Operation Cookie
(I own nothing)
Gilbert looked at the time: 17.45. He would close up for the day in a quarter of an hour and could not wait. His day has not been busy, and spending most of it waiting around, surfing the internet has been pleasant, but felt very unproductive. Placing his legs on his impecably clean desk (making sure that the soles of his shoes hung out of the desk surface, not touching it), he grabed and opened the envelope containing the weekly journal sent to him by the German veterinary medicine society. He flipped through impatiently, and huffing, tore an ad containing page, crumpled it up, and sent it with a high curve in the wastebin across the room.
He was dreaming of the time he would reach home and eat something simple. He was renting a small, separate apartment in his brother's Ludwig grand house for close to nothing. It almost felt like living for free in his brother's basement, but truth be told he loved Lutz, and wanted to be able to see him. Lived he any further away he would never have the chance to watch over his workaholic little brother, the successful bussinessman (who, by the way, had a completely different opinion about who was watching over whom). Gilbert himself would never "conquer the world" as a vet, but being one certainly made him feel awesome. So once home, he would warm up those rosemary baked potatoes, and then call Francis to see if him and Antonio were planning anything interesting for the night.
Suddenly, some commotion begun outside the glass door of his clinic, in front of which only afternoon shoppers were idly passing by until a minute ago. Two similar looking guys were ringing the bell, one of them waving his hands around and wailing for.. "cookies"? Gilbert was finding it a bit weird they had decided to show up exactly upon his closing time to sell charity sweets, until he noticed a not so happy looking big red cat lying on the hands of one of the guys. He opened the door and ushered them in.
"Good afternoon", he greeted them.
They looked up at him and simultaneously cringed. Gilbert knew his awesome scratchy voice was not a sound to be easily found in the world. The crying guy spoke in a hurry:
"We're here for Dr. Beilschmidt"
Gilbert smiled: " I am Dr. Beilschmidt, what 's wrong with your kitten?"
The (obvious) brothers looked at each other. The taller, darker one took over. "We 're looking for Dr. Herbert Beilschmidt" he defined with a bass voice.
"Yes, Bertie..." said the crying one nodding fervently.
Gilbert realized they were regulars of his father. But "Bertie"? Was this guy hallucinating? Or allowing the use of that nickname meant his father had two personalities, of which he himself had only ever met one?
"Herbert Beilschmidt is my father. He 's retired now, and I took over the clinic. My name is Gilbert" (Bertie too, then, he guessed). "Shall we take a look at the cat?"
The guy holding the cat moved towards Gilbert, but the boy with the tear-stained face placed his body in between the two, looking with narrowed eyes at the new vet: "What if Cookie does not trust him?" he asked. "What if she does not feel comfortable with him?"
His brother looked very pissed with this statement, but kept his lips sealed. The solution was given by Cookie herself. She was a pained, rigid ball of fur until now, but she decided to stretch out to Gilbert, probably realizing the guy in the white robe was her only chance. She managed to move in his arms, letting the taller guy looking relieved.
Gilbert decided to ignore the rude "parents" and take the kitty for an examination. Nevertheless, as he was turning his back to them, he felt a hand snatching his coat belt:
"But Bertie had a Ph.D..."
Gilbert could not contain himself anymore. "I have a Ph.D. too!" he snapped. The boy who by now had stopped crying looked at the office wall. Among all his degrees, Gilbert's Ph.D. title could be seen.
"It's in Ornithologyyyy" the boy noticed with dispair.
Gilbert could not believe it. He knew that his silver, unrully hair, sneakers and torn jeans were not the most trustworthy appearance for a clinician, but this was too much.
"Do you think discussing my academic qualifications is the appropriate thing to do while Cookie is in pain?" he hissed.
"That's it, shut it up Feliciano" the brass voice was heard again. "Let's get this over with".
They moved to the examination room, and Gilbert saw right away where the problem lied: the cat had a broken forelimb. It was bad. Cookie was tiredly trying to push Gilbert away from the pained limb with her other paws.
"I must make an X-ray, but it's broken alright. How did this happen anyway?" he asked. The one named Feliciano begun playing with some paper towels close to the examination table. He pretended not to hear the question. His brother replied:
"Ahem... She fell off a tree" he declared.
"A Christmas tree..." Feliciano said after a while, in a faint tone.
"Did she climb so high then?" Gilbert asked, deciding to ingore the Christmas decoration in the middle of November fact.
"Not that high" the other guy said with venom, looking at his brother. "It was an indoors one".
"It's not too early for that I tell you!" Feliciano almost shouted.
Gilbert was not interested: "How did she brake her limb from falling inside the house then?"
"It was a freakish accident..." Feliciano murmured looking more intently than ever at the paper towel he was wriggling between his fingers. His borther just sighed.
