50 Moments

[A/N]: A collection of fifty moments in time which may, or may not, directly correlate to one another. Worked from a list of prompts on an LJ community.

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Gundam Wing or anything related to it. All work is done for entertainment and without profit.

Needles

He bloody well hated doctors and Wufei fucking knew it.

Duo cast another baleful look towards the man sitting across the tiny coffee table from him and was further annoyed that not only did Wufei not look up, the boy crossed his legs and turned the page in the magazine he was pretending to read. At least Duo hoped that Wufei was pretending because he certainly didn't want to know what about Sweet16 Wufei would find interesting. Convinced that the other boy was pointedly ignoring him, Duo flung himself backward in his seat, crossed his arms and turned his gaze elsewhere; two could play at that game!

The clock in the corner slowly ticked the time away and Duo found himself tapping the heel of one foot nervously upon the floor. The steady, jarring thumb of his boot on the title eventually caused the nurse to begin giving him dirty looks through the glass partition and so he switched to popping his fingers. From the corner of his vision he saw Wufei glance up at him and wince at the sound. Hah! Served him right. Duo managed a few more loud cracks and then had to search for something else to make noise with.

Just as he was beginning to wonder if he had the time to take off his boots and pop his toes, the door opened and a nurse stepped out. "Duo Maxwell?"

The good mood that had begun to creep back into his bones vanished the moment his first name had fled the woman's red-painted lips. By the time that his surname was dying upon her tongue, surly and snappish had settled back on their recently vacated sofa and found their favorite soap on the TV. He hunched a little in his seat and didn't move until Wufei reached across the coffee table and smacked his knee with the newspaper.

"What am I, your dog?"

"Go." The hard look that Wufei shot him boded trouble should he try and duck towards the outside door. Duo knew that he was pouting and wasn't sorry for it; he whined faintly and stared at Wufei. At the door to the examining room, the nurse tapped her shoe impatiently.

"They'll wanna use needles, 'Fei," he grumbled in a voice far more pathetic than he'd meant to use. But if it worked…

"Of course they'll—Rrgh…" Wufei seemed to have caught the look that Duo was giving him. He threw the magazine down on the table and stood up, "Fine."

Though he still didn't like the prospect of going back there, Duo offered Wufei a small smile and climbed to his feet. He ducked past nurse that was glaring at them both with impatience, and pretended to ignore the strange look she offered Wufei when she lead them both back to the examining room.

Duo looked between the one offered seat in the cubicle of a room and the examining table. He moved for the chair, but a hand on his shoulder cut him off and he turned to meet Wufei's rolled eyes. "Get on the table, Duo."

Wufei shoved him gently towards it and then slipped around him to flop into the chair before any argument could be made. Duo stuck his tongue out at him. He hopped up onto the table, though, and swung his legs against the counter beneath it. The Chinese boy rubbed his temples with one hand.

There weren't any magazines in this room, but there were posters to look at; Duo really wished there weren't. Oh, certainly being informed about medical procedures could be helpful if you had to undergo them… at least, that was what people had told them. To Duo, the posters were just yet another ghoulish thing to add to an already nightmarish experience. He shuddered at a detailed poster depicting the lungs and gums of tobacco users. Was all that graphic detail really necessary? He had never smoked!

A shudder ran through his body and Duo tore his eyes away from the poster. There was another beside it that depicted a cut-away of a person's ears, nose and throat. Feeling a little sick, now, all Duo found himself able to think about were the up-close lessons he'd gotten in internal anatomy on the battlefield.

"Duo," Wufei murmured from the corner; the braided boy drug his eyes away from the second poster and met the dark Chinese ones. The understanding there let his fingers release their death grip on the paper-covered bench and he gulped faintly. Wufei knew he hated doctors, he just didn't understand why…

But he understood enough.

The door opened and Sally stepped in, needle ready and armed in her hand, "Okay, Duo… ready for your vaccination?"

[[~~]]