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North Stellis: The place where future baseball stars were made, he thought sarcastically as he made his way towards a street with parking. His ribs still ached every time he thought about that night — Kendra and her goons tying him to a chair, powerless to protect her as he took hit after hit.
It was hard to think positively about a place that brought so much pain, but it was part of the city he swore to protect when he took the oath to become an attorney. It didn't stop him from dreading every time he made his way back there, though.
North Stellis was always kind of gloomy. The pollution in the air, the towering skyscrapers that block out the light — a concrete jungle in its own right. South Stellis was similar, but there was a lot more glass. The people had learned about the placement of buildings from North Stellis, making the place seem brighter by comparison.
Rain also helped make the place gloomy, so it seemed.
He placed the car in park. She was chatting animatedly by his side, talking about the case. It was one of their friendlier ones: an orphanage story time.
He didn’t know why talking to kids was so much easier than talking to people his age. Maybe it was because they held no expectations of him. To them, he was just Artie: Story Teller Extraordinaire. They were not yet burdened by society placing its expectations on them.
“Artem, I think Professor Hume would be really proud of you.” She said without preamble. She always knew how to pleasantly throw him for a loop. It was no secret that Neil’s disappearance had affected him greatly, much more than he let other people believe. So hearing something that may have had the chance to be true, something so… innocuous yet meaningful to him…
“Thank you.” He says, trying and most likely failing to hide the way her comment affected him. “Let… Let me get the door for you. It’s kind of muddy.”
“Oh, you don’t have—”
“I insist.” He says, already stepping out of the car to help her get out, yet…
It was probably one of the most embarrassing moments of his 29 years of life. He was intimately familiar with the concept of hydroplaning, especially as an avid car driver. The road after the first rain was always much more slippery, the rain mixing with the oil and grease of the road. He should’ve been more careful. He usually was. Maybe it was the subtle nerves at the prospect of meeting the children of a new orphanage. Maybe it was the way her comment about Neil had left him strangely yet comfortably vulnerable, or the memory of Neil and the fact that it should be him coming to these readings and not himself.
When he felt his shoe slip, he tried to grab onto the car. He tried to grab anything that would slow his inevitable downfall. But once a tree begins to fall, there is no way to stop it, no matter how hard you try. He felt his ankle bend as he fell, his entire weight pressing on the joint. He let out a short shout before he finally hit the pavement, his palms scratched raw with the impact.
“Artem!”
He looked up to find her already getting out of the car in a frenzy. Could the earth just… open up so it could swallow him whole?
“Be careful! The ground is slippery!” He shouts, already starting to sit up. She rushes to his side, helping him up. He thought he made it scot-free until there was a sharp pain in his ankle that caused him to buckle forward slightly. He feels her grip tighten on him, and for a second, he’s reminded of how strong she is.
“Shit, Artem, are you okay? What hurts?”
There’s no use lying to her, especially since he knows she saw his fall from the window. “My ankle. I can’t put any weight on it. But I’m okay.”
“You can’t put any weight on it but— Artem! That’s the literal definition of not being okay.” She chastises, helping him hop to the back seat of the car. He feels bad, especially knowing he’s going to let down the kids at the orphanage.
“Here, let me…” There’s no warning before she reaches for his foot, taking off his shoe and sock. He wants to hiss out in pain, but he refrains, instead grabbing onto the seat cushion. “Oh, Artem… It’s already getting swollen. Let’s take you to urgent care. They’ll be able to give you something for the swelling and get you checked out.”
She helps him scoot into the back seat better before taking his keys, intent on driving him to Urgent Care herself.
“That’s a fracture all right.” The doctor says as he holds up his X-rays. She seems to be familiar with the doctor for some reason, but he doesn’t dwell on it. “How’d you get this one?”
He feels his face heat up, but he clears his throat as he looks away. “I… Fell. The pavement was slippery.”