Gilbert took advantage of Cookie's needing an X-ray to stay away from these people for a while. He would gladly kick them out if it wasn't for Cookie. They were rude to him, one of the guys was rude to his brother, and they had not even presented themselves to Gilbert as they should upon coming to the clinic. He didn't like them at all.
He dutifully made the X-ray, and looked at it peting Cookie's head at the same time. He sighed, and decided she was in need of some mild sedation right there and then. At least that would save her the aggravation of hearing her masters' voices carrying through the walls of the clinic.
"Well, we have two options" Gilbert announced entering the room. "Either I make a rough plaster and give her painkillers until you take her to another specialist for surgery to put the bone into the right position, or I could make the surgery now, and you could take her tomorrow back to your place to help her heal."
Feliciano's eyes were looking at him wide open.
"So, there's no way she'll avoid the surgery?" the taller guy asked.
"No way" Gilbert confirmed. The taller boy just opened his arms while rolling his eyes to the sky, completely expecting Feliciano's reaction, who instantly begun to wail, and fell face-first on his brother's torso.
"Shut up you moron... Dr. Beilschmidt is gonna set everything right", he sighed, as he wrapped his arms around his brother's back.
Feliciano's voice was heard muffled and with difficulty through his hickupping and sobbing: "But he's an ornithologist..."
Gilbert begun to lose control: "Yes, but I'm an awesome surgeon, and I have saved many birds from injuries caused in freakish accidents!" He was hoping sarcasm was reaching the two brothers through his answer clearly enough.
Feliciano's brother chimmed in: "It's just a bloody cat, Feli! How different could she be to any other animal? And you're a grown-up, try acting like one once in a while!"
Gilbert looked at him disbelieving: He really did not care for the animal at all? What kind of a person was he? And is this the kind of support he could give to his -surely annoying but at least paining over his kitty- brother? Really? "So?" he asked. " What's the decision?"
The darker-haired one spoke again: "Calm down Feli, everything will be alright. Don't be such a pain... Cookie needs you to stay calm now... It will be over in a couple of hours." He finished his half reassuring half insulting speech to his brother and turned to Gilbert: "Please, doctor, let's proceed, dammit. My name is Lovino Vargas by the way. This is my brother Feliciano."
Feliciano raised his head from his brother's chest just to look at Gilbert and nod. His voice came teary and muffled again: "But you have to stay with Cookie, Lovino... You have to stay by her side all the way... Please be there to hold her hand all the time, fratellooooo" his last word was lost in a fresh wail.
Lovino looked at the sky and brought one of his fists to his head, on the verge of pulling his hair out, Gilbert assumed. Lovino shouted in despair: "She doesn't have any hands you imbecile!"
As Lovino begun pushing his brother towards the office of the clinic, while Feliciano was still attached to his chest like a leach, a very uncomfortable mission, he supposed, Gilbert transferred Cookie into his small and spotless operation room, beginning to prepare everything for the surgery to take place. He could hear the brassy voice of Lovino talking to a still crying Feliciano:
"Are you okay now? Don't worry, I'll be there all the time. No, I won't leave her side a minute. Everything 's gonna be fine, I already told you so. Yes, I 'm sure. Yes, I 'd bet on it. Yes, my best pair of cufflinks. Are you okay with driving back? I 'll walk back home once I'm done here. Yes, not before I 'm sure. Are you ok driving back? You gonna be safe? No, I don't mind. I will be in need of some fresh air anyway. But are you sure you can drive back?"
Gilbert heard the main door of the clinic open and close. Feliciano was obviously too upset to say goodbye to him or Cookie. A sour looking Lovino entered hesitantly the operation room.
"Now what?" he asked.
Gilbert sighed. He really wasn't in the mood of entairtaining rude guests while operating. Particularily not animal-loving guests. "Are you actually staying in the operation room?" he asked.
"I don't want to at all, I don't like animals or surgeries..." said Lovino. Gilbert wished he could release Gilbird, his beloved canary he had trained for battle himself, upon Lovino's perfectly groomed eyebrows. "But I promised my brother, so..." Lovino continued, lessening Gilbert's anger by a very small degree.
"You 'll have to dress up then". Gilbert showed him at various places around the room. "Put on a fresh robe from that drawer, a one-use surgical robe such as mine from the drawer above it, over the robe. Put on overshoes and wash your hands and face very well with this soap. Also, put on a head cap, a mask and two pairs of gloves the one over the other, there's a special way to put the gloves on, I'll show you how, I only have medium. In that order, please."
Lovino was looking around disbelieving the necessity of all this attire, and a bit lost. He nevertheless found his way around, managed to put everyting on successfully, and fitted the medium sized gloves on perfectly, with minimal nagging.
