Solace in the Stars

Breaking

They hit him with a stim once the work was done. He tensed up, but didn't shoot off the bed. This wasn't the first time he'd been stimmed. Lee helped him sit up slowly while the Pharmas stood around them impatiently.

"The ribs are moving back properly, and the mod is fixed, so you can pay at the front desk." The woman gestured towards the door. Danny nodded, but he was still pretty slow to stand up. Xe helped him to the desk, and he swiped his interface. CPs had primo insurance, so he didn't have to pay out of pocket.

"You gonna be okay to make it home?" Xe asked. Danny seemed to be able to stand on his own, but he was moving pretty slow.

"The ribs burn as they move back into place. It's excruciating, but it should stop eventually. I can make it, but I don't want you walking back to Daena's by yourself." He turned to head back towards Daena's.

"Nope! No way! You are literally broken, go home. I don't want to leave you alone to make it that far, much less if you hobble back down to the bottom deck." Xe put both hands on his shoulders to stop him. The red light from the Pharma sign made his blonde hair shimmer like an open flame while he stared xer down.

"Fine. You walk me home, and I'll call you a shuttle, deal?" He nodded his head back towards the entrance to the upper suites.

"You are a stubborn ass, you know that." Xe put a hand on the small of his back, and ushered him towards it.

"I have been told." He managed a pained smile, but his steps, even in the low gravity, were slow, and precise.

"So, what's your favorite colour?" Lee asked after a moment of silence with only the sound of the metal grates beneath their feet. He looked over in confusion.

"Uh, purple I guess, like those pants you have with the two belts that x over your hips. Why?" Danny watched Lee as he spoke, as if xe might suddenly reveal they were someone else entirely.

"First, you remember the exact shade of purple my pants are? How often do you stare at my ass officer? Second I don't know, I just realized I don't really know you." Xe grinned at the opportunity to tease him. He blushed, and rubbed at the back of his neck as they went through the large metal arch of the scanner. The lights flickered blue when it read his badge, then let them pass.

"I remember the pants because of the colour, not the other way around. What's yours?" Danny mumbled. Xe looked around at the upper suites, lit with pinks, reds, and violets towards the Doll district, but they turned away towards the stacks.

"Green. I've always wanted to live somewhere green." Xe whispered. Their eyes stayed on the houses that turned from faux luxury to utilitarian stacked homes, still with tiny patios, and two stories, but they weren't gaudy, and lit up the way Doll houses were.

"I have an aloe plant." He said it, then cringed, aware that it was a bit of a conversational leap.

"A real one? Where did you get something like that?" Lee went wide eyed, they'd never seen a live plant.

"Yeah, did you want to see it? I have a grow light for it, and they don't take much water. I got it during a case. Someone had thrown it out, half dead with the victims other possessions. They were just going to leave it there to die." He wrapped his arms around his bare and bloody chest. He wasn't used to walking the streets without a shirt, even in his uniform pants, with his belt loaded down with his gear. Maybe especially.

"I would actually. Those are the prickly ones right?" Xe stopped with him at a set of metal stairs that went up to a stacked unit.

"It's one of them, not super prickly like a cactus, but it's a succulent. The chemical compounds in it are part of the topical boost formula, they help with burns and inflammation. Obviously they spin them up in a lab now, but back when it was first made they isolated the chemicals from natural sources." Danny smiled as he talked about plants, even as his ribs pulled on each step of the five flights of stairs. The metal creaked under their weight, and shifted against old bolts.