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november 11, 1994 (i guess? it's hard to tell and i'm not on earth anymore... let's just say... day 1?). location: a seemingly abandoned but well lived-in cave.
dear diary,
and xefros said there wasn't anything useful in that junk pile (aside from the horns but you know what i mean).
but i found you, oh dear, sweet little diary, just perfect for filling with my thoughts. my thoughts of what it's like being stranded on this horrible murder-hungry planet where anything and everything wants to kill you. and everyone on it, but that's beside the point. poor xefros... i think if i had to grow up here i'd feel about the same as he does, excessive apologizing included.
speaking of xefros, we're taking a break. a much, much needed one, in fact, considering that not too long ago one of us was buried under the rubble of his own house (you get one guess as to who it was). xefros' mouth may have insisted he'd be okay, but as a budding future expert on medical things, i knew his body was screaming he really wouldn't be. after he nearly passed out and almost fell off snowbert--dammek’s deercat but named by yours truly--i said nope, we're stopping nearby so i can get a look at those wounds and patch you up. (and maybe give him a once-over considering he asked me what a doctor was. i'm concerned.) he took a moment, but thankfully agreed.
not going to lie, looking him over took some nerve. i mean, he's not an animal. well, he is in the sense of humans being animals, but like... i don't know, you know what i mean! he's not a pet or a wild beast. he's a space person. which is great because it means i can try to reason with him to not claw me to pieces if the antiseptic hurts. but it's not great because i'm not training to be a doctor. i have basic biology knowledge from school, but that's about it... and here i was dealing with someone who looks kind of close to a human but could be hiding multiple arms in his torso? or even have a second mouth on his stomach, i don't know.
but back on the subject of animals vs. people, i figured body-wise it couldn't be too much of a leap overall structure-wise, and if whatever's in that vet kit could work for animals, it could work for people. right? i mean, assuming lususes (i think? i'm still trying to get the hang of the words, plurals too) don't need special bandages or anything. i hoped. and still kind of hope, actually.
and given that i've already treated xefros and he's lying on the other side of the cave sleeping peacefully (i also hope?? he's not making much noise, hold on. ...nope, he's fine. just sleeping soundly), i better have made the right choice using the kit.
anyway, the whole thing went... i don't know, as well as i could've hoped? (or wanted? i've been using the word "hope" a lot in here) it wasn't for play or anything seeing as his injuries were VERY real, but it kept giving me flashbacks to when jude and i would play doctor as kids. minus the shouts of "GO ON WITHOUT ME" and him trying to stick his dumb roleplaying scenarios into it. i heard way too much about "enemy operative implants" and fake teeth to even have fun with him as the patient. and don't even get me started on when it was his turn to be the doctor. i never liked war movies with combat medics but now i have even less reason to like them.
actually, thinking about it, maybe that was part of the reason i decided to become a vet in the first place. i mean, yeah, it was always about helping the poor cute defenseless animals get better if they're hurt, but i'll definitely take the added bonus that the animals don't start talking about flashbacks of sneaking behind enemy lines. or that if their body falls into the wrong hands, we've lost the war.
but yeah, back to earlier... i could tell xefros was a little nervous about the whole thing, but so was i, even if i wasn't going to say it. trolls of course weren't anywhere in that book about alternia's wild beasts and if they were i would've been very surprised. so i figured it was just best to start with the wounds and injuries and go from there. they were the most pressing thing after all.
"can you move okay? does anything feel like it's broken?" i asked, really hoping the answer was no. but that was some pretty heavy debris, so i wasn't about to hold my breath. "can you tell me what hurts?"
xefros, sitting on a long flat rock, gingerly started moving his limbs one by one, thoughtfully, carefully, trying to figure out if it was a gash or a cracked bone that was hurting him. not the best luck on that front, seeing as he was wincing with even a tiny move. "just about everything i think" he muttered, trying to muster up a grin.
i sighed. "okay, let me clean those cuts and bandage them first. then we'll worry about your bones."
