Good Cop Bad Cop: Chapter One

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One week. Asher has to be mean, Kay has to be nice. Whoever gives up first has to write a story for the winner. Should be... interesting.

Asher looked at her suspiciously as they reached her room. "You're not planning to rest, are you?"

Luka snorted. "Damnit you're onto me. I'll try, it hurts to put weight on it anyway so it's not like I even CAN walk on it."

"Good. I don't want to see you coming back in a day or two injured even worse, because you couldn't be patient," Asher told her. He helped her to sit down on her bed. "Rest. Get James to visit if you feel the urge to do something stupid, make him run errands for you. No unnecessary walking!"

Luka frowned. "Yeah yeah, i'll try." She huffed. Wasn't this guy meant to be the patient one? damn, if he was the patient one she hated to think how awful Kay was.

Asher nodded and left her, heading back to the med bay.

Luka grumbled to herself and settled in bed, putting a pillow under her foot and getting a book to read. Eugh, this was gonna be SO BORING.

Kay looked up. [She'll be back, I know it. ] He told Asher.

"Bets on whether she'll come in tomorrow, or manage to wait a day?" Asher said, smiling slightly.

Kay smirked. [Hmm, difficult. Fleet pilots were always the most awkward patients. They hate being confined and seem to regard bedrest as some sort of torture. I give her two days before she decides her ankle feels better enough to put weight on] He shook his head. [Hopefully she won't do any lasting damage with her stubbornness.]

"I bet she won't be able to wait a day, then," Asher said with a laugh. He sighed, "Well she's silly, but I don't think she's a complete idiot. She probably won't do anything crippling."

[You don't understand the psychology of fleet pilots.] Kay smiled. [How are you holding up? I see you keep teetering, don't think I don't.]

"To be fair, I haven't met many fleet pilots," Asher said, "So you're probably right." He gave Kay a serious look, "I'm holding up just fine. It's difficult sometimes, but I can definitely outlast you."

Kay looked smug [I'm not so sure.] He settled back in his seat. [We'll see...]

TIMESKIP - DAY THREE

Oddly enough, the first patient of the day wasn't bleeding all over the floor. Nor was he coughing and sniffling. He wasn't even moaning about how bright the lights were!

James hurried into the med lab, carrying a toolbox in his left hand, and holding his right at a rather funny angle with the fingers bent oddly. "Asher! Help a guy out, would you?"

Kay looked at James in shock, what the heck had he managed to do to himself!? [What happened?!] He asked, alarmed.

James scowled at his hand. "Holodeck accident," he muttered. "Jousting. Bad idea."

Asher was honestly too startled at seeing his brother in the med bay to know how to react at first. He came over and took James' hand by the wrist, turning it over to assess the damage. The wires were torn free, thus the lack of motion in his fingers, and the skin on his palm was torn open. It was quite a sight.

Kay didn't quite look like he knew what to do, he had no idea how to fix an android's hand.
[Sit down.] Hey at least he had the decency to bring a tool kit.
[Where do we start?] He let Asher take charge on this, after all, he was the one who knew the process here.

"Jousting," Asher said a bit disbelievingly, "Well that's a new one, at least."

James sat down. "Indoor jousting. It's awesome. Don't judge me." He didn't seem terribly bothered by his hand's condition now he was here. Not having pain receptors really was useful sometimes.

Asher looked at Kay uncertainly. He hadn't seen much of how robots looked inside before, and an irrational but nagging part of his mind told him that if Kay saw what robots looked like without their skin, he'd run away and hide. Very irrational. Probably. Argh. "First I have to get this piece of skin off," he said a bit quietly, so Kay could run and hide if he thought that sounded gross.

Kay nodded, oh it was weird but there was no gore, there was no blood and nobody was screaming, this was surreal but not frightening.
He smiled softly to James. [No pain receptors seem extremely useful in situations like this, anyone else would be howling the whole ship down. ] He looked back to Asher. [Tell me what we need and i'll get it.]

James grinned. "And people feel sorry for us robots for not feeling anything. But it works just fine!"

Asher smiled gratefully at Kay, glad that he wasn't horrified yet. That was good. He'd grown up around people who had disliked any sign that androids were robots--except for the stupid badges. Funny how that worked--and it was nice to see someone who wasn't disgusted yet by the sight of wires and the concept of removing skin.
"First thing to do is get the skin off," he said, getting the skin adhesive solvent out of the tool box, and beginning to apply that carefully to the almost invisible seams on James' hand and wrist, "Which means dissolving the glue."

