Chapter 2: The Erratic
Amidst the rapid talking, Jack Hudson came to a final and decided conclusion: He would never, ever take another day off again. Every time he left for more than twenty hours, he missed something, something important. It was inevitable.
Right now, he tried to filter the varied speech coming from Lucy, Bobby, and Tara, Sue's furiously-paced signing, and Levi's barking in all the excitement. He couldn't keep up with Sue, and the white noise from the other three, with Levi adding to the symphony, was simply noise.
So far, he had caught "Myles", and "no idea", among various snippets of uselessness. He had determined that it had something to do with the tall, blond agent, but also knew that if it was something serious or life-threatening (haunting thoughts of an Ebola relapse had sprung to mind), they wouldn't be quite this worked up.
Jack was about to tell them all to be quiet and calmly explain what was going on, when Myles walked in – dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. His hair seemed a bit longer and lighter than Jack remembered, but Jack brushed that small detail aside as just not paying attention in the past.
"Hi, people I don't know that well." Myles spoke to the room at large, grinning widely and waving. He paused on the way to his desk to wink at Bobby, throwing in, "Hey, hot stuff. What's up?"
That, however, Jack could not ignore.
"See? I told you!" Bobby's voice raised, and he waved an accusing hand in Myles' direction.
"He just had to see it to believe it." Lucy confirmed with a nod.
Jack was lost. See what? That Myles...was...uh...
"Sam! I told you to wait for me!" Myles stormed into the Bullpen, looking rather angry.
Jack had to double take. Myles, in punk wear...at his desk. Myles...in normal clothes...at the door. Myles-in-normal-clothes came over to Jack, and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Jack, I'd like you to meet my brother, Sam. Sam, this is Jack Hudson. Anything he might have said concerning Bobby is purely in poor jest, and not to be taken seriously." Myles raised an eyebrow in the direction of the punk rocker, and the newcomer shrugged.
"I think he likes it, Myles. Aww, look at him blushing..." Sam replied, cooing the last part in Bobby's general direction.
Myles looked over at Bobby to see him turning red indeed, and trembling – most likely suppressing the strong and overwhelming desire to throttle Sam.
"'Ello, Jackie, me boy," Sam saluted Jack, and spoke with an obviously false Irish accent. "Top o' the mornin' to ya." Then, suddenly, as if a thought struck him, he sat up and motioned to his Visitor's ID pass. "Myles, how come they couldn't just use one of your old pictures instead of taking this new one of me?"
"Because I'm not you and it's against policy," Myles replied evenly, trying very hard to keep his cool.
"Well, gee. I don't want to insult Them." Sam pretended to act horrified, and sat back in Myles' desk chair with an expression of mock-terror.
"I obviously missed something rather big..." Jack mumbled to himself.
Sam caught it, and his eyes widened dramatically. "Just look for the paw print, Steve!"
Dimitrius was just walking into the room, and thus lost his mouthful of coffee.
Lucy raised an eyebrow at the usually quiet agent, but he was laughing too hard to reply; he waved her off, set his cup down on the coffee-counter, and grabbed some paper towels to wipe up the coffee on the floor.
Out of nowhere, a tiny voice started singing "Doom doom da doom doom da doom doom dooom!" Everyone except Sue started looking for the source of the noise, and even Levi looked slightly puzzled. After a brief second in which the strange song continued, Sam jumped and exclaimed, "Oh! My phone!"
He pulled a modern-looking little silver device out of his pocket, and snapped it open, holding it up to his ear. "Oh, howdy, Gregory. S'up, butler-boy? What? No...why? Oh, go ahead. I don't care. Mhmm. Oh, guess what? I beat SuperMario64 the other day. Yeah. 116 stars! Isn't that awesome? I'll save it, so you can see. I dunno...maybe a couple of weeks. Yup. Wanna talk to him? Alright. I'll tell him. G'bye, Gregory."
Sam tossed the phone onto Myles' desk, and then started playing with one of Myles' pencils. "Gregory says hi," he reported distractedly.
"Who's Gregory?" Tara asked curiously, looking to Myles for a possible answer.
"My butler," Sam answered, twirling the pencil between his fingers, eyes locked on it as if it was the greatest source of amusement in the known world.
"Butler?" At least three voices asked, as eyebrows shot up all over the room.
