Star Trek: Starbase 777

First, bitch! No, stop typing. Thanks. Anyway, here was Dmitri, in the medbay, doing medbay things. Looking at clipboards. Scanning things. Pressing buttons. Diagnosing. Contemplating. Vibing.

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Guess who else was here? What a coincidence. Dakom didn't have much to do at the moment, so he just gave everything a nice once over. And also tried very hard to not think about dying in a time loop the last time he was on this ship. Hmm. Nope, attempt failed. Why did something awful always have to happen around here?

Oh, hey, it was that handsome scruffy guy he'd been normal at in a shop once, and then started a two-person book club with. Yep, that about summarised it. He approached. "Not much happening here. How's the reading?"

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See, he really was a doctor. He had a normal job and did normal things. He looked up from the screen and nodded in acknowledgment with only a slight start when he saw who it was. Small world, huh? "Oh! The reading, yes. I've only just started Misguided Medicine, but it's very interesting so far."

"It's funny, too. Did you get to the bit about pregnant people having 50% more blood?" Because of the baby, yeah, but there were also other reasons.

He nodded, and settled back to lean against the back of the chair instead of standing there all awkward. "Funny, in that... mildly horrifying way, if you think about it for very long at all. I know too much about medicine to ever be the sort to fantasise about time travel. Of course in the future I'm sure they'll write about us the same way."

"Actually, when I was born, my parents -" Slight hesitation. "Well, they said I would've had a type of anaemia, but they cured it before I was even born. That's the kind of thing that would be debilitating in the past. It makes you wonder what else would be considered trivial to cure if we travelled into the future, doesn't it?"

"I would probably be dead, oh, even a hundred years ago," Dakom answered with remarkable casualness. "And still, I spent a significant portion of my youth in hospitals. It's actually what motivated me to pursue medicine." Just a fun backstory tidbit. "If everything's in order, we should probably head to the shuttles, mm? Will you be on the away team?"

Lore noted. He made a mental note to ask Dakom more about that later. "I will." Hopefully it would go better than last time. Though, to his credit, when it came to actually completing tasks, he'd been fine. It was more of a social fumble that'd happened. "We can go together."

Whew, another horrifying mission complete, and one Dakom had definitely been present and active for. It was always at least a little mentally exhausting. Now that they were back on board, he went about putting everything away and filing the various tricorder data. And of course, checking in on his colleague as he worked. "...So. that was a mess as always. You doing okay, Dmitri?"

He was doing similar things. Too tired to write them. "I'm surprisingly okay, actually. My meds are working well, and I think concentrating on my task really helped. I think it's when I'm asked to step out of my role that I start... Hey, but what about you?"

"I'm fine. Just..." He rubbed his temples. "High-stress environment. Tends to give me a headache. And I'm glad you're alright." That was pretty much that.

"Yeah. Me too." He busied himself, letting the comfortable silence take over. It felt oddly domestic, both of them doing their tasks separately but together. He glanced at Dakom occasionally and found he liked what he saw. Hmmm... No, it wasn't the right time for it. He'd ask him later.

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