trans_9 | DNA strands in my hair [quite open]

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DNA strands in my hair [quite open]

Luis had acquired a new thing in a jar.

Well, really, two new things in a jar, two long organic objects a little less than two feet long that looked like large segmented legs, the type you'd find on an insect. One of them sat on the back end of his desk, frozen in stasis in a chemical designed for doing just that. The other he kept in a different jar and he was currently in the middle of testing some of the tissue he'd scraped off of it. It was placed in an airtight contaminant observation box while he performed various experiments on it.

It was susceptible to various types of damage but also had remarkable regenerative capabilities, growing back quickly when he burned or sliced it away. The real interesting part came when he applied an electrical current to it. The slice of flesh looked like it was sizzling and then suddenly burst into action, growing into a pulsating mass several times its original size and quivering until it exploded, coating the inside of the box with a nasty greenish-purplish-yellow fluid that began to ooze and drip.

Luis stared at it for a few good seconds, then pulled off his glasses, ripped off his gloves and began packing up his supplies, shaking his head with a heavy sigh. He looked exhausted and desperately in need of a distraction.

It was time for a drink. Or to at least find something, or someone, that could get him out of this lab for the rest of the night.

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Trudy had been putting this off for a while - it wasn't a conversation she really wanted to have, given that a small part of her was actually grateful Luis had doped her up so she couldn't go back out there and get herself killed.

Still, it couldn't happen again. She had to know that the next time she came to the medbay, she'd be back in the cockpit as soon as possible.

She had intended to come right in, but she could read the exhaustion in his body language all the way from the doorway. He looked like he was having a hard time of it - she hated to pile on. Still. "You work too hard," she said simply.

He was in the middle of trying to figure out what to do with the box now coated with the sample. He wanted to throw the whole damn thing in the incinerator, a voice that he rather wanted to strangle at the moment spoke up in his head and told him he should wait for it to try and test to see if it was infectious. More work!

"I know," he replied over his shoulder at the sound of Trudy's voice, wearily. "It's one of my worst habits."

"Well stop working for a couple of seconds," she said, coming in the doorway and crossing over to the workstation that he'd plainly made his. She didn't wait for an invitation to sit but hoisted herself up until she was sitting on the table. "I have to talk to you."

Trudy knew that most men would turn around and run screaming at those words, and she hoped it wouldn't give him too bad of a heart attack.

He quickly moved the box away from her as she sat down, looking almost defensive of it. It was more he didn't especially want to answer what he'd been exploding today.

Luis reached up and rubbed his eyes behind his glasses, looking up at Trudy and trying to process all this social interaction stuff after who knew how many hours of thinking by himself. "Talk to me?" he repeated. "What about?"

It could go many directions from here.

"About the medbay, and about it being kind of a dick move to dope me when I could have still been flying."

Trudy was not the kind of person to beat around the bush when she had a problem with someone. She liked Luis - liked his company, appreciated his conversation and his... other things - but she wasn't going to let him off the hook on this.

"Oh."

Luis pulled off his glasses and let out a heavy sigh. Well, at least she wasn't pregnant (he had made doubly sure he got the shot when the time had come for it, after all!)

"I couldn't be sure the extent of your injuries without a more extensive look at you," he said. "I'd rather be safe than sorry with something like that. But I'm sorry I went about it like that, if you'd rather I hadn't."

"I'd rather you hadn't, yeah," Trudy said. "I realize you've never been a combat medic so here's a quick rundown - if I can walk, talk, see straight and move my arms, I can fly." She tapped her rib, healed now thanks to the wonders of modern medicine. "This was nothing. Now if I can't do any of that and I still insist on going back out there, it's because I'm slap-happy and I need to be dropped like a ton of bricks, otherwise I'll get someone killed."

He sighed again. "I guess I'm just not much of a risktaker anymore," he said, and looked back to his papers. "Honestly, knowing me, I shouldn't even be acting as a medic."

Luis left that unelaborated and tossed the papers back in their pile. "Anyway. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

"Hey," Trudy said, hopping down from the desk. She hadn't wanted to piss him off, just let him know the way it was going to be. "Hey, it's no big deal. You helped a lot of people, and you did a great job. I'm not mad because you doped me - hell, I probably could have used it. I just want to make sure it doesn't happen again."

She stepped up behind him and leaned on him, hooking her chin over his shoulder. "And I thought I said to stop working for a second, huh?"

"No, no, it's not that. Just in general," he assured her. "I've got no business in medical in the first place. Hell, all of this bullshit-" Motioning at the contents of his desk, he could have sworn he felt an ulcer coming on. Or something very much like an ulcer.

When she leaned over his shoulder he forced himself to take a deep breath and relax some. It actually drew a brief laugh out of him. "Baby, do you ever feel like if you stop working, everything is going to blow up and go to hell around you?"