"Excuse me, but I thought you said 'butler'..." Sue questioned doubtfully.
"Yeah, my butler..." Sam didn't seem to be phased by the sudden attention, rather, he flipped the pencil up in the air and caught it with two fingers, then repeated the motion before giving more information. "I'm a mill-yun-air. Just ask Myles." Sam drew out the syllables in the dead-weight word, and all eyes in the room turned to Myles for verification.
"Unfortunately," Myles sighed, nodding. "It's true." He walked over to his desk, dropped some papers on it, and took the pencil from Sam.
"Hey! I was playing with that!"
"I need it."
"You have more!" Sam grabbed for the pencil, but Myles held it out of reach. Sam slumped back into the chair, and crossed his arms over his chest, pouting. Then his eyes lit up with mischief, and he smiled sweetly at Myles. "Oh, by the way...did you get my birthday present?"
"The musical birthday card? Yes." The entire roomful of people watched intently as the twins interacted. Myles was doing his best to calmly ignore Sam. He started writing things on reports, jotting in notes, standing up to save himself the trouble of evicting the current occupant of his chair.
"Didja like it? I almost imported an Aston Martin for you, but then I decided you probably wouldn't like it that much— so I called and canceled the order. The card was a lot cooler anyway, wasn't it? Well, then I found that Lotus Elise, but you never drive that kind of car anyway– you seem to like those old Lincoln and Fords..." Sam rambled on, now toying with the Post-Its, but Myles had stopped moving. The pencil was stopped mid-word.
Jack nudged Bobby, and leaned over to whisper, "Is he still breathing?"
"I doubt it." The answer came from Dimitrius, who shrugged, chuckling at Myles' frozen form.
"So, anyway..." Sam was continuing with his spoken train of thought when Myles finally managed to shake himself out of the shock.
"You almost got me an Aston Martin!"
"Yeah, well, gee...you don't have to be so mad about it." Sam said defensively, pulling his head back to look up at his brother. "I said I canceled the order. No worries."
"An Aston Martin..."
"Breathe, Myles." Tara reminded him from the other side of the room.
"So...what are we doing today? Can I play with your gun?" Sam reached for Myles' holster, and Myles jumped back, putting a protective hand on the firearm.
"No! You may not 'play' with my gun."
"Someone needs to go back to kindergarten and learn how to share." Sam said in an overly patronizing and childlike way.
"If either of us belongs in kindergarten still, it's you," Myles retorted, grabbing Sam by the arm. "Out of my chair. Now."
Sam came up, bounced around the other side of the chair as Myles sat down, and leaned over the top. "Do you guys have food? Coffee? Soda? What do you do, anyway? Can I have that pencil back? You aren't using it now. Are you sure you don't have food? Did you remember to tell Glorfindel goodbye? I did. He gets upset if you don't. And then he meows the whole time you're gone and–"
It was too much for Myles. "Would you shut up? And how do you know he meows when you're gone if you aren't there?" He realized too late that he'd just negated the previous request.
Sam looked shocked, as if the logic behind the answer was simple enough for anyone to grasp. "Well, duh." He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "He told me. We communicate very well. Sometimes, bro, I worry about you..."
Myles dropped his head into his hands. By now, most of the room had returned to their original tasks. Bobby sat down at his desk across from Myles, and began to work on some reports. There was silence for a minute; Myles decided that Sam had listened for once, and was just being quiet as asked.
Then he heard an amused whisper. "You have nice hair, ya know."
Myles looked up to see Bobby's blue eyes staring at him, a death grip on his pen and his jaw set, and Sam standing behind him, playing with the Aussie's hair.
"Must be the Australian surf. Do you surf? I can surf..."
"Myles..." Bobby's plea for help was someone between desperate, and infuriated.
"Sam! Leave Bobby alone!" Myles commanded harshly, and his twin looked up from his latest toy – Bobby's brown hair.
"But Myles...I'm bored." Sam protested, giving Bobby's hair a final tousle and walking away. "Hey, you..." Sam motioned to Sue, then picked up a paper clip and threw it so that it landed on the report she was working on. She looked up, surprised, and he pointed to Levi. "Can I play with your dog? Pleeeeease?" He put his hands together, and tried his best to look angelic. She laughed, and waved Levi towards him.
"Go play, Levi."
