Donald Blake was a doctor with Medecins Sans Frontieres. He was currently working in one of those places where the human misery was due to the slow, grinding sort of human cruelty - oppression, poverty, ignorance, famine, greed - rather than something as bounded and defined as a war or natural disaster. Where it was exactly isn't that important for this story - after awhile, to Don, the people were simply people, and misery was misery anywhere you travelled.

Besides, it would be almost disrepectful to use the specifics as nothing but a backdrop for Doctor Don Blake's personal troubles. Sometimes Don felt like it was disrespectful for him even to be there in the first place, using the work as a way to get over himself - but then he was pretty sure that, regardless of how much of a screw-up he was in his own head, he was doing good things here.

That was what he usually said when people asked him why he'd signed up with MSF: he wanted to do good things in the world; he felt like he had a responsibility to use all of his advantages as best he was able - the same vague twaddle that everybody who didn't have a heartwarming story resorted to. On special occasions he'd bring out the answer that was half pure bullshit and half unanswerable truth: that he'd always felt that he had some kind of special destiny that was drawing him toward this kind of work.

The new logisitcian wasn't buying it, though. He was a slender, dark, earnest kid named Lucas Serrure who'd been doing some sort of high-powered business job before he'd joined up, and he was narrowing his eyes at Don.

"I don't accept destiny," he said. "That stuff's all wishy-washy crap. And don't give me something about 'great power and great responsibility' either - lots of people want to do good in the world, but very few of them end up someplace like this," he waved a hand to encompass everything about the clinic and the world it was part of. "What's the real story?"

Don leaned back in the uncomfortable plastic chair and closed his eyes. It was late, and he'd come out into the little common area mostly because he couldn't handle trying to sleep any more tonight. "Would you believe there was a girl?"

"That I would believe," Luke said. "Did she break your heart into little bits and then stomp on it?"

Don snorted with laughter and shook his head. "Couldn't be more wrong. She was beautiful and kind and a genius  and always interesting and she loved me, and I knew that if any woman was going to be the one I could settle down with - buy a house, raise a family - it would be her. Then I finally managed to get my leg to the point where I could pass the physical for MSF, and I realized this was it, this was my last chance - if I didn't go <i>now</i>, I would never be able to leave home, I would have too many things keeping me in place. So when the offer came up, I took it."

"And what did your girl think of this?" Luke asked with interest.

"I don't know," Don said, and to Luke's look of question he shrugged and said, "I didn't want to give her a chance to talk me out of it. I left her a letter the morning of my flight out. She didn't even know I'd applied."

Luke choked on something, and then started laughing softly. "My goodness. I think you might actually be <i>worse</i> at personal relationships than I am."

Don scowled at him, but, well, he wasn't exactly <I>proud</i> of how he'd handled that, it had just seemed like the most expedient way to take care of it. "And why are <i>you</i> here, then? Did you get your heart broken?"

Luke looked up at Don through his eyelashes and smirked. "Would you believe, I'm following the call of destiny?"


After that Don started paying a little more attention to the new kid. He was quiet, and didn't go out of his way to join in with the socializing



The next morning (his time) he gets a reply from a different address that goes like this:

Hey Douchebag:

1. Jane doesn't need to be dealing with your shit right now, which is why I have delegated myself to answer this.

2. Why, yes, you are kind of a dick. I'm shocked you have any friends perceptive enough to notice this, since it's only blazingly obvious from several thousand miles away.

3. Jane totally has a new boyfriend now, and he's tons hotter than you, plus he has a much bigger hammer.

4. Don't write back.

Toodles, 
Darcy Lewis

PS: By "hammer" I meant "penis", if you're too much of a douchebag to figure that out.

He shows it to Loki, and explains the reference in the postscript, and Loki laughs and says, "See, now, aren't you glad you sent that letter, and everything is out in the open now?"

The strange thing is, he does kind of feel better now.