Daily Excerpt Post: Day Three

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Daily Excerpt Post

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[pet-lunatic.livejournal.com]

There was a pause. Stephens had lowered his hands. He looked puzzled for a moment – and kicked-puppy hurt – then his face cleared.

“Doughnuts!” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“You said you were hungry. That must be why you're so cranky. Your blood sugar's low.”

“Dr. Stephens, I'm cranky because you dragged me all the way here just to see...”

“No. No.”

“No what?” Theo's body was so tense he was vibrating.

“No. I can't let you see her like this. You're not in the right frame of mind. You're going to have a couple of jelly doughnuts – I always keep some in my lab – and some coffee, and then you'll feel better and we can – are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” Theo ground out. “Due some medication, that's all.”

“All the more reason to have a cup of coffee and relax. Relax.” He purred the word like a Buddhist guru trying to soothe a particularly inadequate novice meditator. Theo stared at him, fists clenched tightly – then abruptly he did relax, a small, lopsided smile twitching the corner of his mouth.

“Please excuse me, Dr. Stephens. I'm not always this grumpy.”

“Not at all.” Stephens was shooing him out of the study, back into the messy sitting room. It felt almost welcoming now. “What is your medication for?” he asked.

Theo glanced at a notice-board he hadn't observed before, scraps of scribble-covered paper pinned to it like butterflies. “Blood pressure,” he said, blandly.

Stephens squinted at his guest's unusually pale, bloodless face, and shrugged. “I'll get you that snack. Wait, here's some water...” he pounced on a half-empty bottle hiding behind a stack of notebooks, “so you can take your meds.” And he bustled off. Five minutes later he was back with a steaming pot of coffee, two cups, and a plate of stale, squashed doughnuts, which were leaking raspberry jelly: surviving veterans, it seemed, of a long and bloody war against being peckish.