insertmeathere | (no subject)

"Still fighting with the ship?" Zouichi still calls Stacy 'the ship'. Or when he's feeling particularly uncharitable, 'it'. He doesn't trust it; never has.

He makes a scoffing noise. "Try working with the Council sometime. I'm surprised they don't build elaborate fire traps to make sure their house burns down if anyone ever tries to read their diary."

And then he takes a seat in a chair nearby; might as well. "Jealousy doesn't become you, Howard." Zouichi rests an elbow on a nearby desk, schooling his expression into a spot-on imitation of a pout. "Don't take it out on me just because I look better in a skirt."

"When am I not? Under her watch I've been bitten by dinosaurs, shot at, brainwashed, scapegoated, half-drowned, mindfucked which isn't even the same thing as brainwashed, electrocuted, attacked by wolves..." He counts off on his fingers, although Zouichi's heard this a thousand times before. Howard never passes up an opportunity to bitch about all the weird missions Stacy's sent them on.

"Should I run for Council? Now that I'm all respectable and everything." Not that anyone would actually vote for him and he knows it, but the idea's entertaining. He leans over the desk, feigning a girly pose. It's taken a few years, but he isn't so rankled by Zouichi teasing him like this anymore that he can't tease back. "It's too bad that meido outfit got so messy, Zoubaby. It really was the best you've ever looked."

"Don't forget the haunted mole," Zouichi says placidly, accustomed to Howard's laundry list of complaints. "That was a weird one."

He glances at Howard. "Sure, you'd fit right in with all the paranoia and passive-aggression. I'll even vote for you."

Zouichi sighs melodramatically. "You're right -- maybe I could get Reinforce to make me another, but it just wouldn't be the same. Maybe I should just go for the nurse outfit next time."

"Remember that time you expected me to be able to hotwire a police car while that Klingon acrobat was shooting ice beams at us? Those were the days." Not really. Howard doesn't miss them. Probably wasn't even a real Klingon. "Or that time we had to join an improv theatre troupe to infiltrate enemy territory and all our sentences had to rhyme?"

He puts a hand over his heart. "Aww, Zou. You make me feel so loved. I'm flushing with emotion right now. And hey, the nurse outfit looked fine on me."

"Oh, please; are you still complaining about that? Who was it who took that zebra mummy's curse for you?"

That was weird, too.

Zouichi mimics his hand over heart gesture. "That was the whole point, Howard. I never get to go on missions with you, any more -- that's why I have to let you know how I feel with words."

"That's just because you felt sorry for me for ending up in that enchanted haystack full of snakes."

Their whole lives are weird. That's why they're so blasé. "Yeah, and thank God for that. Eventually you were going to get tired of me comparing you to Neo and you were going to leave me behind. You get so tense on missions."

"Point. But you wouldn't have ended up in that enchanted haystack full of snakes if you'd just punched the goldfish alien like I asked." Pshuh.

"Oh, you know I'd never get tired of you, sweetheart." He sighed. "Besides, if I did, who'd be there to whisper sweet nothings in my ear while they treated my injuries? That's the only reason I come down to Medical!"

"I was too busy being confused why you were telling me to punch it when I clearly had a sword in my hand." Of course, in hindsight it was probably because Zou had realized that Howard would be hesitant to try and stab someone. He got over that stumbling block about four missions in.

Howard shifts a bit uncomfortably in his seat. There's still only so far he'll let Zouichi take it. He's not as awkward as he was, but still never quite got the hang of flirting. "I'm thinking that's more your systems malfunctioning."

"Excuses, excuses." Zouichi waves a hand, backing off once they reach the edge of Howard's comfort zone.

"So, any exciting new diseases looming over the horizon? Runaway lab experiments, man-eating plants? Or is that all Science's job this month?"

"Well, Stacy's been shooting all the organic humans up full of Pepto Bismol and crack. Anwei and me are working on why that is, but honestly we're not even sure if it's that. Who knows why this stupid ship does anything." He shakes his head and pulls up his sleeve; a band-aid marks were Stacy got him. "She got me this morning and all it did was make me crazy ADD. But you know, if Stacy's stuffing us full of stimulants generally it's a good idea to figure out why."

"...she's injecting Pepto Bismol into your arm?" Zouichi had never actually taken any himself, but he was fairly sure that the drug in question was something administered orally. And not, you know. Injected directly into the patient's bloodstream or what-have-you.

