frontier medicine

“Doctor.” She said firmly, verging on harsh. “My lung has been seen to and it’s healing. As are the rest of whatever you’re fretting about. I’ve had much, muchworse and seen my way through it all.”

Liz ground her teeth and looked the man over. Starfleet, it never changed. He didn’t seem a bad sort, just… much too young and eager. “But, in the interest of peace, I will give you 10 minutes to make yourself feel better and not a second more. Understood?”

Julian clenched his jaw. Difficult patients were always a challenge - one that Julian willingly accepted. “Alright. This won’t be long,” he nodded, grabbing his dermal regenerator, “and thank you for your generosity, Miss Nash,” he added sarcastically.

He started with the punctured lung, fixed the shoulder, patched up some injuries, doing everything at double speed, letting his guard down for a moment. He knew he was capable of much more; his genetically enhanced senses allowed superhuman speed, but he couldn’t let anyone notice...

Liz had, admittedly, very little use for doctors. But even she had to admit seeing him blush was cute. She stifled a laugh only because he seemed so much like a puppy, it felt cruel to draw attention to it.

She was expecting the second kiss and, unlike the first, met him half way. Her fingers slid up the back of his head, softly tugging at his hair. Sucking gently at his lower lip, Liz nipped at him.

“I must say, Doctor.” She whispered against his lips. “This isn’t like any other exam I’ve gotten from a doctor before.”

Julian’s eyelids fluttered closed as Liz deeped the kiss. He hummed appreciatively against her lips. This, he could handle. 

“You, Miss Nash,” he whispered back, stopping to place a kiss on her neck, “are not,” he sucked lightly on the sensitive skin near her collarbone, “like any other patient,” he captured the spot where her neck met her shoulder between his lips. 

Naprem nods a little, trying not to look as nervous as she feels. “Of course,” she says. “Go ahead. Anything you’d like to know.” It hasn’t been long that she’s even had the option of denying him – being offered it outright almost feels like a trap.

Julian bites the inside of his cheeks. “Alright. This is very unusual, but what I generally ask my patients is - what happened? What’s the last thing you remember before... before you - well, before the accident? Where were you? And what happened when you woke up? Who was there? Did you receive immediate medical care?”

Just because I take a while to reply to you, but not others, doesn’t mean I’m ignoring you; My muse is picky, and I can only write what I’m drawn to. I want my replies to be well written and fun, not forced and horrible

Just because I shorten a reply doesn’t mean I’m bored with the thread; I’m probably tired, thinking of something else to continue with, or giving you the chance to set up our next situation.

Just because I drop a thread doesn’t mean I will never come back to start another; When I drop threads, I’m usually overwhelmed, without a muse for that particular piece, or bored with it, and I’ll ask to start another.

An Orion Deep Field

Liz leaned in to the kiss for a moment before leaning back and looking at the doctor. She grinned, pleasantly surprised and more than a little amused. “Well now, Doctor Bashir, if that’s the sort of bedside manner all your patients get, I can see why you’re such a popular doctor.”

Julian blushed. He actually blushed! It made him feel like the awkward teenager he had been years ago. He had no idea what it was about Liz that made him feel this way, but he was not going to look like an idiot in front of her. 

“Not all of them,” he whispered, voice low, eyelids drooping, “only the special ones.”

“Oh indeed you do.”, he said and playfully smacked Julian’s buttock again, it was warm against his palm and Garak liked the firm rear of the Doctor. It truly had it’s benefits to have a younger lover, he thought silently. He really enjoyed the Doctors display of appreciation. Yet Julian tried to hold back, and play Garak’s game. The Cardassian preferred to be in control of the situation and gladly Julian was thankful and clung onto him, kissing his sensitive ridge which had darkened with arousal already.

Placing both his hands over Garak’s, Julian leaned back until their bodies were fully touching. He made sure to press his rear against Garak’s mid-section, then he pulled his lover’s arms downwards, gently guiding them over his hips towards his hardening organ. He secretly hoped that this would be taken as a sign of defiance - and that he would be properly punished.

“Of course,” Naprem says, trying to smile back. “Please.”

He’s got a good bedside manner – better than she was expecting, but then, she supposes that’s unfair. With rare exception, every doctor she’s seen in the past forty years has been Cardassian – cold, clinical, and dismissive at best, and, at worst, eager to dissect her. Anything would be an improvement.

Dr. Bashir’s quite a bit better than that. He has a calming pagh, and a sharpness to his eyes – his movements are quick and precise, and even his comfort feels timed, strategized. Naprem doesn’t mind it. It makes her feel normal, almost, as this is the kind of thing he’s planned for.

But there’s something coming off him that she’s struggling to quantify. Fear? Annoyance? She’s not sure. It’s something in the way he moves – the way he has to take a deep breath before he speaks to her. She’s troubled by it – troubled by her own inability to make out what it is, exactly.

She swallows, sighs.

“Do you… Is there anything you need to know? Is there anything I could tell you that would help?”

Julian programs his tricorder to run an in-depth analysis of... well, everything. He starts with Naprem’s cerebral cortex, tests her heartbeat, breathing, basic bodily functions, then he goes back to neural activity. There’s nothing. Nothing his instruments could read, anyway. It was frustrating. 

“Hm?” he looks up at her, slowly grasping what she said, “Oh. I am so glad you asked,” he says earnestly, raising his eyebrows almost pleadingly.

Although he had been burning to ask all this time, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Now that she offers to answer his questions, it’s a different matter. She’s Ziyal’s mother: that would make her Gul Dukat’s... what? Wife? Mistress? Or...? But he needs to know more. He can’t draw anything from these perfectly normal readings. He needs to know how she managed to come back from the dead.

“Just let me know if my questions get a little too... personal. I’m your doctor, but that doesn’t mean that you have to tell me everything; just what I need to make sure everything is working fine.”