doc_holi | Musebox #1 [CLOSED]

Entry tags:

musebox

Musebox #1 [CLOSED]

Who: Holiday and Six
What: being awkward/horrible/flirty/omg
When: Right after "Six Minus Six"
Where: Providence HQ
Warnings: Spoilers for "Six Minus Six" and MAYBE "Lions And Lambs"

Holiday walked back into the tower after the LONGEST couple of days she ever had. Okay, not the longest, but it was far too close for comfort.

She set the chart she had carried in with her down on the desk, already turning her attention to the computer screen. So, Caesar's invention hadn't worked... twice. It was good that her sister was cured, because Six had just become her new project. She had to get the other Six back. This one was driving her nuts... even if he could be sweet... when he wanted to be.

She sighed, staring at the computer, but not sitting down. At least, he wasn't physically hurt... That was a good plus.

Didn't mean that she couldn't worry...

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"Because with all the fireworks around them, it was probably going to get down and dirty very quickly," Six stated flatly.

Down and dirty... Face palms.

Again, she thinks back to the days where she believed that eventually she would have to sit Six down and have "The Talk" with him... Now she's just wondering if that jumbled in there all the time and he just learned to keep his mouth shut or he really had changed that much.

"Well," she sighs, scribbling on the clipboard. "At least, that's over with."

He churlishly pointed at the leads still attached to his head. "Can I take these off now? Or are you going to have me do another set?"

...And that sounded wrong on so many levels given their current topic of conversation.

She gave him a look before walking over to the computer on the other side of the monitor. "Not yet," she absently said, looking what information she had over again.

Even though they hadn't finished, these were the same as the first time. Nothing had changed... except that he was a little irritated, that was obvious.

Her face stayed neutral, though, trying to find anything good out of this session. Any small percentage. Any small spike. Anything.

Eventually, she did frown a little, looking through the read outs. "You can take them off," she sighed, not looking away from the information. She'd be up late tonight. She didn't care.

He tugged the leads off gratefully. At least that was over with.

Seeing her expression, he lost some of his irritation.

"I'm guessing it's nothing good."

"It's... nothing bad, either." Meaning that it was... nothing. There was no change at all so far.

He had no injury and there was no change in his scans or his behavior, from when he wasn't acting, so there wasn't much of a point to make him go through an MRI or anything like that.

She started printing the read outs. She would need some hard copies. "We're done for today, if you had anything else to do."

She wasn't kicking him out, but she couldn't think of another useful test for the time being.

He shook his head. "Nothing at all aside from training and researching."

Not that his research efforts about his other self bore much fruition. It was enough to drive a man to drink.

He sighed, removing the leads and putting them down instead of simply throwing them away.

He closed his eyes, trying to settle his own frustration and trying to capture that other Six before he left the lab.

Holiday gathered the papers, folding them up, before giving Six her worried glance again.

"You can still ask questions, if you want," she said, walking to the desk she was at before he came in, "I'll... try to answer them."

Added the disclaimer. Apparently, there was too much that she didn't know.

He looked over at her before trying to play it off as a joke. He smirked. "Don't want to get rid of me just yet?"

He was being a pain and knew it, but her annoyance provided a welcome distraction.

However, his heart just wasn't in the flirt which became obvious as the smirk faltered. He sighed and leaned against an empty lab table.

"What did I do in my spare time?"

Ha ha... She could tell he was trying to make a distraction for himself, though, and it failed.

"Spare time?" Did Six have spare time? Let's see. She looked at the ceiling, thinking on that one. "Training. Trying to find new ways to lock your closet door... Slept..." She kind of shrugged after that one. "Usually in your down time, you just came to the lab if Rex wasn't sneaking out, in trouble, going to be in trouble, or missing."

Yeah, that was about it...

That surprised him. He looked at her in confusion. "...I came here?"

"A good bit, yeah."

