If it's weird but it works, is it still weird?
Standing in the small bathroom attached to his quarters, Paul scraped the manual razor over the last spot on his cheek, rinsed the blade in the sink and checked his reflection for any missed stubble. One side burn was slightly lower than the other so he quickly corrected it, rechecked his appearance and nodded in satisfaction, setting the razor aside for the moment. A double handful of water scooped up out of the sink and he washed off the last traces of shaving cream, dried his face and picked up the razor again. Pulling the skin of his right cheek tight, he deliberately nicked himself just above the jawline. He kept an eye on the injury while he brushed his teeth, then washed the dried blood off and inspected the site, pleased to see it was fully healed.
It was weird, but it worked, so as long as it did its job he kept it up.
Until recently the question of 'what if?' had always lurked in the back of his mind- what if whatever quirk of Mysteron science that kept him above ground suddenly stopped working, wore off or the Mysterons finally figured out how to turn it off? What if the next time he stared down a gun or took the controls of a damaged vehicle, he wouldn't get up afterwards?
That doubt wouldn't stop him from stepping in of course, but it would have been comforting to have some sort of certainty that while whatever happened next was going to hurt like the dickens, he'd get better afterwards.
However, when the question of 'what if?' perched on his shoulder like some evil bird and whispered in his ear, he couldn't deny that there were times when his sacrifice was made with reluctance. There had even been occasions when resentment started to fester when he was ordered to give up his life. He knew full well it was a soldiers' life to risk everything on orders, that Death was a constant companion in his trade, but when it came to being ordered onto a suicide mission there had been times when he'd have liked to have had at least the illusion of a choice about it.
Logically it was easy to reason that surely a big change like his retrometabolisim being switched off would be something that he'd feel or sense in some form or fashion, but doubt pointed out that his sixth sense was notoriously inaccurate at times and if it happened while he was sleeping, unconscious or distracted he might not even notice it.
The solution had come in a late night conversation with Adam when he was tired enough to be completely honest, all guards down.
The two of them had been sent off on a courier mission to SHEF headquarters in New York that had taken a lot longer than planned (the commander did so love the sound of his own voice) and in the meantime a storm had rolled in. After cooling their heels at the airport in vain, hoping the storm would pass, they'd been ordered to find a hotel for the night- there was no way they'd be making it back to Cloudbase until it passed and they'd both run out of flight hours.
When they'd finally found a hotel with an empty room, to their dismay they'd found it was far too late to get dinner from room service. With the both of them too knackered from the events of the day to even consider venturing out to get food, Adam made an executive decision, taken some of his personal emergency money and bribed one of the front desk staff to go down the road and come back with two soft drinks and a pizza for them.
Holed up with their food, they'd talked as the storm raged around the building and that was when Paul's fear had surfaced.
Adam had listened to him attentively, finished off his slice of pizza, wiped the grease off his hands with a napkin and suggested "Why not check every morning?"
"Check?" Paul asked, confused by the question.
"Yeah, check that your retrometabolisim is still active." Adam explained. "Cut yourself while shaving or something. If it goes away as per normal, you're still good."
"Huh." Paul rolled an empty bottle between his palms as he turned it over in his mind. "Why didn't I think of that?" He regretted his phrasing instantly, seeing Adam's expression take on a distinctly mischievous cast and thanking anyone listening that Ochre wasn't here. Rick would have absolutely pounced on that question and made him pay for it.
"A Harvard education has to be good for something." Adam teased, taking mercy on Paul and picking the mildest of a few options that sprang to mind. "I keep telling you, Ivy League over anything else, any day."
"Oh shut up." Grinning, Paul balled up a napkin and threw it in Adam's direction.
That conversation had been a few weeks ago and he'd started checking every morning. Sure, it was a bit weird, but for him it worked: Doubt hadn't whispered in his ear once since he'd started doing it.