Gilbert was beginning to have fun bossing Lovino around a little bit. It kept his mouth closed most of the time, if anything. He decided to take it one step further, hoping he wouldn't have to pick a faint Lovino off the floor at some point through the surgery:
"So, do you care to help me out Lovino? Or are you just going to stick to holding Cookie's "hand"?"
"Cut it out asshole! What do you want me to do?"
Gilbert chuckled and aswered enigmatically: "You 'll see soon enough..."
He covered the rest of Cookie with a green paper, leaving her injured leg poking through a rectangular hole in the middle. He put some base under it to keep it at a convenient height, checked the anesthesia device attached with various tubes to Cookie's snout and begun smearing hair removing cream on her leg. Lovino snickered and asked:
"Is this something they taught you in University?"
"Yes, removing hair and castration are the main subjects at a veterinary medicine school." He replied sending a meaningful glance to his "nurse". Lovino gulped.
While waiting for the cream to act, Gilbert, who despite himself was beginning to enjoy the banter with Lovino, decided it was time for some smalltalk.
"Are you guys from Spain?" he asked. Lovino drew a breath, deeply insulted. "Of course not! We're from Italy" he said. "Rome!" he added proud, as if this would mean more Italian than someone from Milan.
Gilbert decided to push more: "But, isn't Vargas a spanish name?" he asked again.
"I tell you we're 100% Italians, what's wrong with you?" Lovino scowled.
"And what are you doing here?" Gilbert asked again. "Do you like Berlin?"
"Work" Lovino sighed. I'm in informatics, my brother is an artist. He's studying in the University currently. Berlin's okay. People are better than..." he stoped himself.
Gilbert knew exactly what Lovino meant. "Better than I expected" he meant. But, his misled opinion of german people before actually living here aside, Gilbert kind of sympathised with Lovino and the situation he imagined was in front of him: One following his brother abroad to support him financially and emotionally. Leaving his country, family and friends for as long as it takes to help out Feliciano fulfill his dreams. The comparison came to his mind immediatelly. Well, he himself had never offered money to Ludwig, he didn't need it anyway, but he was constantly fretting over him, never moved out of the city to be close to him, and hoped he was managing to be a supportive brother in any way possible. These thoughts and the last discussion between the Vargas he overheard a few minutes ago, was a proof that Lovino dearly loved his brother. He just, for some reason, didn't want it to show.
"I'm glad you like the city" he replied. "We have awesome nightclubs!" he tried to lighten the atmosphere, giving a wide grin that tried to strech out of the mask he was wearing.
Lovino looked at him sarcastically: "Are you sure you're old enough to operate?"
Gilbert laughed.
As soon as the cream had removed all the hair, Gilbert wiped the cat's leg with paper tissue and changed his outer pair of gloves with a fresh one. Lovino could see that that would happen often during the surgery, and rolled his eyes.
Gilbert stood up from his slightly bent position, grabbed a peculiar looking tube attached to a sort of cable from somewhere behind him. "This is where you come in" he said. "This tube is used to suck and remove the excess of blood. Are you with me?" he asked. Lovino just nodded, looking at the device. "You'll have to work close to me, facilitating my view of the area by removing the blood, but without obstructing my moves. Got it?" Lovino nodded again. "If the tube's removable part touches anywhere but on the wound, it needs to be changed, okay?" Lovino just looked at him, too bored to nod now.
Gilbert begun the operation half expecting Lovino to drop like a fly every time something new was happening. While operating on animals was helping him relax for some reason, this time, he had to look over to Lovino's face every now and then and make sure his helper was okay. Lovino, though, was looking fine. Drops of sweat on his forehead and a deep line between his eyebrows were the only signs of his effort. His body was continuously rigid, keeping a correct position, his hands swift and steady, his eyes focused on what was taking place with a curiosity anyone outside the medical and paramedical professions would call morbid.
With Lovino's help, the operation finished fast, the bone pieces put together correctly, and all bleedings stopped. It was time to stitch the leg up, and Gilbert took the sucking tube away from Lovino's hands.
He turned his back to dispose of the removable part of the tube, and turned just in time to catch Lovino facing his backside. He was not sure Lovino had actually been looking at his ass, but now Lovino's eyes were not leaving the operated leg, and an intense blush that no surgical mask could possibly cover was spreading all over his face, giving everything away.
Gilbert turned around once again, needing time to think, conscious about the fact that he was offering Lovino another nice view of his behind. He begun going through every box of surgical consumables on the shelves, taking in his hands anything he might or might not need and wondering how the atmosphere in the room had drastically changed from one moment to the next. Gilbert didn't know what to think of this new development. Lovino was definitely attractive. Hell, he was gorgeous for sure. But, he didn't seem to like animals at all -maybe also people other than his brother either- and this was not a guy to be around if one was a vet. He felt quite torn between their obvious incompatibility and the fact that he could make Lovino blush so hard Gilbert would bet one could feel the heat emitting through his surgical mask, just by turning his back at him. He decided to let a small smile creep up his features. At least working out alongside Ludwig in the gym was paying off!