"i mean i havent collapsed yet so im thinking thats a good sign? X:)" he chuckled. it was kind of painful to see him forcing that smile.
"xefros, you're lucky you're not dead. if you don't want to smile right now, don't force it," i said as i started wiping down his arms with disinfectant.
he sucked some air in through his teeth as he watched me work. "yeah i guess thats a good point..." he winced. his eyes followed the roll of gauze as i gently started wrapping it around his arms, carefully feeling for broken bones as i went. "but its like what tetrarch dammek told me--"
"i KNOW what he said and i think he needs to take a back seat for now," i snapped. maybe a little too harshly, but i couldn't help it. the regret came when i looked up at xefros' face; it was like i'd accidentally kicked him. i tried offering him a gentle, concerned look, but who knows, maybe i just came off as a jerk. but i wasn't trying to be the jerk, because clearly dammek is the jerk. and sadly he wasn't seeing it. "i'm worried about you, okay? let's just get you better first, and then we can worry about someone else's advice afterward."
"i..." he started, but he let the sentence trail off as he began to stare at the rocky chips in the cave's floor. hopefully this wasn't going to make the rest of the exam more awkward than it already had the potential to be. the kind of awkward you also don't have to deal with if you're planning on becoming a veterinarian instead of a doctor.
"well... aside from the bruises and cuts, i don't think your arms are broken, so that's good?" i said, tying off the ends of the bandages. it didn't seem like it'd take too long for those to heal up; not that i could tell for sure, but xefros' skin seemed a bit thicker than mine, but i guess that's not surprising given how hostile everything out here is. you'd need thicker skin to survive. i made a mental note to be more careful about walking and touching things if i wanted to have enough bandages saved for emergencies like this instead of stupid stuff.
"yeah that didnt seem so much like bone hurts" he muttered, apparently slightly distracted and flustered now that I was rolling up his pant leg a bit. thankfully no cuts, but a LOT of bruises. i gently started feeling for his leg bones and, to my relief, they didn't seem to be broken.
couldn't say so much for his left leg, however. soon as i touched that, he let out a yelp that knocked me flat on my butt in surprise.
"what?? what??"
"sorry joey it... it really hurts... DXX" he muttered, his face turning a light shade of red as he tried to fight back a painful grimace.
"oh, sorry about that... well... hate to say it but it means i'm going to need a closer look. you... might want to hold onto something."
his eyes darted across the piles of stuff nearby until he spotted a pillow. i'd hardly blinked before it was in between his arms having whatever life it could've had in it squeezed out. that poor pillow. but more importantly, poor xefros.
i could feel my eyebrows scrunching together as every roll of his left pant leg sent a twitch of pain through his frame. "sorry xefros, i'm really trying to be--" oh wow, that was a LOT of bruising. if that wasn't a break, it was darn close to one. "okay," i muttered, swallowing a bit. "i'm going to try to be as careful as possible, but i need to touch it and see if it's broken, okay?"
xefros bit the pillow. he didn't have the same kind of sharp teeth that everyone else on this planet looked like they had (or at least that i'd seen so far), so he wasn't about to destroy the fabric any time soon. but that can't have tasted good.
a few muffled yelps and some tender prodding later, i realized that if there was any break, it was probably just a small surface crack, nowhere near clean through the bone but enough to hurt. quickly glancing around and grabbing some nearby sticks (surprisingly strong ones), i did my best to make a sturdy splint so he could still walk without hopefully putting too much pressure on the break.
"do you want to try walking around on that?"
xefros carefully stuck his leg out, looking at one side, then the other. "okay... i can put my full weight on it, right?"
"i'd do it carefully, but yeah, it's supposed to help take some of the weight off so the bone can heal. try it!"
slowly, he got up and started testing the splint out. he may have needed to hold onto my hand a bit at first but it didn't take him long to get used to it.