“No kiddin’,” Dr. Yishmir said, placing the X-ray of his ankle on the light box. “Alright, Mr. Wing, I’m afraid we’re going to have to cast this bad boy.” The doctor motions to his ankle, elevated on a couple of pillows. The swelling went down, thank everything, and the pain that was once like a needle was reduced to a dull throbbing. “Have you had a cast before?”
Artem shakes his head, and she lets out a sound that’s suspiciously like a coo. “It’s not too bad, Mr. Wing! You just have to be careful about not getting it wet.”
“And another fun part,” Dr. Yishmir says with a flourish he’s sure he only reserves for kids, “You get to pick the color! What would you like? We’ve got: red, green, purple, orange, and a cute soft pink that I think would go great with your complexion.”
“I’ll… I’ll take the red.”
“Good choice! Now, the clinic will provide you with crutches to walk on, and I will say, it might be a bit of a learning curve to walk in them. Be patient with yourself. And don’t get it wet, it’ll mess with the cast and then we’ll have to re-cast it all over again.”
“Don’t worry, Dr. Yishmir! I’ll make sure Artem is well taken care of,” She says, an earnest smile on her face that makes his heart race. At her words, the doctor studies him more closely, as if he’s sizing him up.
He’s not sure if he passed the test.
The casting took less time than he expected. As it was set, they explained that he wouldn’t be able to drive for at least six weeks (not that it was an issue with self-driving cars, but his poor sports car would have to sit in the garage with no one to drive it).
“Also!” she began, taking a pen from Dr. Yishmir, “It’s pretty common to have your friends sign your cast. Can I?”
Warmth bloomed in his chest, even though it was bittersweet. Being her friend was one of the highest titles he knew she could bestow on him, and while he knew he wanted to be more than that with her, he’d gladly wear the title of her friend like a badge of honor.
“Of course.”
She chose to sign her name near his shin, adding a little drawing of a rose.
“There, now it doesn’t look so empty, doesn’t it?”
True to word, walking on crutches sucks. His armpits hurt, he’s nearly slipped a million times, and overall, he just wants to vegetate for the rest of the time he has a cast. He’s already called Celestine to let her know that he’ll be working from home, much to her chagrin.
“Artem Wing, will you for once in your life stop being a menace to payroll and take the god damn sick days you’re given?” She’d told him on the phone, seemingly done with his workaholic tendencies.
“My mental facilities are not affected, just my foot.” He’d said to her, “I’d much rather work from home than just sit lamenting how embarrassing it was to fall in front of her and break my ankle.”
So he was just at home, working on a case on the couch because hobbling up the stairs seemed so much more trouble than it’s worth. He had just finished a client call (Dear god, how many people get divorced who are this petty?) when he heard a knock on the door.
Living in 2030 has its benefits. He got his phone and opened the doorbell camera he had installed when he first moved in, only to find…
“Luke? What… How did you get my address?”
In the camera, Luke just shrugged. “I have my ways. Now, can you open the door? I have a special delivery.”
He unlocked the door with the press of a button, and Luke stepped inside. On his hips was a tool belt, and he was carrying a toolbox.
“I don’t think I ordered repairs done,” Artem said with trepidation, looking at the way Luke made himself comfortable near his stairs.
“You didn’t, Watson did. Said you broke your ankle?”
Ah, this is what she had meant when she’d promised to have him taken care of.
“Yes, but what does that have to do with you holding a toolbox?”
“Well,” He began, twirling around the closed part of a wrench on his finger twice before catching it. “Watson said you’ve never broken a bone and probably would have trouble going up the stairs to your condo. So she asked if I knew any way to make it easier on you, and I don’t like to disappoint her.”
That was a valid reason. While she never said anything, that look she got in her eye when she didn’t approve of him working late sent the message loud and clear.
“And you plan to help me.. How exactly?” He asks, “Because unless you can magically turn my stairs into a ramp, I don’t see how this would work.”
“How familiar are you with that one ramp bike ramp in Skadi?”
