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Xisuma sat in a stiff plastic chair in the small waiting room of the medical office for the labs. His helmet sealed itself against his neck and encased the entirety of his head, the only thing visible of his face was the glow of purplish orbs through the violet tint of his visor. The mouthpiece and other accompanying tech covered his mouth, but small slitted speakers that ran parallel to either side of his jaw projected his voice out clearly. Similarly there were internal speakers that settled over his ears and helped ensure he heard the world outside clearly.
Still, it was like living in a bubble.
Better than when he’d been trapped within himself, within his home, barely able to take five steps without wheezing, though.
“Hey X! Come on back!” Xisuma turned to look at the doorway leading from the medical office's proper, which had just swung open.
Jevin was a slime mutant, and he was one of the medical officers for the labs. Xisuma stood up. “Good mornin’…is Stress out?”
“Yeah, she’s on call down to the Depths this week, so you’re stuck with me.” Jevin replied in good humor, and X shrugged. “Poor me.”
The slime mutant snickered. He had pale blue skin, and his hair was a more vibrant shade of blue…and yet it wasn’t hair at all. It was slime, he styled it to look like hair, something Xisuma still wasn’t entirely sure how he did. Blue eyes as well, and he wore a white hoodie and jeans beneath the typical white blazer of a labs officer, his ID card dangling from one pocket. He had a stethoscope hung around his neck.
Xisuma followed Jevin into the medical wing. It was the closest thing to a hospital that the under-city had, but the out-patient side was just a few rooms for check-ups and some basic equipment.
It wasn’t enough. Xisuma would know, he’d been the one working to import half of this stuff from the over-city.
“Hop up on the table for me, how you been feeling?” Jevin asked him conversationally as he led the voidwalker into one of the check-up rooms. Xisuma shrugged as he walked in and sat on the edge cushioned examination table, chunky boots swaying an inch or two above the white linoleum floors. The lights were brighter here than the yellowish hue and red circuit glow that consumed the rest of the under-city.
“Y’know, same old.”
Xisuma had to come into the medical office once a month for checkups. His weakened glamor made it difficult for him to create void density air for himself to breathe, or maintain that sort of pressure around his head on his own like most voidwalkers did. That was why he wore the helmet. Before he’d gotten it, he’d been relegated to a life spent mainly indoors. He hadn’t gone to school, he hadn’t played or made friends, and considering a decent chunk of his childhood had taken place during the Anarchy and it’s aftermath, it wasn’t like it had been a time to trust labs.
It had taken several years before his parents had believed in the place enough to bring him there seeking help. Doc had stepped up immediately. It was things like that that made Xisuma believe he truly was the man who would bring the under-city to better days, with Etho as his shadow keeping the under-city’s claws at bay.
“Alright, take off the helmet for me?” Jevin asked, subtly moving to close the checkup rooms door as he spoke. He knew Xisuma was self-conscious about who saw his face.
“Right…” Xisuma’s chest tightened a bit. He was never a fan of removing his helmet anywhere outside of his apartment, even if he had been doing these checkups once a month for years by this point. He reached up and unclipped the latches on either side of his throat that sealed his helmet, and felt the hiss of air entering. Then he turned the two interior locks to release their hold and the entire thing opened open at the base, allowing him to lift it off his head. Immediately, his glamor sputtered to provide for him. He was sitting still, and wasn’t under any sort of duress, so he was able to breath comfortably. But this…sitting still, or perhaps very slowly moving around with frequent breaks, was all he could manage.
His long pale brown hair spilled out from where he’d knotted it up against the back of his head, tumbling down his shoulders and nearly to his lower back, where frizzy strands met split ends. He didn’t want to cut it, but all the same, he never took the best care of it. Not like anyone ever saw it, anyway. His skin was pale, and his eyes were a brilliant violet that flickered and buzzed with purple glamor. His hair streaked with strands like starlight, black, silver, and purple with particles that fizzed and popped like bubbles leaping from a freshly poured soda.
Jevin came around behind him and slipped the stethoscope from around his neck. He inserted the earpieces beneath the blue globs of his slime ‘hair’ and slipped his hand beneath Xisuma’s shirt to press the stethoscopes disk against his bare skin.
“Deep breath in for me. Hold it. Out.”
Xisuma knew this entire procedure to the point he could probably have gone without the prompting, but he didn’t say anything. Just went along and did as he was told, mind already wandering elsewhere to what he needed to get done today, considering if he’d sufficiently bullied Tango into doing his paperwork yet, and other such things.
After checking everything as usual, Jevin hung the stethoscope back around his neck again and walked in front of Xisuma, shoving his hands into his hoodies kangaroo pocket.
“Helmet feeling same as usual? No issues with breathing while wearing it?”
“Nope.”
“…and you’ve been using the chafing cream on your neck?” Jevin asked him with a skeptical raise of his eyebrow.
Around Xisumas neck were several reminders of how much time he spent with the helmet sealed there, reddened spots and flakey skin.
“Mostly. Sometimes I forget.”
“Put up a sticky note or something, dude.”
Xisuma shrugged, turning his eyes away toward the poster advertising courtship ritual across subspecies lines pamphlets that suddenly seemed far more interesting than rehashing this conversation.
Lucky for him though, Jevin was much less willing to tear him to shreds over it than Stress was, and usually she was the one who’d give him his monthly checkup. He could hear her now, rambling on at him in her bright pitching voice about how he would end up with permanent scarring if he didn’t remember to keep to the routine they’d prescribed him.
Not like it matters. No one ever sees my skin, there.
“Yeah, yeah, sticky note, you got it.” Xisuma waved him off and Jevin sighed.
“Alright…and you’re…”
“Doing my breathing exercises? Yup.”
“…and the…”
“…sufficient time without m’helmet on? Yup.”
“Fine, fine, let’s get you outta here. I’ll let Stress know you were in for the month.” Jevin relented, and Xisuma reached for his helmet again. Quickly winding his long hair back into a knot against his head, he performed the well-worn motions of slipping the thing back over his head, seating it in place, and snapping the latches shut. He twisted the locks on either side of his neck, and felt the gentle pressure of the seal. The quietest series of redstone clicks to get things started, and then he took a deep breath. Purple glowed through violet-tinted glass.
“Thanks, Jev.”
“Sure thing, if you’ve got any issues you know where to find us. Same date next month work for you?”
“It should, yeah. Have a good one.”
“You too!”
Xisuma left the medical wing, headed back toward his own domain in over-city relations. He already planned to swing by mechanical to potentially handcuff Tango to his desk until he did his paperwork, and before long, he forgot he was even wearing his helmet at all. It was another part of him that let him live with more freedom than he’d known for so many formative years.
Back to work.