"gee thanX joey X:)" he beamed. i know we hadn't spent much time together at all, but that was only about the second genuine smile i'd seen on his face in person so far... and the last time was after i'd helped pull him out of the rubble. poor guy really needs nicer things to happen to him, you know? but i'll admit... seeing him smile like that just... really made me feel all warm inside. like, everything we'd gone through so far was somehow... worth it?
well maybe not entirely worth it, but it was certainly helping to take the edge off.
"great!" i said, beaming right back. "now to check the rest of you for cuts."
"...the rest of me?" he asked. judging by his expression, he wasn't looking forward to this either.
anything to make it less awkward, i guess. for him AND me. "umm... maybe just lift up your shirt? so i can look for cuts that way?"
"i-if you insist..." he muttered, slowly lifting the hem.
his stomach and chest were bruised like crazy, but i decided to keep this as brief as possible if there was no broken skin. no fresh blood? no dried blood? great! looking at his back now, no fresh blood? no dried blood? gre-- "what the heck are those??"
"what? what are what??" unfortunately the surprise in my voice only served to make him more nervous and you could hear every ounce of it when he opened his mouth.
"the red gashes on your side, are they--"
"gashes??" xefros managed to pull his shirt up a little more to get a look. consider me surprised when he breathed a sigh of what sounded like relief. "grub scars, dont worry. theyre normal. please dont scare me like that joey X:("
"oh. sorry... but hey, i was scared too?? i thought maybe they were like huge wounds and your guts were seconds away from spilling out!!"
i could see whatever slight semblance of color leave xefros' face for a moment before he laughed a little bit. "oh trust me. i think if my guts were going to spill out from my injuries id have left them back at my hive haha"
"oh, right... haha..." i muttered. well, chalk that one up to me not being familiar with alien biology. but you can't really blame me for that, can you? i mean, i was kind of expecting some physical differences at the beginning of this anyhow. just... not like that. man. i needed to keep a more open mind about this. it's not good form to keep scaring your patient!
"...wait joey you dont have grub scars? X:O" his eyes were wide open as if he'd just seen a--ghost. wait. i shouldn't jinx it. they probably have ghosts on this planet too. uh, what else is a good comparison... like you'd just told him he'd won the lottery. after getting struck by lightning like 20 times. yeah. that works better. kinda. maybe. not really. whatever. moving on.
my eyebrows dropped. "uh no. why would i?"
now he looked like i'd just told him his second uncle's cousin's neighbor up the street was hit by a cow driving a tractor and that set the whole town on fire. was this freaking him out too? it was one thing to put on these horns to keep him from freaking out--and i mean, if i'm going to hide on this planet, might as well outwardly blend in--but if he wanted to paint these... scars? on my sides... i mean, nobody was going to see that anyway, right? i wasn't going to let HIM see my lack of grub scars either.
"thats just so weird--"
"i know, i know, i'm an alien. we've established this. please just sit back down on the rock so i can check the rest of you?" like i was one to talk having just been freaked out about the grub scars. jeez, why am i such a hypocrite sometimes? i try not to be but... well with stuff like not using guns, it's a lot easier to not be a hypocrite!
it's also a lot easier to be nicer when you're not flustered. it was probably the flat look on my face that got him to sit down a little quicker than he should have, because that was probably the strongest wince I'd seen yet. and given the lack of cuts under the rest of his clothing, i could only assume his butt was all bruised as well. "sorry..." i muttered.
that wasn't all i was sorry about. short of making him lie down on a frozen waterbed or something, not much i could do for a bruised everything. until i found ice. then i mentally promised i'd make him as many ice packs as i could. assuming he still needed them by then.
he started blinking a bit. "wait didnt you just check the rest of me?" an obvious pale red started crawling up on his cheeks. "what more is left after that?"
"well," i said, rummaging through the bag again. "your face has a couple of scratches on it too, and you said you felt like passing out a bit a while ago from blood loss, right?"
