Fics_3-1
"Hey partner, you wanna grab a bite to eat?" Hobbes asked Darien after he emerged from the lab, he had tried, unsuccesfully, to get his shot early. "Nah, I've been feeling kind of down lately, Claire says I might have some pre-midlife-crisis thing, wooo" he said, while spinning his finger around in the air to show his 'overwhelming joy'. "Hey, if you like... I can... *ahem* suggest some... psychiatrists that are... pretty good with that sorta...thing" Bobby said uncomfortably, it wasn't his strong suit to be talking about mental illnesses, which he had enough trouble with as was. "Ok, if you think they can help", Darien said, unemotionally. He had Bobby write the phone numbers of several shrinks down, said thanks, and left, having no intention what-so-ever to call them.
Darien went to sleep that night feeling very apathetic about everything, he didn't care about the shot he needed to get tomorrow, he didn't care about what tomorrow would bring, after all, he faced death almost every week, why should he fear it? His life had been getting progressively better, Claire had found her solution to a time-realease counteragent formula, and was creating her first batch of it at this very moment. He also had gotten a raise, and so had Bobby ("Well, it's about time!" was his only response), the Official wouldn't tell him exactly why, all he said was "We had a surplus", which, as Darien knew, was a load of crap, since the last thing the fat man would do with a surplus would be to raise their pays, but, for better or for worse, he had accepted it at that.
Then, all of a sudden, Darien had started to feel disconnected from his friends, not wanting to talk as much, for no appearant reason. He had thought it was a phase of some sort, and that it would pass, well, then he found himself not carring about his job, coming in late at times, slipping up on missions, giving the Official and Eberts dark looks and sharp attitude simply for telling him these things. That's when he went to Claire for help. She perscribed him some low-end anti-depressants, since he was not very far into the mental state.
~Well~ Darien thought, ~Those pills really did a hell of a lot~ he concluded. ~Christ, nothing is going to help me, I can't get this God-damned gland out of my head, I can't stay sane long enough to be trusted, and anti-depressants don't even work! I'm never going to leave The Agency, I'm never going to have a real life~, he thought dismally. ~Well, what the hell am I still doing here then?~ he asked himself, a spark of an idea catching in his mind. He closed his eyes tight, and then quicksilvered, right there in bed, not carring about his several minutes of sanity remaining, not carring about the frost forming on his bed, after all, it was a cozy 96 degrees inside his little cocoon. Despite his growing anticipation, he somehow fell asleep very quickly, and didn't feel the pain of quicksilver madness when it came, nor the overwhelming sense of freedom that acompanied Stage Five madness.
Darien woke up that morning, very happy, without the slightest memory of the previous night. He couldn't figure out why he was so cheerful, but decided not to investigate into it, seeing as how he had fifteen minutes to get to Burger King, then to The Agency. He grabbed his sunglasses, slipped them on, and headed out the door. He was feeling rich today, so decided to go all out on his BK breakfast, egg muffin, cinamon roll, coffee with three sugars and three creams, he was going to be on a sugar-rush all day, which was just fine with him.
He arrived just in the nick of time, one minute before he was due, with a smile on his face, and stepped into the Official's office just as Bobby was sitting down in one of the chairs. "Well well, look what we have here, feeling better partner?" Hobbes asked, obviously thinking that Darien had sought help from the card. "Yeah, actually, much better, I guess I just woke up on the right side of the bed" he replied happily.
"Darien, I'm glad to see that you're feeling better," said The Official, "now you can get cracking on your next assignment" he added, just to make everyone sure that he wasn't actually a nice guy. "You've been assigned to watch this man," he said, handing Darien and Bobby pictures, "Hortence Milivano, chemical weapons dealer, the only reason we can't pick him up is because there's no hard evidence against him, but you'll watch every move he makes, if he so much as parks in a no-parking zone, pick him up, and I'll do the rest", he concluded with a half-smile, after all, he loved his job. "Darien," Claire said from behind him, "have you forgotten your shot?" she asked him jokingly, of course he wouldn't forget his shot, he was begging for it yesterday, a day before schedule! She led him down into the lab, he cheerfully followed, half because he was happy to be at work, and half because her butt looked so cute when she walked.
"Ok, let's check your tatoo" she said in her 'doctorly' tone, after getting him seated, "Oh my god!" she gasped, his tatoo was completely red, she stared at him, and he had the look of a lost puppy on his face. "Darien, take off your glasses" she said to him, all the while inching towards the freezer that held the counteragent. He took off his sunglasses, only to arouse a scream from Claire, "my god! your eyes are...." she started breathing heavily, she knew that she didn't have any stage five counteragent, only Arnaud had the formula. Darien was bewildered, he moved several items out of the way on the metal tray next to the chair, and stared at his reflection, his eyes were silver!
"Holy crap!" he yelled, just as Bobby entered the lab, followed by Eberts, then finally Charlie. "Claire, look, I can see that my eyes are silver, but I'm not insane, as you can see" he said frantically, as soon as Bobby had seen his eyes, he had his gun pointed at him. "Darien, how do I know that this isn't just some ruse? that you won't try to harm us, I mean, you are in stage five quicksilver madness." "Look, Claire, you know for a fact that if I were in stage five madness, that if I wanted to kill somebody, I would, and I'm telling you, I may be in stage five, but my brain isn't registering it, I feel fine" he said desperately, for Bobby still had the gun pointed at his chest. "Alright, let's say that you are mentally stable, how in bloody hell can you be in stage five at the same time?" she asked him, "I don't know! I'm not a scientist, all I know is that I went to bed last night at eight parts red, then woke up happy, and just forgot to check my tatoo" he said, while Bobby didn't lower his gun by an atom's width.
After several strained minutes, Claire finally convinced the others to leave, so she could examine him without their hinderance. "Ok, Darien, I need you to tell me everything that you remember from last night, all right?" she asked peacefully, as if she were talking to a stray (hungry looking) dog. "Claire, you don't need to talk to me like I'm gonna jump up and kill you, I'm in complete control" he said, just to miff her.
Well, the next few hours were, to say the very least, not the most fun Darien had ever had, Claire had him quicksilver more than ever before, testing how he could maintain control, and taking blood samples every now and then. Not having any stage five counteragent, and Darien being complete control, she deemed the most productive thing to do. As an added bonus, it seemed, Darien suffered no ill affects when he passed the half hour mark for quicksilvering, since he was already far past it. Claire concluded that Darien had no limit for quicksilver use, since his blood could become no more saturated than it was (10,000 parts per million), which she had never known before, even the sasquatch's blood she analyzed wasn't that high. Then again, the bigfoot didn't have the quicksilver madness affect.
As soon as Darien reached his apartment, he collapsed into bed, exhausted from the work he did. Odd, it wasn't a physical exhaustion, it was something deeper, he was mentally exhausted, perhaps that was the penalty for quicksilver over-use. At that point, he didn't care, and would discuss it with Claire tomorrow, maybe she would have an answer for him. He removed his shirt, tossed it over the side of the bed, barely, and collapsed once again, into a deep sleep.
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