"Yeah, I'd say that's something that should be looked into." He paused. "Is anyone looking after Anwei? I tried to talk to her earlier, but... I've been finding it difficult to get through."

"And cocaine! I'm a little more bothered by the cocaine! But it's not actual oral Pepto Bismol, just the active ingredients. Unless Stacy's readout of the formula is bullshit, which is completely likely." He and Anwei had had a good guessing session about what Stacy was thinking earlier, and got about as far as they always did. "Yeah, I talked to her earlier about this stuff. She's...out of it, I guess. Really not looking good. She gave me a high-five at one point but other than that she doesn't seem to acknowledge other people are there unless you're talking right at her. She just looks like she's totally miserable being awake and alive."

Oh, right. "Yes, that could be a problem. One thing we don't need aboard the ship is an outbreak of sudden addicts." He sighs; he can just imagine the headache that will be waiting for him back at Security. "In the meantime, can you give people an antagonist to administer to themselves, if the ship does decide to inject them?"

"Yes, I... sort of lost my temper with her earlier. She came out of it a little, but..." he shrugged. "Horanckk again."

"We can try and put it in the water supply." He may or may not be joking. He probably isn't.

Howard rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "As if she's the only one to ever lose their best friend. Of course, the way her brain works, she probably thinks she is."

He bites down on a pen cap again, pushing the thought of Orc away. Dwelling on it means dwelling on the thought that he's permanently lost the only close relationship he ever felt he had. Or dwelling on the idea that maybe it wasn't that close after all. He slides into a new analysis. "She's not looking so hot healthwise, either. I'm thinking the Horanckk thing, plus health problems...but of course she'd rather be a poor martyr than ask for help. It is Anwei, after all."

"Oh? Would the Council even let you?" He could just imagine the brave new heights of paranoia that would emerge when Medical suggested they add something to the drinking water. Heh heh.

He frowns. "Is there anything you can do for her? I know her lifespan isn't as long as a human one, but I hate to see her like that."

"Probably not, because they're all secretly bureaucrats, but tons of stuff goes on in Medical that the Council doesn't need to know about. If we had to get approval for everything no one would even get their flu shots around here." He and Anwei found a way to bypass Council rules just earlier today.

He grimaces. "I don't know. I wouldn't know. I'm just saying she doesn't look healthy, but I don't know what it is that would be wrong without a checkup, and she hasn't come in for one of those. I think she may just be biding her time till she dies. I don't think it's anything like a sickness or infection, just she doesn't take care of herself anymore." He shrugs. He's comfortable around Anwei, maybe even enjoys her, but he's not going to invade her privacy in some crusade to convince her to eat healthy and stop being a self-pitying sadsack.

Zouichi gives him a look. "'Secretly'? I was wondering how you managed to convince them about the flu. I mean, without someone insisting that you must be using the injections to chip everyone on board."

He sighs. "Maybe I can convince one of the psychologists to pay her a house visit. Have you seen her schedule? She's planned out her death."

"I'm a little more worried about how quiet it's been around here lately. Aside from the impromptu injections. No psychic space bugs, no kidnappings, no Celestial Being working against the mission..." Come to think of it, note to self: Check on Celestial Being.

"...I think it's even annoying Ildraniath, actually."

"You'd think they'd want us to do our job after the last bout of superflu turned its victims into sloppy, bloody puddles." That had been gross. Howard waggles his eyebrows at Zouichi. "And for all you know, we did chip everyone."

He exaggeratedly throws his hands up in the air. "That is so her. She takes that, what's the word, annihilism, to a new level these days. But yeah, whatever we could do for her here in medical, she'd need someone to work on her head first. Might want to work on getting her a shrink."

He raps on the desk with his knuckles. "Don't tempt fate, man. You know better than that."

Yes, that had been gross... even if Howard was exaggerating a little. "You're not still mad about that time I said I chipped you, are you?" Because actually, Zouichi had never cleared that up.

He shrugged. "I know we're due for a string of small crises, or one big one. And I don't know about you, but I'd prefer the former."

"Dude, even I don't hold grudges for more than a decade. I just think if we had little tags that updated us whenever someone got repodded, it'd be nice." He's fairly sure Zouichi never tagged him. Fairly.

"You know me, Zou. As long as the big crisis isn't at my doorstep I'm sure I'll survive it."

He smiles. "I'll hold you to that."

(no subject)

Re: D'oh.

My guests are napping. RP-TIMEZ.

Re: My guests are napping. RP-TIMEZ.

Re: My guests are napping. RP-TIMEZ.

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end thread?