"oh i mean its just blood joey ill have enough of that in no time" he said. but it was said so matter of factly i almost couldn't believe he was saying it.
"hold on... JUST BLOOD? it's literally part of what's keeping you alive and... and and and if jude were bleeding all over the place, i sure as heck wouldn't be acting so nonchalant about it!"
xefros shrank on his seat a bit. "youre yelling again... X:("
my hand flew to my forehead. too many things were getting to me and it was so un-doctorlike--AGAIN--to let it show in front of my patient. this wasn't some stupid tv drama our babysitter thinks we don't know she watches. i swallowed and added another apology to what felt like a list that was catching up with xefros' own tally of apologies. "sorry... it's just... if i feel that way about my own dorky brother, what makes you think i wouldn't be that concerned, if not more, about you?"
i could've sworn i saw the tiniest glisten of something appear in the corner of his eyes as i turned back to him to clean his face cuts. it didn't last for very long and was soon replaced by more red beneath his cheeks as i carefully went over each and every scratch.
"okay," i said, sticking on what i hoped would be the last bandage he'd need. "that's the outside taken care of. now the inside. you people have anything for bruises?"
xefros thought for a bit. "yeah i think so but its a specific plant and i didnt see any outside the cave. sorry joey"
i shook my head. "no need to be sorry, at least not for me. it just means that your bruises will probably take longer to heal."
"its okay... that just means its business as usual i guess" he muttered, his hand unconsciously stroking the bandages on his other arm. "im pretty good at healing what with how much tetr--" he immediately stopped talking and blushed, wide-eyed, looking like he'd just found the most interesting thing in the world next to his feet. "with how much ive been injured i mean haha X:)"
i frowned as i continued looking through the bag. "get injured often, do you?" i asked, pulling what was... i couldn't even tell, it looked like a gun but was reading numbers? a thermometer? even if i wasn't put off by the appearance of it, i wouldn't even know what normal temperature for a troll is. and what if i was wrong and that was a heat ray and i accidentally microwave cooked his brain? pass.
"well i mean i used to play a lot of arena stickball and that game can be kind of rough. it didnt happen to me but this one time the dozer flew waaaay out of bounds and hit some guys thinkpan so hard it split right open and--"
wow. you wouldn't think it given how much blood he'd lost, but his forehead was pretty warm. like, probably warmer than mine. "xefros, sorry to interrupt, but are you usually this hot?"
"wha?? X:O"
shoot. i wasn't listening to what i was saying. "i mean are you running a fever? i don't know what normal troll body temperature is so i can't tell if you're sick or not, and blood loss is supposed to make you colder, so..." i put my other hand on my own forehead. yep, just like i thought, he was definitely warmer than me.
he reached straight up and moved my hand over a bit so he could feel too. "...no thats normal i guess but to be honest i dont usually pay too much atXtion to that? i do feel a little cold but even still burgundybloods do Xd to run hotter temperatures than other blood colors" he said, putting his other hand next to mine on my own forehead. "ya youre definitely a little cooler than me"
a dorky little voice in my head thought that was really sweet for a second until it realized he was talking about my temperature. what the heck, brain, that was uncalled for. this is stupid. and it didn't stop being stupid for a good few more moments as we just kind of sat and crouched there with our hands on each other's foreheads looking like complete doofuses.
i took my hands down and cleared my throat. didn't take long for xefros to follow suit, red again. him blushing left and right was one thing, but me? i was disappointed in myself. where was the professionalism? what doctor blushes when helping their patients? i told myself get it together, joey, he doesn't need to see your blood rushing to your face anymore; goodness knows you've seen enough of that from him.
