers of strangers. And 'PR duty' only has the two options... lecture the brats or wear the mascot suit. I make a pretty crappy raccoon.
When I arrived at the clinic, I found Winner slumped in a chair in the waiting room, rubbing the bridge of his nose and looking like he'd been sucking something sour for hours.
'What the hell is going on, Winner,' I demanded as soon as I laid eyes on him and he looked up, a definite cast of oh thank God in his expression.
'What took you so long?' he wanted to know. 'It's almost too late!'
'Too late for what?' I said, refusing to be the first in the conversation to yield up any information.
'To talk to Duo before the surgery!' he snapped, and I resisted the urge to smirk in victory; as information went... it wasn't that informative. Instead, I just pressed the advantage.
'Why?'
His look of relief was rapidly changing to one of irritation, and he pushed up out of his chair to be on my level. 'Because something is seriously not right with him and I can't get him to talk.'
'Not right? Define not right.' With Duo, not right could be many different things, and several of the possibilities weren't worth my driving down to the clinic.
Winner deflated a little and his hand went to rub over his face again. 'I'm not sure. I don't think he actually wants to have this surgery. Something's wrong, but he keeps muddying up the waters and I just can't get a clear handle on it.'
There was that mud reference again. 'What the hell are you talking about? What waters?'
He let out an exasperated sigh and glanced toward the door where, I presumed, Duo was off being prepped. 'I can't read him... he's deliberately keeping me blocked out. But I can tell he's upset.'
Duo could block that damned annoying empathy crap? I had not known that. Interesting. Before I could think of a less gleeful comment though, Winner was pushing at my arm.
'Just please go talk to him... maybe he'll tell you what's going on,' he pleaded, and he made me give out my own exasperated sigh.
'I doubt they'll let me...' I began, but got cut off before I could finish the thought.
'I told them you needed to get some information from Duo about a very important, very high security case before he goes under,' he informed me with a look that was only slightly sheepish.
I snorted. 'How original.'
'Thank you,' he deadpanned, and gave me a harder shove.
I gave in to the inevitable and went. Might as well get it the hell over with so I could get back to my paperwork as soon as possible.
There was a nurse stationed right on the other side of the door Winner practically shoved me through, and when she saw my uniform, smiled brightly. 'Agent Yuy?' she prompted, and beckoned when I nodded. 'Right this way. If you could keep this brief, we have about fifteen more minutes before Agent Maxwell is scheduled to go in.'
'Thank you,' I managed with a straight face. 'This shouldn't take long.'
She left me at the door and I took a second to put aside my irritation with Winner... there was no real reason to take it out on Duo, he hadn't been the one to call me with his panties in a knot.
When I pushed the door open though, I had to revise my opinion a little. Winner was, perhaps, not entirely off base.
I'm not an empath by any stretch of the imagination, but I am an investigative agent for the Preventers with a number of years of training in reading body language.
And I've worked with Duo through all those years. If there is anybody in this world I can read... it's my partner.
The door was well oiled, opening soundlessly, and they had Duo situated with his bad side toward the door. A thing I found insensitive even as it bought me a few seconds of unnoticed observation.
He sat propped up in a standard hospital bed, already in a gown with an IV started. They'd taken his eye patch from him and he was just sitting, staring at the wall, his fingers idly tracing over the slash of a scar across the empty eye socket. The tension fairly radiated off him like a heat wave.
I stepped into the room and he turned at the sound, his expression going to his polite public one, telling me he'd been expecting to greet some nurse or orderly.
'Heero?' he asked in confusion, 'what are you doing here?'
'Winner called me,' I told him, moving to the side of the bed where he wouldn't have to turn so sharply to see me. 'You're giving him a headache.'
There was the flash of a triumphant smile that he quickly toned down. 'Well, he should mind his own business and stop poking where he's not invited, then.'
I'd had my own days where I would heartily second that opinion, but I kept that to myself. 'He's just...' I began, and got a snort for my attempt to play the devil's advocate.
'Meddling,' he finished for me. 'He's meddling.'
'With your best interests at heart,' I said blandly, and he couldn't help a chuckle.
'Aren't you supposed to be at the office right now?' he asked, and I could see that he was trying to derail the topic.
'Yes, I am,' I grumbled. 'And if I don't get this crap filed in time and end up on PR duty, you're going with me to wear the damn raccoon suit.'
'This is not my fault,' he said, 'I'm not the one over-reacting to a fit of nerves. There's nothing you can do, Heero... go finish the month-end reports.'
I was suddenly aware of the press of time since I really wasn't sure how much ground we had to cover. In what was probably an obvious effort to ease off on the intimidation factor of my standing over him, I settled on the side of the bed. 'No, but you're the one actually having the fit of nerves and now I'm starting to feel like I pushed you into this against your will...'
