#and so concludes the end of thrixe's adventures after getting his brain sort of eaten

[cloudbattrolls]

Just Come Home

Ullane Wistim || Crown Clinic || Some Nights Prior

At first everything had gone on as close to usual as it could. She’d taught Cheran to do a few of Thrixe’s duties, let Friday handle more of the lab work despite her anxieties (it had gone surprisingly well, if anything she was a bit jealous of the bee-fly troll’s efficiency), and changed the clinic’s listing to temporarily only accepting emergency cases.

Queenpin was right about needing more staff. The robots could only pick up so much slack, and given she and Thrixe were also expected to take care of local company interests outside the clinic, things were getting stretched - and she didn’t want to overwork her employees. Friday might be troublesome at times, but she deserved rest as much as anyone else, and Cheran couldn’t be pressed too hard given the limitations of his leg. She didn’t mind paying them for overtime, but obviously they had limits.

She’d hit more of her own than she cared to admit lately. 

Cheran’s frown had become a frequent companion, and she had sighed and made herself stop - briefly - to drink and eat and stretch when his silent disapproval was aimed her way. In return, she had encouraged him to take breaks - though she knew by now that he slept in hibernation mode or not at all, odd man.

She was at the reception desk catching up on medical records and medication inventory when the door bell jingled and it opened. She looked up -

And startled.

He wore a violet shirt with gold trim, and black pants. His glowspots were brighter than usual, their light visible even from several feet away.

He didn’t have his gloves on.

She stared at his naked hands, not even caring how obvious she was being. He’d even painted his claws jade - when had that happened? Recently? Or was she only seeing it now?

Was she only seeing him now?

He looked…normal. Thrixe looked disconcertingly normal, not like her bodyguard at all. Not like a man who had just become an abomination.

The seadweller coughed and she snapped back to reality.

“Hi.” He said, hands now in his pockets. He looked as awkward as she felt.

“Hello.” She said slowly, standing up and walking out from behind the desk. Her ears flicked, and his fins fluttered.

“Queenpin said you went full horrorterror.”

She couldn’t help it. The words bubbled out of her like water from a fountain, and she winced as she saw him recoil, then sigh.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He said firmly. “You’re not going to make me, no matter what. I don’t care if you have questions, I’m - I’m not one of your indigobirds or your spiders, I’m not a construct for you to pick apart and put back together when you’re done with me.

Akalimiya made me realize, and when I got put in jail - when I got chained up - at least they had a reason. At least I’d actually done something wrong! Not that I wanted to, did she tell you that? Did Queenpin bother? Does she even know or care why it happened or is she just like you?”

Ullane took a shuddering breath. She put a hand on the desk for support. She made herself look into his eyes, his angry violet eyes full of hurt and spite and wondering why, why, why?

“I’m sorry, Thrixe.”

He blinked, his fins pinning back.

“You never call me that.”

“I never wanted to.” The mediculler admitted. “I wanted…I made bad choices. Shouldn’t have let her do that to you. I shouldn’t have done those things to you.”

“And?” He said, surprise becoming disdain as his eyebrows arched, arms crossed.

She gritted her teeth. Was he really going to drag this out? Then she felt like ID. No. She wouldn’t be like the other yellowblood, unable to admit when she’d done wrong, giving a half-baked weak-willed apology at best. She was better than that.

“And it was wrong because - because I was wrong about you. Turning into a horrorterror wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for me. I let Akalimiya hurt you. Treated you like a bomb waiting to go off, can only blame myself when you did. I hurt you in little ways…hundreds of times, thousands, because I was afraid of you. I’m right to be afraid. But can’t keep treating you this way. Fear…fear’s not an excuse.”

Her voice rasped, unused to speaking so much at one time. She trembled, wishing her lusus was here so he could comfort her. She brushed the thought away - she had to face this herself, just as Thrixe had had to face everything himself.

The basket star troll was silent, his face unreadable aside from the barest twitching of his fin tips as he studied her.

“You mean it.” He said after a long pause, his voice resigned. She felt a brief flare of exasperation; of course she meant it! She’d been nothing but honest.

“All the times you treated people with respect or compassion or at least some mercy, even when we were extorting or sabotaging them. All the hits I took for you. All that time you only said thank you like it hurt. Like you couldn’t believe you had to say it. Don’t I look troll enough, Ullane? Don’t I act troll enough?”

His voice was angry but it cracked and the desperation flowed through, the begging of a man trying to chase something he wasn’t sure he could find, or if he did that it might vanish, slipping through his fingers like sand.

“Not when you use your powers.” She said quietly. “Not when you grew tendrils to force people back or snap their necks, not when you regrew your limbs or your brain like you did that night. You’re so much stronger than me, Thrixe, so powerful. Sometimes I catch you looking at something I can’t see, or tilting your head like you’re listening to things I can never hear.”

His gaze flicked to the side, fins going down slightly.

“Yes, I’m strange in some ways.” He admitted the words like they were painful, clawing their way up his throat. “Aren’t we all? Is it my fault I was hatched this way? I hate it as much as you do. They offered to take it away from me, you know. But when they started it hurt like nothing I can describe. I screamed to stop. I know it would have killed me.”

Ullane opened and closed her mouth, her tongue dry. What did she say? What could she say?

“Thrixe.” She whispered. Using his first name still felt strange on her tongue. Varzim, always she called him Varzim to keep that distance between them. Employee and boss. A tool and its user, nothing more.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

He laughed, short and sharp and humorless. “Didn’t I? Or do you just say that because I’d be no use to you anymore without it?”

She flinched.

“I guess I can’t blame you.” He murmured, toying with the end of his braid. “I wouldn’t be any use without it. You don’t need an artist, or a star watcher. You need medical serums and protection. That’s just how the world is.”

“Yes, things’re harsh.” She admitted. “I need you…but I don’t want you to suffer like that. You’re not just your regeneration. I’m not just my psi.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Queenpin wouldn’t have any use for you without it.”

“Queenpin can go to hell.” She spat the words without thinking and Thrixe’s fins fluttered in alarm.

“What? What did she say to you? What happened?”

The concern in his voice choked her up with guilt.

“Nothing.” She said. “Nothing I can talk about. I want to. But you know her.” The yellowblood waved her hands helplessly.

Thrixe studied her again, but nodded, his face much less hostile now. He even showed a trace of sympathy in the twist of his lips, the angle of his fins.

What good would it do to tell him? She didn’t know details. She didn’t know anything, and she wouldn’t until it was too late to help him.

Help him. Yes. She owed him a debt, she realized.

It was terrible to owe someone a debt - even if they didn’t expect to collect it from you. Especially when she had no idea what she was going to do.

“I’m sleeping in the lounge, if you don’t mind.” He said, his tone making it clear he didn’t much care if she did mind, but he still paused after taking a few steps, looking back at her as if for approval. His bare hands were still such an odd sight, his new clothes also jarring.

She nodded.

“Rest. There’s sopor patches. Won’t wake you, nothing urgent tomorrow.”

Nothing urgent she couldn’t handle herself.

He nodded back and walked down the hallway to the lounge, shutting the door behind him. She heard it click distantly.

She let out a long breath, moving her shoulders up and down to try and release some of their tension. Her tail was practically rigid, and she played with its tuft in her fingers, trying to loosen it up.

At least he was back. She had another chance.

She didn’t intend to waste it.