LOG: Haroun and Madelyn - Checkups

[x-jetstream.livejournal.com]

Haroun goes down to Medical for a routine physical exam. He's in a bad mental place, and he is extremely rude to Madelyn.



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Haroun walked into Medlab with a scowl on his face. If there was one thing he _hated_, it was "routine" physical checkups. And this month above all other months he had no patience for this sort of silliness. "All right, I'm here. Take what you need so I can leave." he said brusquely.

Madelyn raised both eyebrows at the tone. Okay, Haroun wasn't the best patient in the world (and who was, in this place?) but this was even more brusque than usual. Almost enough to make her wish she hadn't offered to take the job, considering he and Hank didn't get on and Jean had been filling the gap left by Moira's absence. "Have a seat," she said mildly, indicating the exam table. "I'll just get the vampire equipment."

Haroun did as ordered, but eyed the table with a half-serious eye towards destroying it completely. That would be petty and childish, but oh-so-satisfying. But at least his back felt better. "I have things to do today..." he muttered under his breath. Should have brought his laptop down. He could be putting this time to work. So instead he hopped down off the table in search of a Pen and Paper. The paper came out of Madelyn's laser printer, but the pen was eluding him so far.

"For someone in a hurry, you're making it very hard to take a blood sample," Madelyn observed ironically, watching him ransack the exam room. Digging in the front pocket of her lab coat, she held out a pen. "Is this what you're after? Or would you prefer some Valium?"

Haroun snarled, and took the pen. "Trying to do some work. Take it from the other arm, I need this one to write with." he told her curtly. "I could practically do this myself if you would rather go moon after the Big Blue Ape." he muttered as he sketched out a few incomprehensible-to-anyone-but-an-aeronautical-engineer diagrams on the paper. "Gotta be something in the water around here."

All right, bad moods were one thing, but calling Hank an ape went too far. With a dangerous flash of anger in her eyes, Madelyn thumped down the instrument tray but instead of taking the blood sample she folded her arms across her chest, giving him a steady look. "I'm going to ask, since you're normally not quite so much of a jerk as you're being right now. And you don't have to answer. But if you insult Hank like that again, you can find yourself another training partner. So," and now a hint of concern entered her voice. "What's bothering you?"

Haroun stared at Madelyn, and then sighed. "Forget it. Sorry I mentioned it. Take your blood so Haroun can get his ass back upstairs. He's got a project for the Blackbird that he's trying to hash out."

"Referring to yourself in the third person is annoying enough with the Cajun does it - please don't you start." Now the concern was more than a hint. "Haroun, something's bothering you. A lot. I'd like to think we were friends enough that you could tell me what it is." Even if they didn't spend as much time together since he'd started dating Alison.

Haroun shrugged. "It's all in my file. Read it sometime." he suggested. "You're taking blood, checking the organics. You're poking around with Haroun. You wanted to develop an interest in cybernetics, then you'd be checking out Jetstream." he elaborated.

"And who's in the foul mood, Haroun or Jetstream?" she asked with a small sigh. She had read Haroun's file, knew about the dangers of disassociation occurring with such a major amputation as he'd had, but he'd never been so obvious about it before. There were a couple of things that could have prompted it, between the wedding and Forge's far more successful integration with his new hardware, but she doubted her was going to talk to her about it.

Haroun looked irritated with Madelyn. "Machines don't care, Maddy. Don't you know that? Now come on, get this shit done so I can get out of here." He sketched a few more things on the pieces of paper. Not engineering schematics this time, but instead stick-figures with guns shooting down fleeing figures.

"Fine." Madelyn slipped the blood pressure cuff on, using it as a tourniquet. At least Haroun always had good veins - one rose obediently and she slipped the hypodermic in expertly. While the syringe was filling, she glanced down at the paper. "Anyone in particular?" she asked, wondering if she should talk to Alison about this. If she could pin the other woman down - she was very hard to catch these days.

Haroun glanced down at the paper, and delibrately crumpled it into a wadded-up ball. "No one. Not anymore." he said distantly. "It's nothing. Hey, are you almost done yet?"

"I'll need another vial - I want to check your hormone levels," she said levelly, switching syringes as she spoke. Something was nagging at her memory, something about Haroun's file - and this time of year. "I won't keep you long, I know you've got things you want to do."

Haroun grinned. "Smart girl." He uncrumpled the paper and added a few more doodles to it while Madelyn was futzing about with her needles and her tubes. "So why the big blue ... so why Hank?" he asked curiously. "You're young enough, pretty enough, smart enough. Could get anyone you wanted. Got a fur fetish?"

"There's more to Hank than just the fur," she replied, perhaps a little less patiently than usual. It was bad enough Hank focussed on the fur so much, thinking the Beast was all he was, without people adding to the impression. "He's smart, he's caring, he has a wonderful sense of humour... But you don't want to hear me gush, so I'll leave it at that."

"He's not my favorite person in the world. I think he used to have a Thing with Alison. Might still, but maybe that's changed now that he's got you to play with." he said carelessly. "Don't know. Not sure I want to know. None of my business." he said too-firmly. "We've all got things we've done that we wish we hadn't."

"I think I can pretty much assure you there's no Thing with Alison now," Madelyn said firmly, finishing taking the second vial and pulling the needle out. "Hold this over it," she instructed, covering the puncture with a swab while she secured the samples. "And I'm sure Alison would be insulted to hear you talk about anything she _might_ have had with Hank in terms of things we wish we hadn't done." She shied away from the rest of that, not wanting to think of her own mistakes.

Haroun shrugged. "Give me that." he said, swatting at her hands to finish up the bandaging job. "Anything else you want from me?" he asked, adding a few jotted notes in Arabic to the doodle sheet.

"Strangely enough, no. I think I've exceeded my daily required dose of insulting remarks and rudeness." It was perhaps a little more snarky than she should be, but Haroun had, with his usual accuracy, managed to hit several sensitive points. And having a bad day was one thing, but lashing out like that was another. That niggle in the back of her memory was bothering her, though - she'd have to go pull some files and see what she could find. "I'll let you know the results, same as usual."

Haroun nodded brusquely. "Right." he said, and hopped off the medical exam table. "Not a good week for me. Only gonna get worse." he said by way of an apology. He then grabbed the doodle-pad in-between two fingers, and concentrated hard. With a whip-crack sound and a blur of motion, the hand holding the paper shot forward. When his arm came to a stop, the paper was on fire, and Haroun dropped it into the sink to watch it burn. "Good-bye." he told the sheet of paper, and then started to walk for the door.

Madelyn let him go - there wasn't anything really she could say. "Worse?" she murmured to herself, moving to the sink to see the last of the doodles consumed by the flames. She frowned, turning on the tap to wash the ashes into the sink. Definitely a session with her computer files was needed.

Haroun paused just before he got to the exit to Medlab. "Madelyn?" he called back without turning around. "I'm sorry. For what I said. I'm ... not in a good place. If I know you, you'll go find out why. You'll know what to do from there." he said, and walked out.