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Whumptober Day 26: Relapse | Drawn Curtains [Murderbot]
No. 26: “Nothing like a relapse to rehash the kid who was scared.”
Relapse | Drawn Curtains | Power Cut
[TV-verse] Murderbot & Gurathin, 800 wds
Also posted on AO3 as Power Through.
I hesitated at the door of the room, and ART said helpfully, He wouldn't mind knowing you're there.
I gently tapped Gurathin in the feed.
I had left him alone for the last 1.2 days, other than occasionally checking in via the feed, while ART had kept me informed with mildly redacted medical details. The things he'd done to maintain his cover had been necessary, and we both knew it, but the aftermath was physically debilitating, all the more so given his history. The drugs were engineered in the Corporation Rim for physical addictiveness, and the effects of stopping them were highly unpleasant. ART had been monitoring him with the MedSystem, but both the MedSystem and ART had reported to me unhappily that he was vehemently refusing all chemical help with his symptoms.
I had told ART that I knew something that might help, but I wasn't sure if Gurathin would go for it.
After a much longer delay than was normal for him, he tapped me back. I said, Can I come in?
What, in person? Detoxing from this fucker involves a lot of human fluids, I'm just saying.
I said, Are there human fluids right now?
Not right now, no. You can come in if you really want to, but don't say I didn't warn you.
ART unlocked the door, and I entered the room. The lights were very dim, and Gurathin was curled up on his bunk, buried in blankets in a huddled, miserable lump. I went over cautiously.
He uncurled a little as I approached. "I'm all right," he said hoarsely. He was shivering. "If you just needed to see me in person, I'm ... good, I'm fine. I will be fine, I mean."
"May I sit down?" He shrugged a little, so I sat on the edge of his bunk. "I was thinking," I said, and made a gesture. I was holding a hardline; I saw him trace it with his eyes. I switched to the feed, where talking was often easier, especially with him. ART said you don't want painkillers or the other drugs it offered. I understand. But I can help without them.
I saw when he realized what I was asking, what I was offering. The sudden quick flash in his darkness-wide eyes.
Okay, he said, and turned his head wordlessly, baring the port in his neck.
I plugged the line into the port in my wrist (replacing the much more vulnerable back-of-neck port, long since disabled) and turned to plug into Gurathin's port. His skin was tacky with sweat. Gross, but ordinary for sick humans. He had warned me; I knew what I was getting myself into.
It took a moment to calibrate, but then I was connected and sorting through the mushy blur of human feelings, trying to stick to physical sensations and not get emotions involved. Pain was expected, but there were other feelings. A staticky crackling under the skin, like displaced electrical impulses. Something else -- was that what humans called nausea? Awful.
I carefully felt out the nerves I needed to influence through his augments (brain stem, pain sensors, vagus reflex), and did it. I felt him suddenly relax, going all boneless against the mattress. I could sense the fatigue toxins in his body; he hadn't been sleeping.
Oh, that's ... much better. His feed presence was exhausted to the point of near incoherence. Thank you.
Do you want to watch media? I asked. Like hell I was sitting here with nothing to do, dealing with emotions on top of it.
After a long interval filled with slushy organic feelings, his sleep-blurred feed voice came back, Sure. You pick. He had relaxed so completely that he seemed to be melting into the bed.
I chose an episode of a serial that I knew he liked, about a survey team of humans terraforming a planet, which was mostly about the terraforming (he had told me it was scientifically accurate; I thought it was terminally boring). However, I didn't expect I'd have to watch much of it, and I was right. It took him 4.9 minutes to fall asleep, at which point I switched to watching the new Worldhoppers spinoff with ART.
Beside me, my augmented human slept deeply. Through the hardline, I could read various system errors that ART's MedSystem helped me parse: his electrolytes were out of balance, he was mildly dehydrated, there was some slight organ damage that (ART reassured me) his body could repair on its own. ART's MedSystem sent me a string of non-urgent alerts that I saved to send to Gurathin when he woke up. Right now, though, the thing he needed most was to have his various human error codes turned off enough that he could get the sleep his exhausted body needed. And I could help with that.