"All the goddamn time," Trudy said, meaning it. "Otherwise I wouldn't be gunning so hard for this promotion. But the kids need someone to take them in hand and I don't see anyone else stepping up to the plate, so." She shrugged, and reached out for his hands, pulling him away from the desk and his papers. "But if you don't take a break you're going to give yourself a heart attack, and those aren't fun."

Not nearly as fatal in Trudy's time as in Luis's time, but still not fun.

He was all too willing to let her drag him away, now that everything was in some semblance of order. He'd just let the crap in the box dry out so he could get back to it later.

"This project hasn't been going well, to say the least," he muttered, glancing back at it over his shoulder. "Took me out of two days of shore leave and still not sorting itself out. I don't think I've slept 12 hours since the ship took off again... I think I'm turning into a mad scientist."

"No you're not," Trudy said. "You're going to come to my bunk and you're going to crash out for about ten hours and then maybe I'll let you go back to work. For now, consider yourself a hostage."

If he was going to bully her into resting when he thought she needed it, then turnabout was more than fair play. And honestly, she didn't give a damn who saw them. Rogue Squadron might rib her about it, but it was all in good fun.

Luis smiled, quite smugly. "Captain Chacon, I have been to your bunk before, so forgive me if I am very skeptical that I am going to get any rest in it."

That was more like him, and Trudy grinned - her wide, wolfish grin, the one she was practicing to scare the hell out of the recruits. "Who said I'd be there? I have shit to do. Be good and take your nap and we'll see about the rest of it when I get through terrorizing the pilots. I'd leave you in your own bunk but that'd be counterproductive."

"Not to mention I am not exactly sure where my bunk is," Luis added. He usually fell asleep face-down on a lab table and had been to his bunk few enough times he wasn't positive on the directions.

"That is depressing."

Trudy laughed - she couldn't help it. "You've been on the ship for how long and you don't know where it is? Baby, you must have had a rough time of it before I got here." She reached up to slide her fingers through his hair, ruffling it a little. "Pobrecito."

It was nice to have someone to be affectionate with again - hanging out with the guys in the squadron was nice (of course, there were Arha and Asuka, but the former was like a million-watt bulb and the latter was likely to bite your hand off), but it didn't really come close.

"It's not my fault I sleep better sitting upright with my face smashed on a table," Luis mock-whined, all too pleased to let her mess with his hair. Generally he was pleased to let Trudy do whatever she wanted, since he was well aware she could kill him six times over with minimal effort if she felt like it. Though not to say he was scared of her-- she was smoking hot and a lot of fun, after all.

"I guess it is a miracle I've survived this long," he went on, with an odd smile. "Well, sort of."

Trudy snorted. "That's not sleep, that's unconsciousness. It happens when you've been awake for God knows how long staring at God knows what through a microscope until you feel like your brain's about to leak out your ears."

She steered him down a different corridor to the nearest transport tube. "I've crashed out in the pilot's chair for my helicopter quite a few times, so I know what I'm talking about. Real sleep is going to do you worlds of good."

Luis looked mildly alarmed at that. "You're not actually flying when that happens, right? Because I may pass out at work a lot but at least I am not working in a moving vehicle, bonita." Nevermind that instead he worked in a contagion lab and often with deadly pathogens.

He couldn't argue that he needed to go to bed, though. It sometimes occurred to him that he might think more clearly if he were more well-rested.

Naaah.

"You will come get me if I go into a coma, right?"

"Of course," she said with exaggerated patience. "As soon as I'm done making the smartasses run laps until their legs fall off." She was looking forward to this basic training thing. A lot.

"And that's what autopilot is for," she said with a grin. It wasn't precisely true, but messing with him was part of the fun.

He looked, naturally, horrified.

"Remind me to be very grateful I have no interest in piloting whatsoever," he announced. "Working in a laboratory may not look terribly thrilling, but when spilling A into B at any point could kill everyone, it's a lot more exciting than it seems."

So many mutant pathogens, so little time.

"Even if it is driving me into an early grave." Aaagain.

Trudy cracked up laughing at the look on his face. "I'm kidding," she said, ruffling his hair again. "I've never fallen asleep while actually flying. Waiting for people at a drop zone, sure. In the air? That's just dangerous."

She shook her head at him. "Chemicals and mutant death viruses are best handled on at least ten hours of sleep. It's scientifically proven." Was it? Hell if she knew.

Luis chuckled nervously at her joke. A little too close for comfort there, Trudy. "Fortunately, I am always careful to fall asleep at the table while I'm working on something non-deadly."

They passed by one of the windows outside and Luis caught a glimpse of his reflection. "Oh, god, why didn't you tell me I looked like a homeless person? I need a paper bag, quick."

She grinned harder at that, nudging him with her elbow. "Come on then, hobo, let's get you indoors so the crew isn't traumatized. Keep going like this and you'll earn that mad scientist shit you keep tossing around."

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DNA strands in my hair [quite open]

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