“Hey, what’s with the fish?” Luke yelled from the top of the stairs, seemingly putting the finishing touches on the lift mechanism. “Didn’t peg you as the type of guy to have a fish. A dog, maybe, but a fish?”
Artem bristled but decided to let it go. Many people had fish as pets; it was the third most common pet in the world. “It’s my betta fish.”
Luke disappeared into the top floor, leaving him stranded on the ground floor. God, stupid cast not letting him walk properly, not letting him see the reaction—
“Hey, this little red fella is pretty neat! What’s its name?” Luke yelled from his room.
—To the name he had given his fish. While most people would say he was the Robot Defender of Stellis, the one who had no emotions, he liked to think he had a good sense of humor.
“Fish.”
“...I know what it is,” Luke said in an almost defensive tone, as if Artem had just insulted his intelligence. “I’m asking what its name is.”
Luke popped his head to look at him from atop the stairs. Good, he wanted to see his reaction. It’s the most entertainment he’s going to be getting for a while if the cast on his leg had anything to say about it.
“Fish.”
“The fish’s name… is Fish?”
“The fish’s name is Fish,” Artem repeated with a deadpan stare.
A beat passed. Then another. Then—
“Pfft—” Luke laughed, making Artem smile indulgently. It was the simple things in life. The first sip of coffee in the morning, the breeze on a hot summer day, or making a coworker laugh with a single one-off joke.
Once Luke had calmed down enough, he walked downstairs to him. “Didn’t peg you as the type for practical jokes, either. Guess you learn something new every day.”
“And what about you, do you have any pets?” Artem asked, because it was the polite thing to do, but also because he was curious. Luke looked like the type to have an active dog, like a husky or a German Shepherd.
“Oh! I have a Mynah Bird, his name is Peanut.”
…Not what he was expecting at all. Luke grinned at him as if he had gotten his own little revenge. He pulled out his phone, quickly sifting through the pictures to find one of him, Peanut, and her all together.
“...He seems a little round.”
The sigh that came from Luke came deep from the soul, like an aggravated parent who can’t do shit about what their son did. “He got into the fig stash like two weeks ago. Don’t ever get and train a bird; they’re lovable menaces. Speaking of which,” Luke checked the time on his phone, “Yeesh. I’m late for his feeding time. He’s already cranky enough as it is with his new diet. Do you mind if I come tomorrow to finish this?”
“Not at all, it’s not like I was planning to go up there tonight,” He said, grateful that the bathroom on the ground level had a shower as well. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
Luke shook his head in protest. “Oh, you don’t need to, especially with your foot in a cast.” He motioned to the cast before doing a double-take, most likely on her name. “Hey, mind if I sign? I haven’t had the chance to in ages.”
Artem nodded, and Luke pulled out a permanent marker from his toolbelt. He signed his name simply and added a small drawing of a very round Peanut.
“There ya go. See you tomorrow, Artem!”
The lift was completed the next day as promised, with Luke assuring him that this would upgrade his stairs to a new level. All he had to do was flip a switch, and his stairs would become a ramp with a single footplate. He had to put his good leg on the footplate while hovering his leg with a cast and holding onto the rails. Unconventional, but effective. To go down the stairs, the mechanism would just work in reverse.
He had just come down from his home office with a book (Don’t ask him how he managed it, even he doesn’t know) when his doorbell rang. Seeing that he was already up and moving, he decided to hobble over to the door and open it himself.
“Good Afternoon, Artem,” Vyn said in a drawl that made his skin full of goosebumps. Like a disapproving professor (Which, he realizes, Vyn actually is). “It was mentioned to me that you were injured and might require some assistance.”
“I appreciate the concern, Vyn, but I’m doing fine.”
“The amount of takeout on your counter says otherwise, Artem,” Vyn says, motioning behind him.