She wasn't really putting anything together like he was. For one, it was just normal for him to come by and talk, and two, she was organizing that data sheets she had gotten from him so far.

Six processed this, analyzing it and comparing it to what little he knew about his other self.

That Six and him weren't people persons, one thing they had in common. Other than One, Knight was the only person to ever hold his trust and inspire a desire to spend time with him. For the other Six to deliberately come here...

"I'll be damned," he murmured.

"Hmm?" she asked him, not catching whatever he just said. It was muttered anyway. Maybe it wasn't for her ears.

None of that registered, she just glanced to him before looking to the computer once it was booted up.

"Nothing just...realized something."

Interesting. Even if that other Six hadn't realized it, deliberately going to her lab without reason was a "yes". The other man had liked her enough to spend time with her. That was a definite connection.

He stared down at his feet as he thought this over. Apparently, his other self was the King of Subtlety. Even if he hadn't fully understood his own motives, it was as much about what he didn't do or say as much as what he did. Someone with enough familiarity might be able to read between the lines but for someone who was a total stranger like Six as he currently was wouldn't have picked up on the secret dual language.

"Believe it or not, Doctor, you just made things both simpler and more complicated."

Well, she was typing until her fingers stopped and she looking over the monitor in confusion...

Then, she looked over at him with confusion.

"Huh?"

"I haven't been able to find much on my other self. What I did find, it was like I was always missing something vital." He looked up at her. "Just now, what you said about him coming in here, it helped a little but..." He looked back down at the floor. "...I know I'm still missing it."

Because there were a million ways to over-think everything that other Six did.

~~You can never over-think Six.~~

Still, Holiday gave him a blank look. He had apparently put together something she hadn't and she still wasn't seeing it.

"Okay..." Now, she's distracted trying to figure out whatever he found out...

...

She gave up pretty quick. Instead, she shrugged. "Well, at least I managed to help out in some way."

Six put his face in his hands again as he tried to reason out everything he'd already learned, trying to look at it through the lens of not just what was there but what wasn't there.

"It's like the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime," he said, thinking out loud.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of dogs that didn't bark, things he might've expected the other Six to say or do that he hadn't.

She stopped typing again. Now, he's just talking weird.

"Dog in the nighttime?"

Maybe... she should just leave or something. Let him think in silence.

"Huh? Oh. Sherlock Holmes. The one with the horse. 'Silver Blaze', I think." He thought for a moment before dismissing it. He could look it up later. "There was a guard dog that didn't bark. Holmes saw that as a clue to help unravel what had happened.

"That other me didn't say a lot, but maybe that's part of it. Maybe there were things he didn't have to say."

She... finally looked back at him with a smile.

"Well, you're right in that respect. You never said a lot and you certainly never outwardly said what you wanted or actually meant. Your actions meant a lot more than your words..."

There was a lot that the other Six thought he didn't have to say and... really, he didn't. But... it would've been nice every now and then, and she knew that Rex would agree.

"So how did you ever figure out what he wanted or didn't want?" Six asked. "I assume context was part of it, but with the more ambiguous gestures that could've meant anything, how could you be sure?"

There had to be some trick to it. He might never understand the why, but if he could just duplicate the how...

She almost gives a sarcastic snort to that, closing her eyes. "We never really did know what he wanted," she told him, going back to the computer.

And she was right. There were things that she did know about Six. She knew he managed White Knight, but mostly trusted the man's judgement. She knew he cared for Rex and that he would've never hurt him, even if the boy would some day turn again. She knew he cared for her to some extent.

But what Six wanted? If he ever wanted anything, he sure didn't let anyone know about it. He worked, lived, and breathed for Providence... and Rex. That was about it.

Six stared at the woman, trying to wrap his head around that.

"He never asked for anything? At all?" the mercenary asked.

Everyone had something they wanted: wealth, fame, sex. Surely his other self had had those motivators for his own. He knew that he had them.

But if that other Six wasn't trying to obtain any of that, what drove him to be that man?

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