madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-ITS A SPECIAL EVENT-

(my boyfriends wearing a fucking suit to his autism diagnosis appointment)

 ⋆˖⁺‧₊🧋🛠️🕯️🍂🥠₊‧⁺˖⋆

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At the end of the hall stood a walnut door with a bronze plaque:

ASCLEPIUS
MD, DMD, DME, DC,, FAAN, LCKWD & CO, OMG, EMT, TTYL, TMR, THG, FRCP, SBG, ME, MCU, IOU, OD, OT, PHARMD, BAMF, RN, PHD, INC., SMH

There may have been more acronyms in the list, but by that point Leo's brain had rewired itself to idiot mode and skimmed over the rest, choosing to think about nicer things, like cheese flavoured puffs and Jason being healthy and well-adjusted.

Piper knocked. "Dr Asclepius?" she asked cautiously.

The door flew open, startling them all. The man inside smiled kindly at them, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening. He was old, with streaky grey hair, and he wore a white lab coat over a suit and a stethoscope around his neck – your stereotypical doctor outfit, except for one thing: Asclepius held a dark staff with an actual green python wrapped all the way around.

Leo wasn't happy to see another snake. The python regarded him with pale eyes, and he had a feeling its modes ranged from strangling to biting.

It flicked its tail, and Leo scrunched his nose at the reptile.

"Hello!" said Asclepius.

"Doctor." Piper's smile was so warm it would've melted a Boread. She patted her unruly and acid tinged hair down. "We'd be so grateful for your help. We need the physician's cure."

Leo wasn't even her target, but he was prepared to do anything to help her get that cure. He'd go to medical school, get twelve doctorate degrees and by a large green python on a stick. Only they needed the cure today.

Asclepius put his hand over his heart. "Oh, my dear, I would be delighted to help."

"You would? I mean, of course you would... Yay!"

"Come in! Come in!" Asclepius ushered them into his office.

The guy was so nice that Leo figured his office would be full of torture devices, but it looked like... well, a doctor's office: a big maple desk (Leo recognised the wood, he'd used maple for the interior structuring on the Argo II), bookshelves stuffed with medical books, and some of those plastic organ models Leo loved to play with as a kid.

He remembered getting in trouble one time because he had turned a cross-section kidney and some skeleton legs into a kidney monster and scared the nurse half to death. Life had been simpler when he was eight.

Asclepius took the big comfy doctor chair and laid his staff and serpent across his desk. "Please, sit!"

Piper took one of the chairs on the patient's side of the desk, and Leo stepped back so he didn't have to take the other. He didn't want to be eye-level with the snake; the thought gave him the shivers.

Also, it was a classy boyfriend (!) move, he realised. Teqi sat, and he mentally patted himself on the back for being such a gentleman and putting her between himself and the snake.

Asclepius leaned back in his cracked leather chair. "I can't tell you how nice it is to actually talk with patients. The last few thousand years, the paperwork has got out of control. Rush, rush, rush. Fill in forms. Not to mention the giant alabaster guardian who kills everyone in the waiting room. It takes all the fun out of medicine!"