Okay, sue him. Making his normal and elaborate meals is harder while on crutches, and while sitting does make it a bit more tolerable, it makes it cumbersome to move around the kitchen. So he decided takeout would work in the meantime, and it’s not like he’s not being healthy either. He’s eating his fruits and veggies like a good boy, thank you very much. On the plus side, she has been sending him some food she makes, and it by far makes every other takeout meal look like mush.
“It’s just for the interim,” he responds, willing the defensiveness out of his voice. “Cooking while in crutches is uncomfortable.”
“Then allow me to prepare some meals for you to heat up.” The doctor says, slipping past him and making his way into the kitchen.
The thing about Artem was that he took great pride in his kitchen. The seasoned cast-iron skillets, the knives sharpened with precision, everything about that kitchen was flawless. It was his baby. So seeing Vyn of all people in there made him feel uneasy.
“Aren’t you better at pastries?” Artem asked, hobbling into the kitchen and pulling out a chair to sit on as Vyn began to rummage around the cupboards.
“While my expertise is in pastries, my skills are not to be scoffed at when it comes to my culinary prowess. Where do you keep your yeast?”
Artem blinked. Yeast? What, was Vyn making bread? “Third cupboard, bottom left.”
Vyn looked where instructed, poking around here and there until he found the small packets of yeast, looking vaguely disappointed. He rummaged around even more, pulling out the flour, measuring cups, and salt.
“And why bread? I thought you were going to make something else.”
“Bread is a versatile vessel of food,” Vyn began, “As a side dish or as a main ingredient to simple meals. I have seen many of my students come up with ingenious ways to eat it. One even put pizza toppings.”
Back in his college days (dear god, no one count how many years it’s been), Artem had seen a couple of students in his classes make a pizza using bread as the base, or use it for many a creative sandwich creation.
“Also,” Vyn continued, steamrolling through Artem’s thoughts. “It will allow you to create some quick dishes, so that you are not standing for prolonged periods of time.”
Artem paused his next line of questioning, strangely touched at Vyn’s kindness, “That’s… thoughtful of you, Vyn. Thank you.”
“You are welcome. After all, it takes someone with two degrees to think of a solution this simple yet effective.”
Never mind, Artem wanted to throttle him again.
“How did you get into cooking anyway?” Artem asked from his seat, helping Vyn knead another ball of dough. It seemed that two loaves of bread were the ideal amount to make, in Vyn’s words. “I thought something like this would be beneath your station.”
Vyn ignored the obvious quip, “While it may be none of your concern,” He began, kneading the dough a bit more forcefully than he had been doing, “As a child, I had a lot of time on my hands and decided I quite enjoyed the feeling of creating something with my hands.”
Artrem takes a second to look at the furrow on Vyn’s brow. It could be because of the effort he’s exerting while kneading the bread, but he has a feeling that’s not it. In the short time he’s known Vyn, he knows that Vyn is proud and has an image to uphold. Maybe he’s not getting the full story.
“I can feel you trying to analyze me,” Vyn said with a deadpan, turning to look at him, “Unless you have recently gained a Psychology degree, I recommend you focus on the task at hand.”
“What, I don’t get the common courtesy to be asked why I got into cooking?” Artem asks, pausing for a moment to rub at his wrists.
“Let me guess,” the doctor begins, “You moved out for college, could not cook as most of your meals were catered to by some adult in your life, but you found a strange fondness for cooking in the impending solitude of adulthood.”
The way Vyn said it felt disingenuous, as if he was just humoring him for the sake of doing so and not putting in effort.
“You’re losing your touch, Doctor.” He goads, throwing the dough into the buttered pan.
“It is not so losing touch, rather it is not worth my time, especially since you are so easy to read.”
“I am?” Artem asks, startled. He was the Robot of Stellis, according to some… less-than-favorable tabloids. He knew how some of his coworkers felt about him — someone to be put on a pedestal, someone with high expectations that they were too afraid to approach. Someone hard to read.