Relapse | Drawn Curtains | Power Cut
[TV-verse] Murderbot & Gurathin, 800 wds
Also posted on AO3 as Power Through.
I hesitated at the door of the room, and ART said helpfully, He wouldn't mind knowing you're there.
I gently tapped Gurathin in the feed.
I had left him alone for the last 1.2 days, other than occasionally checking in via the feed, while ART had kept me informed with mildly redacted medical details. The things he'd done to maintain his cover had been necessary, and we both knew it, but the aftermath was physically debilitating, all the more so given his history. The drugs were engineered in the Corporation Rim for physical addictiveness, and the effects of stopping them were highly unpleasant. ART had been monitoring him with the MedSystem, but both the MedSystem and ART had reported to me unhappily that he was vehemently refusing all chemical help with his symptoms.
I had told ART that I knew something that might help, but I wasn't sure if Gurathin would go for it.
After a much longer delay than was normal for him, he tapped me back. I said, Can I come in?
What, in person? Detoxing from this fucker involves a lot of human fluids, I'm just saying.
I said, Are there human fluids right now?
Not right now, no. You can come in if you really want to, but don't say I didn't warn you.
ART unlocked the door, and I entered the room. The lights were very dim, and Gurathin was curled up on his bunk, buried in blankets in a huddled, miserable lump. I went over cautiously.
He uncurled a little as I approached. "I'm all right," he said hoarsely. He was shivering. "If you just needed to see me in person, I'm ... good, I'm fine. I will be fine, I mean."
"May I sit down?" He shrugged a little, so I sat on the edge of his bunk. "I was thinking," I said, and made a gesture. I was holding a hardline; I saw him trace it with his eyes. I switched to the feed, where talking was often easier, especially with him. ART said you don't want painkillers or the other drugs it offered. I understand. But I can help without them.
I saw when he realized what I was asking, what I was offering. The sudden quick flash in his darkness-wide eyes.
Okay, he said, and turned his head wordlessly, baring the port in his neck.
I plugged the line into the port in my wrist (replacing the much more vulnerable back-of-neck port, long since disabled) and turned to plug into Gurathin's port. His skin was tacky with sweat. Gross, but ordinary for sick humans. He had warned me; I knew what I was getting myself into.
It took a moment to calibrate, but then I was connected and sorting through the mushy blur of human feelings, trying to stick to physical sensations and not get emotions involved. Pain was expected, but there were other feelings. A staticky crackling under the skin, like displaced electrical impulses. Something else -- was that what humans called nausea? Awful.
I carefully felt out the nerves I needed to influence through his augments (brain stem, pain sensors, vagus reflex), and did it. I felt him suddenly relax, going all boneless against the mattress. I could sense the fatigue toxins in his body; he hadn't been sleeping.
Oh, that's ... much better. His feed presence was exhausted to the point of near incoherence. Thank you.
Do you want to watch media? I asked. Like hell I was sitting here with nothing to do, dealing with emotions on top of it.
After a long interval filled with slushy organic feelings, his sleep-blurred feed voice came back, Sure. You pick. He had relaxed so completely that he seemed to be melting into the bed.
I chose an episode of a serial that I knew he liked, about a survey team of humans terraforming a planet, which was mostly about the terraforming (he had told me it was scientifically accurate; I thought it was terminally boring). However, I didn't expect I'd have to watch much of it, and I was right. It took him 4.9 minutes to fall asleep, at which point I switched to watching the new Worldhoppers spinoff with ART.
Beside me, my augmented human slept deeply. Through the hardline, I could read various system errors that ART's MedSystem helped me parse: his electrolytes were out of balance, he was mildly dehydrated, there was some slight organ damage that (ART reassured me) his body could repair on its own. ART's MedSystem sent me a string of non-urgent alerts that I saved to send to Gurathin when he woke up. Right now, though, the thing he needed most was to have his various human error codes turned off enough that he could get the sleep his exhausted body needed. And I could help with that.
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I have to ask if this one too is filed off some our-world TV.
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Fair! Based on the degree of engineering detail I like in my fiction, I too would probably watch a serial about terraforming.
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