Kay watched all this with morbid fascination. He'd never really noticed the seams before, they were incredibly well hidden. He nodded to James. [I'm certain it has a great deal of benefits. Shouldn't the holodeck have safety protocols to stop you getting injured though?]

"The holodeck can't do much for you if you fall off your horse and land on something jagged," James said with a laugh. "Kind of like when Esk punched me in the face and I tried to dodge him because the First Law forced me to, but he still moved too fast and hurt himself on me. Sometimes you just can't prepare for everything."

Asher gently pulled the skin pieces off starting at the wrist, carefully unlinking each anchor point. Before long, he had two halves of a glove-like piece of skin free, and set them on the table. "You're going to have some terrible scars after that," he said dryly, eyeing the large hole in the skin of James' palm, "This is why you should keep a supply of replacement skin, even if you don't do much risky work."

James laughed and stuck out his tongue. "Oh well, at least it's okay if people notice I'm a robot, unlike you." He looked at the wires and metal pieces and plastics of his hand with mild interest, "Dang, I knew I wouldn't be able to fix that by myself. What a mess."

Kay tried to keep a straight face at the mention of Esk. [Why DID he try to punch you anyway? What'd you say to provoke him that much? Or has he just mellowed a bit in the months since?] Maybe it knocked some sense into him.
That skin glove was kinda squicky, he didn't want to look at it. it brought back a few unpleasant memories of some of the fairly horrendous injuries he'd witnessed. Ahem.

[If you're going to injure yourself, may as well do it in the most impressive way possible yes?] Kay shook his head, the wires and plastic and metal was really quite fascinating. [Scars aren't so bad, they give you a story to tell at least. Matt claims they make you look tough but he has barely any himself, somehow. He's way too lucky.] He himself had so many of the damn things now, at least James would have a fun story to tell about his. Kay could almost imagine him embellishing it to being some epic quest and not just a silly accident.

"Never ask Esk if he and his cyborg bully girlfriend want a three-way," James whispered.

Asher snorted with amusement, then tried to look stern. "How could that ever be a good idea?"

"Well how was I supposed to know people from the Imperium were such a bunch of homophobes?" James grumbled.

Asher shook his head and started prodding at the wires, trying to work them free and pull out the broken ones. "And the bully cyborg?"

"Well I didn't realize she was such a dick at the time," said James. He smiled at Kay, "True. If they aren't a nuisance, there are worse things than scars I guess. They just never look especially like human scars, which is an issue for any silly robot who wants to blend in as a human." He ruffled Asher's hair.

Asher frowned at him.

Kay shrugged [Yeah, sadly they really are not great with same sex relationships. Makes for fun going through your awkward teen years. I just think it's funny that three of the five of us ended up well... not straight.] He tired not to make a face at the idea of vicky and esk... eugh.. that was his baby brother, he still thought of him as a kid, it was... super awkward.

Kay smiled softly at Asher. He'd always been pretty open about his android nature though hadn't he? He couldn't imagine him pretending to be human for anything other than safety. He approved of pragmatism though. [Be thankful for that, organic creature's scars have an irritating tendency for continuing to hurt years after the original injury. You even get amputees moaning the foot they no longer have itches, aches or otherwise is uncomfortable. It's bizarre. ]

James looked amused. "Yeah... that's unfortunate in a culture like that. Guess it worked out okay for you guys, at least?" He looked at his hand, "Yeah, it least robot scars never do that stuff. They just get inconvenient if you let them build up long enough and your skin gets all thick and un-flexible."

Asher noticed the metal skeleton of one of James' fingers was bent, and started using a screwdriver to get that loose. "Can you get a towel to put this stuff on?" He asked Kay, "The lubricant can be a pain to clean up."

Kay nodded and went to get a towel, bringing it back and setting it on the bed beside James. [I'm sure at some point we can find you some new skin.] Man that sounded weird. [At least you can do that.] He subconciously clenched and unclenched his burned hand, sure it was healed but it was still stiff and awkward.

James nodded. "Someday that would be nice." He smiled at Kay, "You tried talking to Sawna? Supposedly those guys are good at making scars less nasty."

Asher busily removed damaged parts from James' hand, neatly arranging them on the towel while Kay and James talked.