He turned around holding an impossibly large number of paraphernalia in his hands. Lovino was sweating more than ever. Gilbert quickly and effectively made the stitches on the cat's skin, patched it up safely, injected some extra painkillers in Cookie's thigh, and fitted a small, blue plaster around her limb.
He asked Lovino to move the cat in the next room, where a cosy, warm, spacious cage was waiting for her. To Gilbert's surprise, Lovino picked up the sleeping cat as if he was craddling a baby, and put her in the cage softly. He took a chair and sat by her side to rest. Gilbert went back to the operation room, cleaning everything around, and thowing away all the consumables he used. A barely audible whisper was coming from the room. Gilbert raised an eyebrow and looked towards the sleeping cat, but could not see a thing from where he was standing. He supposed that if Cookie was coming round earlier than she should, Lovino would let him know. Once he finished everyhing and threw his attire away, he went back to his patient. Lovino was petting Cookie's head with a now glove-free hand, whispering small encouragements close to her ear. Gilbert leaned to the door frame smiling. Once Lovino took notice of him, he withdrew his hand as if the cat was burning, and rose to his feet trying to hide the hand in a pocket his one-use surgical robe had not. Gilbert just smiled subtly, and took a look at the cat. Her breathing was perfect, and everything seemed in place.
"She's gonna be fine, better than before", he let Lovino know. Lovino was still blushing, entairtaining Gilbert immensely. "Yeah, thanks a lot, doc... Suki means a lot to my brother..." Lovino said scratching his head through his cap.
Gilbert simply nodded slowly, still smiling, and trying very hard not to let his laughter explode, after Lovino's failed attempt to deny he's actually loving the family's cat. "Take this stuff off and wait for me in the office, please", he told Lovino. As Lovino was leaving, Gilbert made sure Cookie was comfortable and cosy, and would find everything she needed should she wake up during the night. He heard Lovino call his brother and letting him know everything had turned out okay and that he would soon come home.
Gilbert's mind was racing. Lovino was not as lame as he thought at the beginning, for sure. He was not only unbelievebly handsome, but he was also kind, loving, supporting (in his own way), smart and capable. He did love his brother, and he did love animals (Gilbert mentally danced at that). And, he was infinitely interesting. Sour mood, definitely, a tendency to insult, which would not bother Gilbert if he knew he didn't mean it, and a quick tongue. Prickly on the outside, mellow on the inside. Two hours with Lovino, which he guessed, were not easily to be given away by this guy, and Gilbert felt he could read Lovino like an open book. What more could this guy be hiding? How much funnier could he be to be around, if one got to know him better? Was he worth the effort? Gilbert was used to making decisions fast, and 99% of the times he was proven correct. This capability of his had won for him every single game of Risk he had ever played, to his brother's and friends' dismay. He decided on the spot.
He found Lovino in the office. "Well, Cookie is looking great. I am expecting you to pick her up tomorrow around midday." Before Lovino begun speaking, he continued: "Or Feliciano, it doesn't matter. But she should definitely stay at your place, no offence to Feliciano, but you seem more capable of taking care of her." He quickly added "Is there anyone to take care of her while you're at work? Wife, or girlfriend or something?", his voice faintly losing in volume as he continued.
Lovino was looking a bit offended that he could not find space between Gilbert's ranting to chime in, but the last question made him begin blushing again. A super effort showing in his face stopped the blush midway, and he replied "No, I don't, and I live with Feliciano anyway".
A shameless grin spread on Gilbert's face. "Then, you'll definitely need me there! I will visit you for the next days after work, to make sure you're fine!"
Lovino grumped: "You mean to make sure the cat is fine!"
"Absolutely!" Gilbert's grin became wider, if possible, and his eyebrows began wiggling involuntarily. "Say, I haven't thanked you for helping me in there!"
"Well, you could spare me and Feli the surgery costs..." Lovino said, a bit sarcastically, obviously not expecting his suggestion to be accepted.
"I cannot do this, but I could treat you to dinner tonight!" Gilbert dared.
Lovino was stunned: "But I have perfectly good pasta waiting for me at home" he said.
Gilbert insisted: "It should be cold by now... And you did such a great job, you deserve some good, warm food..."
Lovino thought so too, it was apparent, but he did not speak.
"Come on, there's this great place very close, where they serve potatoes any way you can imagine!" Gilbert said pulling Lovino's sleeve.
Lovino's face contorted as if he had heard a vinyl disc player scratching up the disc: "Potatoes? You have got to be kidding me! I demand at least pizza! It's the least you can do!" he said.
Gilbert laughed as he was picking his jacket and keys from his desk:
"Sure! And we can keep the leftovers for Suki..."