'You pretty much did,' he muttered, but I ignored him.
'... instead of just nudging you where you knew you needed to go. If you're not ready for this...'
He gave a roll of his good eye and waved at me with his 'brushing things aside' gesture. 'I'm fine, Heero,' he told me. 'Quatre just needs to learn to mind his own damn business. I'm nervous... are you telling me you wouldn't be?'
'Of course I would,' I chided. 'And so would Quatre. He'd know that when he felt it. He's feeling something more, or he wouldn't be out there chewing his thumbnail off.'
He quirked a half grin at the image of Winner gnawing on his nails, but just sighed. 'Sometimes I wonder why I hang with that guy,' he groused.
My internal clock was ticking away and I was struggling with a way around the defensive wall when Duo suddenly seemed to surrender. Maybe he felt the press of time too.
'Heero... look, you remember that time we were on that stakeout and I... started getting a little bored?'
I snorted. A bored Duo Maxwell is a Duo Maxwell who thinks. Sometimes a little bit too hard. 'How could I forget?' I smiled. 'We mugged a pizza delivery boy over your theories.'
He echoed my smile of remembrance with a sheepish one of his own. 'Yeah. And you remember you promised me you'd tell me when I was being a dumb ass?'
'And have I not lived up to that promise on more than one occasion?'
I didn't get the laugh, but he did sit up to be more on my level and perhaps a little closer, because he lowered his voice for the next part. 'Ok, look... I'm being a dumb ass and I know it, but I can't stop thinking about it and I think I just need you to tell me I'm being a dumb ass.'
There were just too many lines that would have fit there, all designed for a laugh, but I refrained from them all... we didn't have the time, and I didn't want to make light of something that was obviously bothering him that damn much.
'The Doctors,' he began, voice still low and almost conspiratorial, and I knew he wasn't talking about the ones waiting down the hall. 'They were pretty... you know, screwed up. And the stuff they did in the name of the cause was pretty screwed up. I mean... kind of cold-blooded, really. And I can't help wondering...'
It clicked in my head then, what he was saying and I let out with an explosive sigh. 'Oh for...' I growled. 'Seriously? You think cybernetic parts are going to... what? Eat away your humanity? Leech away your soul? You're not being a dumb ass, you're being a moron! I'm pretty sure Dr. J was the type of kid who plucked the wings off flies just for fun! If he was screwed up, he was screwed up long before the war came along!'
His expression was this weird mix of embarrassed and relieved, but he couldn't quite let it go entirely. 'I have this nightmare that I wake up and can't... feel anything,' he blurted and gave in to the embarrassed part, his face flushing slightly.
The derisive snort wasn't intentional, coming out all on its own. 'You are being a dumb ass.'
He grinned and let himself fall back against the pillows. 'Thanks, Heero; I knew I could count on you.'
'No problem,' I told him wryly. 'Now, can I go get back to work?'
His one-eyed gaze strayed past my shoulder toward the door, 'Sure... looks like my ride's here anyway. Just tell Quatre thanks on the way out. He's still a pain in the ass, but thanks.'
'Will do.' I rose to make way for the orderly, then stopped. 'Though... wait... there's one more thing.' I sent a look in the direction of the young man in the doorway that clearly stated, if you overhear this, I will have to kill you.
The guy tried not to be intimidated, but it was the floor he was talking to when he said, 'Uh... make it quick; the doc's are waiting,' before stepping back out into the corridor. When he was out of ear shot, I leaned down to get into Duo's face.
He met my gaze with his earnest look, the one that lets you know he'd give you the shirt off his back if you asked for it. 'What,' I demanded, 'is the secret to screwing up Winner's damn mental radar?'
His answering grin held more than a hint of Maxwell pride. He sat up again, lowering his voice even further than it had been. 'Old Yeller,' he intoned solemnly.
I blinked for a moment, trying to process that, and Duo grinned wider.
'You know how the end of that movie gets to me, every damn time?' he asked, and I nodded, remembering our only shared viewing quite vividly. 'You have to think about something that gets to you like that, really, really hard.'
'That's it?' I had to ask, though I saw the logic. It was rather elegant in its simplicity, actually. I wondered why I'd never thought of it myself.
He nodded, his grin wanting to morph into a bit of a self-satisfied smirk, but out in the hallway, there was a rather pointed cough to let us know our time was up.
'If you can alternate with something that makes you laugh,' Duo said in a rush. 'You can just about give the poor guy whip lash.'
We let the orderly do his job then, and I stood off to the side while he came in, watching while he popped the brakes on the wheels of the bed and expertly maneuvered Duo out of the room. Duo gave me a jaunty little wave as he disappeared around a corner in the hallway and I headed back toward the waiting room.
Old Yeller had never done much for me; guess I'm just not a dog person, but Bambi, on the other hand...
OWARI
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