Author: Eloarei
Series: HINABN
Characters: Worth, Lamont, Hanna
A/N: A short little thing based on a kiriban request from someone on deviantArt.

Don't Make A Habit Out Of It

OoOoOoOoOoO

The eleventh time Hanna came 'home' all scratched and bleeding (from dealing with a saber-tooth cub, he said, and how he managed to find a supposedly extinct animal is anybody's guess) was the first time that Worth finally lost it.

"No more, Hanna!" he yelled while Hanna pouted, cradling his injured left hand, and Lamont rolled his eyes. "I'm serious," he said, shaking a very serious finger.

Hanna's eyes got huge and bright as he fixed Worth with his very best wounded-puppy look. "But if I don't do it, who will?"

"Someone else," the crabby doctor replied, having hardened himself to the puppy look the past handful of times Hanna'd used it against him. "It's not your problem."

Lamont, however, had been unfortunately absent most of the other times the boy had strolled in and cheerfully asked to be made whole again, so he hadn't yet built up an immunity to the 'look'. Or perhaps he just liked siding against Worth.

"Hey, let the kid live a little," he said, nudging the grouchy mother-hen Doc. "He's what? 20? C'mon, he's old enough to make his own decisions. Isn't that right, Hanna?"

The redhead nodded enthusiastically. "And it's not that bad, really!" the boy added, indicating a very small bloody gash. "Just slap a band-aid on it and I'll be good to go."

"It may not be that bad this time," Worth conceded, "but that's far from the worst condition I've seen you in."

The group fell silent as memories of Hanna's very first appearance in the dingy clinic resurfaced. It was definitely an event that none of them wished to experience again, to say the least, and it more than validated Worth's opinion on the matter.

Still...

Hanna was truly looking like a beaten puppy now, a horrible guilty expression on his face and a "sorry" on the tip of his tongue, getting ready to apologize for something they all knew wasn't really his fault anyway.

Lamont did his best to wipe the grimace off his face and the bloody mess from his memory. He took a breath and said, with as much surety as he could muster, "What's past is past. What's important now is that you don't leave your patient just standing around to drip blood on the floor."

That effectively drew Worth's attention to the tiny splotches of blood mingling with Hanna's shadow, which caused him to grumble, "someone's gonna hafta clean that up, and it ain't gonna be me," and drag the little redhead over to his collection of antiseptics and bandages so he could get to work on getting the boy back out on the nasty, dangerous streets where he belonged.

Lamont sighed, relieved that they had dropped the matter. He'd have a proper discussion with Worth after Hanna left, but there was no point in forcing the boy to relive his traumatic past. After all, a creature so bright as Hanna should only ever look to the future.