Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Eight

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Shane nodded agreement. "Let them sort themselves out, when they are ready, if they ever are, they can admit it publicly as Starr and Armin have done with their dating.

~~~
Danika chuckled softly and shrugged "It's just part of the game, most of the situations are made up things to give a reason for adding money to your bank." She waited for him to put the amount in then picked up the dice to roll them, using the chance to show him how they were normally rolled without saying so. She landed on the starship (train) and immediately bought it

Esk paused the movie, it wasn't worth watching alone. But he didn't go with Dawn. This was her whole thing, not his.

---

Kay nodded slowly, though he wasn't sure he totally understood all of it. [Sometimes I wonder if it's easier to forgive for things that didn't directly involve you. Which is... an unpleasant thought.] He shook his head. They should talk about more pleasant things but he wasn't sure what.

---

Web chuckled softly.

The doctor would come to see Hewitt, greeting him and Dawn. They were humanoid, probably human, and very curious about this guy who had been comatose up until today.

Ethan would probably nod awkwardly in greeting and stay out of the way.

~~
"That was just one example, I do the same thing when people personally harm me or my family too. I don't want you to think that I like being apathetic about so many bad people, because objectively I do know that they were very bad."
Asher smiled briefly again. "Frankly, I'm glad it's harder for you to forgive people. It means you're more likely to do it for the right reasons." He kind of wished Kay hadn't forgiven him so easily shooting him, for that matter. Ugh.

Dawn returned the greeting with a smile, standing to the side to observe. "Thank you for coming."

Kay looked doubtful about that but he nodded. He was rather of the opinnion that perhaps he also forgave a little too easily. He still shuddered to remember what his brothers were capable of without any sense of remorse or guilt.
By comparison, Asher shooting him in a twisted attempt to get the trust of their captors wasn't really that horrifying.
It was wierd how things turned out.
He shook his head, he didn't like thinking about any of it. [Let's talk about something else.]

----

Hewitt was his usual grumpy self and eyed the doctor suspiciously. "So, you're their so called expert are you?"

----

"Of course. I'm glad my vacation was scheduled for next week, or I would have been half an empire away," the doctor told Dawn with a smile, they nodded at Hewitt, "I'm sure there are many doctors more knowledgeable than me in Aketi territory, but out here I'm the expert. I'm Doctor Joey Baker, you're Professor Hewitt?"

~~
Asher nodded. "All right. Uh, so this med bay is very nice? I uh, like the tasteful marbled pattern of the flooring." Topic changing! He was so good at it.

Hewitt looked unimpressed. "I am." he continued to eye the human critically.

----

Kay looked down at the floor, he hadn't paid it any mind before. he frowned a little, but he was grateful that Asher was at least trying to change the subject. He nodded slowly. [And there are a couple of side rooms should we need to separate patients or give them some privacy.] He indicated. [Which could come in rather useful i'm sure.] he wasn't great at switching subjects either and was struggling here. Smalltalk was hard.

Dawn watched the two interacting, hoping Hewitt would cooperate with the Dr.

Dr. Baker nodded. "All right, so let's discuss how you've been feeling since you woke up. I saw some scans from the other day, and I'll want to look at some more recent ones in a bit, but questions are always a good place to start." They'd probably start asking Hewitt a lot of questions if he'd cooperate.

~~
"Privacy is nice," Asher agreed, "The old med bay was lacking in that." He tried to think of more things to say. "Do the side rooms have the nice flooring as well?"
He was trying to avoid having to mention he didn't want to be a medic again, and discussing the old med bay too much, so there weren't a ton of options.

Hewitt sighed, rolled his eyes and settled down for the interrogation. He wasn't overly cooperative. "I'm fine." He insisted. "stop fussing."

----

Kay nodded. He too was thinking of what else they could talk about. This was all extremely awkward.

Dr. Baker nodded, and looked to Dawn. "All right, then I'd like to have a look at the latest scans you have, so I can compare them to the ones you sent." Addressing Hewitt again they added, "And I'd like to have an actual look at the ah, exit wound, if you don't mind."