“You are,” Vyn says, looking over at him with a baffled expression, “You are an open book — do not tell me people think otherwise.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“I fear for the world more and more every day.” The doctor responds, shaking his head. “As the saying goes, ‘Common sense is not at all common.’”
“That saying allows me to be employed,” He says ruefully, handing the bread pan over to Vyn, who places it on the countertop. “You’d be surprised at the types of cases we get at Themis. Fully sane too.”
“I can imagine.” Vyn places his own dough in the pan, tossing both into a preheated oven. “Nevertheless, there are still people who keep the sane ones sane and can follow directions.”
Somewhere in there, he knows there's a compliment to him about his breadmaking skills, and he smiles. Leave it to Vyn to circle around a compliment.
At the end of the day, he ends up with two loaves of white bread, a focaccia, Naan, and a bit of sourdough.
“I’m, uh, not so sure I can eat that much bread.” He says, taking a bite out of the sandwich he made with the first loaf that came out of the oven.
“Bread lasts longer in the freezer,” Vyn says, mopping the floor of the kitchen. “I will package them for your convenience. All you will have to do is toss them in the toaster.”
Ah, right, he had forgotten about that. Looks like he will be good on bread for the foreseeable future.
As Vyn mopped away the stray flour that remained on the floor, he turned over to look at Artem’s cast, blinking in surprise as he saw two familiar names scribbled on its surface.
“Why are there names on the cast?”
“Oh, it's a thing that people do, apparently.” He says, a little glad that he wasn't the only one to be thrown off by the notion of having someone sign their name on a cast. “You sign your name as a gesture of goodwill.”
“I was unfamiliar with the custom. Most of my own casts were left blank.”
“There’s a marker in the drawer,” Artem says, “What did you break?”
“My arm and wrist,” He responds, taking the marker out of the drawer and signing his name with a flourish, even if he looked slightly confused. “Bad dismounts on a horse. Perhaps after you are healed, I can introduce you to the sport.”
“That sounds like fun.”
The knock on the door should surprise him, it really should, but given the way this entire week has been going, it doesn't surprise him at all. So when he looks into the camera from his phone, it doesn't surprise him to see Marius at the door with a tote bag. He pressed the button so that the door unlocked without any fanfare.
“So I came to check on the convalescent, but it looks to me like you're getting better.”
Artem has to roll his eyes. God, the cast itches, and he wants to be able to go back to swim, but instead, he is stuck sedentary on his couch.
“I would ask why you're here, but I'm assuming the rest of the team informed you of my condition.”
“Hey, I didn't wanna get left out. Do you know how rare it is nowadays for people who have broken their leg and have a cast?”
“I would not know. I tend not to try to get a cast to add to that statistic. What's in the bag?”
Marius grins like the cat’s got the cream, clearly expecting that question.
“This, Mr. Attorney, is a cure to your boredom for the rest of your days,” he says in a voice that kind of sounds like an infomercial, but he supposes that since Marius is the president of PAX, the salesman personality is a must. He lifted the bag, jingling his contents.
“OK… That still doesn't answer my question.”
“You and your narrow couch are no fun. I have some art supplies that I thought would help pass the time.”
Artem stills from his place in the (decisively not narrow) couch. It was a little-known fact that he was… less than stellar at arts and crafts. Hell, the time he did one just recently, the drawing he made of a little pumpkin for her on her face, he had to practice for well over a couple of weeks just to get it right. And now he was going to be doing arts and crafts with an art student?
“I’m… busy.” He says, trying to lamely get out of the impromptu arts and crafts session.
“You were literally just reading a book that, from the cover, looks vaguely Sci-Fi. Come on, you’re not busy.” Marius retorts, already making himself at home on the floor near his couch. “Besides, it’ll help you get your mind off being cooped up inside.”
“Alright,” He sighs, clearly having lost the battle of the wills. “What are we making?”
“For someone as straight-laced as you,” Marius begins, pulling out a wad of square paper from the bag with a flourish, “I thought we’d do some origami. It’s pretty basic, but we can work our way up.”