Levi bounded up and across the room to Sam. Sam dropped to the floor, sat Indian-style next to Myles' desk, and petted the honey-colored dog, talking animatedly about dogs in general, and Glorfindel the cautious kitten, with the energetic Retriever. The conversation tended to be one-sided, but it didn't seem to bother Sam in the least.
Nearly a half-hour passed in this manner, with relative quietness from Sam, and then Sue stood up and stretched. "I need some real coffee. Anyone else want anything?"
Various orders were called out, the giver of each making sure Sue knew they were talking before telling her what they wanted. She tapped the desk and called for Levi, who bounced up from his spot on the floor and dashed to her side. Sam wasn't far behind.
"Can I come?" he asked, eyes wide. "I can help carry stuff."
"I don't mind," Sue shook her head, and smiled at him.
"Myles! I'm going with Sue!" Sam called over his shoulder as he followed the blonde girl out of the room. Myles muttered a farewell– there was much more enthusiasm behind the idea thantheHarvard gradcared to admit.
Out in the hall, Sam trotted beside Sue towards the elevator. Once there, he stopped, and shoved his hands in his pockets, and looked longingly at the circular buttons on the wall.
"Can I push it? Myles always gets mad when I hit it really fast, so I thought I'd ask."
"Actually," Sue replied, looking down at Levi for a moment, "If you sign 'down' to Levi, he'll push it for you."
"Really?" Sam asked incredulously, his grin widening. "That's nifty! Glorfindel, that's my cat, can eat cereal with a spoon, but he can't reach elevator buttons. How do you sign 'down'? Just point, like this?"
Sue showed him the proper way to sign the word, and he did so in Levi's direction; the dog immediately jumped up and brushed a paw over the button, causing it to light up.
"Woah..."
-!-
-!-
They were waiting outside the coffee shop for the rather extensive order when a voice rang out.
"Sue!"
Levi jumped up, and Sue turned around to see David Palmer walking toward her with Nikita.
She smiled. "David! Hi!" She gave him a big hug. "Oh, David, this is—"
"Myles. I remember. Hello again." He reached out to shake hands.
Sam paused for just a moment, then smoothly returned the gesture, his voice holding something of his brother's intonation. "Of course. David. Yes." Another pause. "Sue's friend who…?"
"Yeah, I own a greenhouse."
The adult voice vanished into Sam's curious "Really? Mine's just white."
David looked at him strangely. "No, I...grow plants."
Sam smirked. "Flower Boy." He turned to Sue. "Why don't I give the dogs a run while we're waiting for the coffee?" At Sue's nod, he took off down across the small park area near the coffee shop. David unhooked Nikita's leash as well, and both dogs ran after him, barking and jumping.
David leaned over to Sue. "Has Myles been smoking something off a raid?"
Sue laughed, "That's not Myles."
"You're kidding me — a twin? Can't be — no way."
"Yeah...it's true."
"And this twin's name?" he prodded gently.
"Oh! Sam." She signed the name as she spoke, and looked over to where her coffee run tag-along was running through the park, laughing, as Levi and Nikita chased him and barked.
David grinned. "Ok - has Sam been smoking something off a raid? Because...they're like opposite ends of the universe."
"No..." Sue laughed. "He's just...nothing at all like Myles. You should have seen him in the office this morning."
"Do tell."
By the time she gave him a brief recap, David was laughing so hard he had to sit down on a nearby bench.
"Sue!" Sam waved both arms in the air to get her attention as he neared them, the panting dogs following a few feet behind him. "Is the coffee gonna be ready soon? The dogs are all worn out."
"It should be. And we need to get back to the office anyway." She turned to David and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "I'll call you later tonight, ok?"
David held out a hand. "Nice meeting you, Sam. Thanks for giving Nikita a workout."
"Oh, no problem. It was fun..." Sam nodded, and shook the offered hand. He leaned over to Sue as David was walking away, and whispered loudly, his tone playful. "Is that your boyfriend? Does the team know you're dating a flower guy?"
Sue was about to answer, when David turned around. "Yeah," he said, walking backwards away from them, "and as long as I give 'em all a discount, they're totally cool with it." He waved and turned back around.
Sam looked at the smile on Sue's face and grinned. "You found a good one."
"I think so. Come on, the team will be in caffeine withdrawal by now."