Not an exit wound in the bullet sense, but for the type of injury it was, the description seemed apt enough.

Ethan watched, arms folded defensively. He didn't really trust strangers, especially not when they were doctors. You never knew when they might pull out a scalpel and start stabbing people.

~~
And now they were back at the part where neither of them knew what to say.
Asher scrambled for small talk ideas for a few moments, then settled on something else, "Can we discuss our relationship more, maybe? I feel like we're both walking on eggshells here, and maybe if we discussed what we want and what our current boundaries are, that might help."

Dawn nodded and came over to him, pulling up the scans she had from Hewitt's records.

Kay glanced away, swallowing hard as he nodded hesitantly. [I think... it's fairly obvious what I want. Time hasn't moved on for me, but it has for you.] He looked pained.

---

Hewitt looked mistrustful but he obliged the doctor. Better to get this over and done with. He undid his shirt, revealing the healing scars that ran most of the way from throat to belly.

The doctor looked at the scans, and checked Hewitt's injuries carefully, looking concerned, although they maintained an air of professional neutrality.
(I don't know much about Aketi biology, so if you want them to discover anything or prescribe anything, let me know! :D )

~~
Asher nodded, trying to hide his uncertainty behind a reassuring smile. "Yeah, I guess that's true. Just... tell me if you think of anything later, okay? You've been through a lot in the past two weeks, sometimes that changes things."
"As for me, I'm probably not going to be ready to move back in with you very soon, it's just... a big change. Kissing would be all right I think. And I'd like to spend time with you." His voice was more tentative than he'd intended, but knowing this was much scarier for Kay than it was for him made him cautious. "Oh, and you can always ask me questions, all right? I might not always answer, but it's always fine to ask."

Dawn was quiet though she watched the stranger work and kept an eye on the readings herself. She might not be an expert, but she knew enough to notices changes.

it wasn't a pretty injury for sure, and it was unlikely to ever be pretty. But the majority of the damage to his air sac had closed up and the rest enough that his hydraulic circulatory system was able to compensate. He wasn't going to be back to 100% for a long time, if ever, but apparently Aketi were damn hard to kill. No major organs helped, a lot.

He may lose some cognitive function though, as Aketi had something akin to brain matter scattered throughout their body and his ability to move around unaided was going to be limited by the damage still present causing leaks in the pressure his system needed.

But being a plant there wasn't much to perscribe beyond rest, recouperation and attempts to stimulate the mind and take it easy on moving too much so that the rest of the damage could seal properly.

Eli's plant magic had really helped speed that up already.

---

Kay hesitated, his heart ached and his stomach churned. All of this was very very hard. But he nodded slowly. [Perhaps we should schedule in some time to just... spend time together. Get to know one another again.] How different was Asher now? ten years was a long time, it could change someone a lot. He wasn't totally sure he was okay with leaping right into making out just yet. Much as he'd love to pretend nothing had happened, it just wasn't true and there was only so much he could lie to himself.
[I'm sure there's a lot of movies that have come out right? more books. ] He tried to think of other entertainment. [Even games. The holodeck might have a lot of updates of new places as well. ] He stopped writing, taking a deep breath to steady his nerves.

Dr. Baker frowned in thought and nodded, finishing their examination. "You're probably going to be feeling the effects of these injuries for a long time to come, electrical damage is very harmful to Aketi, as you probably are aware. Frankly I'm impressed that you've healed as much as you have in such a short time frame, but I wouldn't expect that trend to continue."
"Were you using some type of treatment to accelerate the healing process?" they asked, looking to Dawn.

~~
Asher wasn't sure whether mentioning kissing had been a good idea. On one hand, he'd wanted to try to make it clear that not everything was off the table now, on the other hand, maybe he should have waited to mention it. Hmm.