He’s done origami before, once in elementary school, where they had him make a dog instead of the swan everyone else was making because he “was using too much paper”.
“For now, though,” Marius says, most likely noting the apprehension on his face, “Let’s start with a paper airplane. Everyone knows how to do one, right?”
“I stand corrected,” Marius said as he fishes out another packet of origami paper, “Artem Wing, attorney extraordinaire, can’t make a god damn paper airplane. I’ll be.”
Artem feels his face flushing, his ears turning bright red in embarrassment. “I was told in elementary school that I wasn’t particularly… good at the art of origami. It seems I still haven’t improved.”
“Wait, pause.” Marius said with this sort of… hardness in his voice he’s never heard before, “Did they really tell you that? You, as a little kid, were told you sucked at arts and crafts.”
“Because I do suck at crafts like these.”
“No, you don’t,” Marius said with conviction in his eyes, “Everyone sucks at things they try for the first time, you just need to keep at it until you feel like you’re good enough.”
Marius began to fold a paper, using one of the paper creasers to make the folds more distinct. “I wasn’t good at the business part of PAX at all, and I always assumed that Giann would take over. He did, but he sat with me sometimes to explain things I had no interest in learning and was bad at, just in case.”
In his palm was a… misshapen-looking swan, as if he had skipped a couple of steps, but anyone who looked at it would probably be able to tell you that it was a swan. “I’m still bad at it at times, I make the occasional bad call on who to trust or don’t back the right venture, and sure, people do tell me I suck. But I keep going. And maybe I don’t have a choice, but I chose to become better to prove them wrong.”
Artem looked at his wadded-up paper airplane. He didn’t have anything to prove now; the only memory he had of those teachers were of the words they had said to him. But still… he never stopped to think how Marius was affected by Giann’s disappearance. From the little he knew (because, admittedly, Celestine always took care of the PAX-related cases), Giann was in a league of his own. To step into someone’s position like that was essentially like stepping willingly into their shadow. But Marius still got up every day to face everyone head-on.
So if he could do it, he could make a paper airplane, too.
It may have taken a little more than he would’ve liked, but he at least managed to build a decent one that, when thrown, flew from the couch to the kitchen. And, at some point between Marius pulling out markers and crayons to decorate, Marius’ name became etched on his cast along with the rest of the names, with a little crown doodle.
Dr. Yishmir’s office was the same as the day he had left it. Except for that Mynah bird decal on the wall, that was new.
“So, Kid,” the doctor began, crossing his legs casually as he sat on the chair. “Ankle’s looking pretty good. Let's get you set up to take the cast off, yeah?” He grabbed the saw, pressing the trigger to make the blade move a couple of times.
Artem shivered. “With a… saw?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t chop ya leg off,” Yishmir says, grinning at him as he props Artem’s leg on a stool. “It vibrates real fast instead of being an actual blade. At this point, the cast is really brittle, and all it takes is a good dig in the cast for it to cut off. Hell, it won't even break skin!”
He’s not all that sure if the doctor is joking or trying to make him feel better. “If you say so…”
“Hey, have a little more faith in your doctor, will ya?”
Yishmir places the blade at the side of his lower leg and begins to saw down. It’s a little impressive how fast it’s going. It’s not butter, but it’s slicing down pretty easily. Slicing… in the path to her name.
“Wait!”
To his credit, the doctor stops immediately. “What, does anything hurt?”
His cheeks redden as he thinks about what he’s going to ask. God, will the doctor think he’s some sentimental hoarder? “Could you… Cut around the names?”
Yishmir grins at him, patting at his cast. “You got it. It’s pretty common to wanna keep the names of your friends on a cast. You want them individually or all together?”
“...Together, please.”
He’s not sure if it's gaudy to have his cast on display in a frame. But… every time he looks at it, at the names and the way his teammates — no, friends — came to his house to take care of him, keep him company…
Who cares if it’s gaudy? It makes him happy.