...right. blood. that was next. and important, considering how much he said he lost earlier. i pawed around the bag a bit more but didn't see anything even looking remotely related to blood pressure. but thank goodness, at least this planet knew what a stethoscope should look like. that i could definitely use.
it was also good because it meant i didn't have to stick my ear directly on xefros' chest. if just putting my hand on his forehead was enough to get him to blush, that might actually kill the poor guy. and critically wound my mental state with a pretty big hit of secondhand embarrassment.
in a very familiar motion, i pulled it out of the bag, popped the earpieces in my ears, and gently (because bruises) placed the listening piece on his chest. so far (with the exception of those grub scars? and likely some other things i hadn’t seen because they’re internal) trolls seemed pretty close to humans, so i could only assume that i'd be listening for some kind of heartbeat, right? would it sound like a human's? or different?
or... huh... or would i be able to hear anything at all?
"...uhhh joey you look kind of... i dont know perturbed? X:/" he muttered, his voice rumbling through his chest.
sure enough, i was frowning. "i uh... can't seem to hear anything..." did trolls not have heartbeats? i mean they have blood, so... i carefully reached over and felt xefros' wrist. no, he had a pulse, but... not only was it kind of on the fast side, it was really soft. either they all have really low blood pressure or he lost THAT much blood.
concentrating as hard as i could, i closed my eyes and kept moving the chestpiece around, listening for... something. ANYTHING. he winced a bit when i pressed it a little more strongly into his skin--which had me apologizing a bit again--but finally, i found it. it was way too quiet for me to be comfortable with, but sure enough, there was xefros' heartbeat. it reminded me a little of seeing him stuck in the rubble earlier: hidden, buried, but there. and still alive.
"found it," i said, smiling at him. "you had me really worried there for a second, xefros!"
"really? sorry about that..." he blushed again, which i guess kicked the volume and speed of his heart up a little bit and threw in what sounded like a skip for good measure. it was kind of awkwardly cute in a way that i would've been giggling about had i not been so worried about him.
"no no, it's fine, it's... actually, it's not fine." i took the earpieces out and stood up. "do you have any juice or drinks on you? you sound like you've lost a LOT of blood. you need to get that back soon."
"i have grub juice?"
i pointed a finger sternly at him. "drink it. doctor's orders."
wide eyed once more--and not breaking eye contact with me at all--he reached into his sylladex and pulled out a can, opened it, and started slurping it as quickly and carefully as he could.
we waited a few minutes before i asked him how he was feeling. with a small smile and the reassurance that he was starting to feel not so woozy (but still tired, which was understandable), a wave of relief and... some kind of confidence? washed over me. it was weird, it's like... authoritatively telling someone to do something and actually seeing it work when you had doubts deep down... it felt... powerful. it was like a major confidence boost you didn't realize you needed but oh, once you had it, you were so so glad to have gotten it. and after everything that had happened--i'm including the past school year in with all the monster and alien craziness of the last 24 hours or so--it was something i needed, and i didn't realize just how badly. i sat back down next to the rock, giggling a bit to myself, feeling this little grin working its way onto my face.
xefros looked over at me in between the remaining gulps of his grub juice. "you okay joey?"
i waved like it was no biggie. "oh yeah, i'm fine. just thinking."
"about what?"
...shoot. i couldn't tell him about that, wasn't i supposed to be the authority here? that'd only make him nervous to know that i was kind of winging it a bit and hoping for the best, even if that did actually happen. so i quickly thought of the next best thing that sounded important and doctorly? and then thought of it for a second or two so i wouldn't be lying, because then i actually HAD been thinking about it.
"uhh well! i was just a little surprised is all. i mean, i've never heard an alien's heart before, so it's... i don't know, kind of interesting?"
"oh yeah? X:O"
"well yeah! in fact, if i didn't know any better and you'd just played it on a cassette for me, i would've thought it was a human heart. or an animal's. it was just really quiet and i had a hard time hearing it, that's all." hopefully that was convincing enough of a subject change.
he seemed like he was mulling it over for a second. "huh... i mean i dont really know anything about this kind of stuff but i guess deep down it makes sense in a weird way? thats kind of cool"
good. embarrassment averted.
the cave got oddly quiet for a second as he traced the lip of the can with his finger. "...i-if its not too much to ask can i hear yours joey?"
nope. embarrassment back. "m-mine?"
i guess he saw my face turning a little red because his got even redder. "ah i mean with the--with the thing! not uh... not like..."
the silent pause just got more and more awkward until i forced it to leave by reluctantly holding out the stethoscope for him. why was i getting all nervous?? this is exactly what a professional doctor would do and perfectly fine, right?? goodness knows the doctor said yes when jude and i were curious little kids and wanted to hear hers. and xefros here was also just curious! i think? "uh... sure? i guess? don't know why you'd want to, but..."