Well too late now. So he focused on the topic at hand. "Dates a few times a week, maybe? Plus other meetups of course if we feel like it." He nodded, "There are lots of new movies and books to choose from, we'll have plenty of good options. We could have coffee dates too, and by that I mean I could bring my knitting. I know there are some unused furnished coffee shops on the shopping floor."

"We were, though it's kind of experimental." Dawn replied then shook her head. "Of course none of us are experts, so giving the professor the right atmosphere and everything was all experimental. We all wanted the professor to get well again." She was trying not to mention magic, given that they didn't know this guy beyond his credentials.

Kay tilted his head at Asher. [Still knitting then? ] He smiled softly. Asher's knitting was such a random hobby. He nodded. [That sounds good. Ease into things. ] Maybe everything would feel normal quickly, he wanted to hope, but he wasn't an optimistic person.

---

Hewitt hrumphed. "Of course of course, we're strong, hard to kill. Unlike your sort. "

Dr. Baker looked interested, but also concerned. "What sort of experimental treatment was this?"
They nodded to Hewitt, "In many ways I'd agree with you. I'll write up my recommendations to help your recovery, although there isn't a lot you need to do, and also the long term effects you should expect to see from the injury. Do please try to avoid strong electrical currents in the future."

~~
"I got back into knitting while raising the kids, it made meal times less awkward to have something to do with my hands," Asher said with a smile. He'd brought his knitting to breakfast this morning, but supposed Kay had likely been too anxious to notice it. Poor guy.
"I always get someone to make sure the yarn is soft," he added, "You told me once that it's very unpleasant if it isn't."

Hewitt snorted with laughter at the final comment from the doctor.

----

Kay tried to remember that and shook his head, bemused that Asher actually remembered some throwaway statement like that. [You've never been tempted to reactivate your sense of touch even for a moment then?] He could think of many cases where the opposite would be useful, being able to turn off feeling, but he often forgot Asher really had no tactile sensation. it was hard to imagine.

Dawn frowned at the question but smiled at the reaction from Hewitt to the 'avoid electricity'. At least he was feeling better. "If you are done, perhaps you can come with me and see about updating our files for Aketi?" She asked instead of answering. "With the professor on board, we should have what information we can get to keep him healthy and happy.

"Sure, I'll get you a copy of my files," Dr. Baker said. "It's hard to find any actual information on the web. You didn't answer my question though, about how he healed so quickly," they added mildly.

~~
"I've switched it on occasionally out of curiosity," Asher said. "For the most part though, I prefer life without it, it tends to be so overwhelming. Also my ability to recognize and enjoy textures isn't the best, I'd probably be a bad judge of yarn." He smiled at the thought.

Dawn looked at him and gave a small nod then looked to Hewitt and smiled "We'll let you rest, if you want to try to contact anyone, feel free, we are at a space station at the moment, so the signal will be better than normal." She said then waved and went to the door, waiting for the doctor to follow her.

Dr. Baker nodded, letting the mysterious 'experimental treatment' topic go. Clearly Dawn wasn't going to answer that. "Before I leave, do you have any questions?" they asked Hewitt.

"Of you?" Hewitt sounded derisive. "nothing." He was sort of enjoying Dawn's dancing around the subject of treatment though, even if he himself was a little curious he preferred to believe it was because he was just so damn strong.

---

Kay nodded slowly. He could respect that.

Dawn waited for the doctor, not saying anything else for the moment. When he was ready, she would show him the way to the medical lab.
Along the way she would ask him "Do you know anything about this ship or us?"

Dr. Baker smiled Hewitt. "All right then, it was good meeting you." they headed after Dawn, walking beside her, "I've heard rumors about this ship, nothing substantiated. She caused quite a stir when she pulled in yesterday."

~~
Ethan relaxed as the doctors left. No scalpel stabbing, whew.

~~
Asher looked at Kay uncertainly. He didn't know what to read into that nod, and being anxious about all this he was inclined to read it as a sign that he'd trod on some topic he shouldn't. "Uh... so yeah."