"oh... its just" xefros put a hand behind his head as he took the stethoscope in the other. "the only times ive ever heard someone else's before were all when i was snuggled up next to sydnii or on the rare occasion t--uhhh my moirail was okay with me cuddling up next to him during a movie so..." he moved on to tracing the rim of the chestpiece. he seemed like he was really struggling to get the words out, and not just because he was starting to look a little drowsy. "i guess its just got some happy memories attached..."
okay. that... that hit me. we were both going through a rough spot what with me on a completely different planet and being WAY in over my head, but... xefros was struggling too. i knew he was, but i don't think the extent had really hit me yet. not until he'd said that.
...you know what? it wouldn't hurt. (especially compared to everything else that had literally hurt him this past evening/night.) i sat next to him on the flat rock-bed and showed him how to properly stick the earpieces in, and a few moments later, a gentle peace settled onto his face as i placed the bell on my own chest (for obvious reasons, i wasn't going to let him do that part).
i don't think he realized it, but after he closed his eyes, he started leaning his head on my shoulder. it was just so nice to see him actually happy again, even if it was a small semblance of happiness over something that, i guess, was seemingly more harmless than i was making it out to be. what was that reaction even about, huh? i've been asking myself about it since then and it still doesn't make sense. who knows if i'll ever figure it out.
"how's that for you?" i asked, trying to peer around at his face without getting poked by his horns.
he muttered something i couldn't hear exactly (but sounded kind of like "thank you"?) as he... seemed to be settling down for a nap. uh... yeah, this was... hm... i mean, it was good he could rest and hopefully regain some more of the blood he lost, so i couldn't complain about that, but...
i let a few more minutes pass before i knew he was asleep, and gently took the stethoscope out of his ears, letting him down onto the rock carefully seeing as it was bed-shaped anyhow. a moment or two of scrounging around and i'd even found a few blankets for him. and it was after setting him up with those blankets and the pillow from earlier that i'd stepped out of the cave to take a bit of a look around, with snowbert keeping watch nearby.
and that's when i found you, oh precious diary, in the junk pile, and brought you inside to be my own additional companion on this journey. a silent one, but very important, lest i forget the crucial details of this bizarre set of happenings. or if i die horrifically and the tales of my journey must be passed on to all who read this.
ow, my hand is cramping up from writing so much. guess i'll have to end it here and report back later when xefros is up. if you're like me, it'll be an anxious wait, hoping that he'll be feeling better soon and not worse. here's... hoping. darn it, there's that word again. i mean it's a good word, and an important one, but still. -joey
~~~
day two (still assuming). location: ditto.
dear diary,
we're about to head out of this cave and on to the next train station. just wanted to report back in (for scientific findings and stuff) that now that xefros has rested, his cuts are starting to heal nicely and his heartbeat is a lot louder than when i first heard it (but still kind of racing? something tells me that's not normal, especially considering his face was really red this time). but overall, the fact that he's doing better... honestly, it's a relief. maybe i'm not such a bad doctor after all? i mean, i WILL be a veterinarian. but i'm glad to know i'm not too shabby in the helping-an-injured-friend-out department.
as for something i don't know, though, i can't explain why he's been hiding near the corner of the cave. he's holding his head, shaking it, and muttering something about "why did i do that" over and over again. do what? well, maybe i can find out as we walk. have a bit of a "heart-to-heart," you know? hehe. –joey