Important notices: Harm mentions, panic attacks, cannibalism…ish?
Thank you SOOO much @whitestreamrct2 for writing this chapter. I did add on a bit to the end, but they did the bulk!! Love you twin.
This was not how Kirk had intended for his after-class time to go.
He had expected to just pop in for a quick chat with Dave, see how he was holding up— maybe get some intel on how he could POSSIBLY be from Mars, and go home to sit around lazy all day.
He had not expected to be hustling down the exhaustingly long, warm tunnel that led to the greendome, mind racing with many doomsday scenarios he didn’t even want invading his brain.
It was stupid to be this panicky, there really wasn’t anywhere for Dave to go and he would’ve been intercepted and back in the care unit if he had tried to “escape”, but Kirk couldn’t help it. He had only known Dave for maybe about a few weeks by now, he couldn’t possibly risk him being gone, not when Dave held such fascinating answers to his questions.
Kirk leaned against the already-open pressure hatch, catching his breath. Even though he was in good shape for being forty-two, he’d never quite gotten used to the heavier Eridian gravity and thus it easily wore him out.
He pushed off of the door and walked into the greendome, marveling at the wonderfully sculpted, well-lit sides of this place. Kirk pulled his hair back, adjusted his glasses, and called, “Dave?”
He tried again, louder. “Dave?”
This time, it elicited a reaction.
Over by the shelves of flowers, there was a loud crack, like someone had dropped something ceramic and a quiet, repeating hiss of, “fuckfuckfuck FUCK-”
Kirk hustled over, up the small, grass-covered hill, to the voice’s origin. He found Dave hunched over a broken flowerpot, hands and floor stained with dirt. His ginger hair was brushed over one shoulder, revealing his well healing mutations.
“What happened?” Kirk asked, bending down so he was near Dave’s level.
The redhead flinched, turning to the brunet with an uncharacteristically scared look on his face. “I-I dropped it, I’m sorry, I’ll do better…” He trailed off, glancing down at the broken flowerpot.
“Dave, it’s alright, you’re not in trouble. I can-uh, ask some Eridians to clean it up later. Now, are you hurt?”
Kirk gestures for Dave to show him his hand, to check for any cuts from the shards. Once making sure that nothing was there that shouldn’t be, he stood up and dusted himself off. “What were you doing in here anyway?”
“I got bored in the care facility,” Dave explained once Kirk had helped him up from the floor. He was still avoiding eye contact and fidgeting with his dirty hand. “So the main scientist that’s been taking care of me let me go explore here.”
“Alone?” Kirk questioned, putting a finger to his chin in thought. In his stage of healing? I’ll have to talk to Basin—or Icicle, whichever one was there—later.
“Yeah.” Dave went silent again after that word, shoving his hand into his pocket and keeping his gaze focused on his feet.
Kirk watched the way Dave’s face churned, then looked away again to focus on the edge of the tunnel. “Do you want to go check out the main biodome? We’ve got, uh, non-hospital food in there if that helps.” He grinned, scratching the side of his neck. “I can always take you back to the care unit if you want. There’s, uh, no pressure to go explore.”
Dave nodded quietly at first, then spoke a firm “I’d like to explore…”
The ginger walking next to him followed the brunet through the long field and up the xenonite steps. Through the long corridor, was the main biodome. It led out of the side of a mountain along the back wall. God, the place was huge.
A beach on the left of the corridor, mountains to the right. Something that looked like a cozy well architectured cottage further ahead from the tunnel.
“That’s my home over there.” Kirk pointed with his cane and smiled. “Just tell me where you’d want to see first.”
Dave looked around, stepping slightly forward as he held his hands close together. Then he gazed back to Kirk. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” Kirk nodded gently, waving a curl out of his own face.
Dave had never expected to be treated this… equally.
He pointed forward, to the cottage. The other parts intrigued him, but the home looked warm and safe. Something he needed, different from the care facility.
“My house? Okay.” Kirk began walking, a slow enough pace with his cane and the sand.
Once they walked up the steps to Kirk’s house, he held the door for Dave and shut it when they were inside.
He gestured for Dave to sit anywhere as he went into the kitchen to grab two sandwiches from the fridge.
Once they were ready, he found Dave on the couch and handed him the food. Kirk ate his much slower than normal, watching the other human through his curtain of gray-streaked black hair.
The scarred man was eating his sandwich slowly, taking small bites, hesitating, and then taking another one. “What’s in these? It tastes kind of…sweet.” Dave wrinkled his nose.
The redhead choked on the bite he’d just been taking. “You’re what?”
“The Eridians replicated some tissues from my body and turned them into burgers, so…you’re currently eating me right now.” Kirk shrugged, setting down his sandwich so he could adjust the sweater currently hanging off his shoulder. “We call ‘em ‘me-burgers’. I think it’s funny.”
Dave shifted in place, setting his half-eaten me-burger on the table in front of him, maybe his appetite wasn’t too important anyway.
“The Eridian who let me go to that room with the plants told me that I’m healed enough to go back to, um…where I came from. The stations.” The ginger hesitated on the word “stations,” clearly having some sort of problem with them.
Kirk buzzed with the insatiable need to ask thousands of questions, but he didn’t want to chase Dave away with an onslaught of questions. “Are you…going back?” He asked, letting the biggest questioning lingering in his mind free.
Dave picked at his cuticles, silent for a moment. He looked up, being able to see the simulated tide outside the house from a squared window. He inhaled deeply before answering,
“I don’t want to go back.”
Dave took another heavy breath. “Hell no.”
Dave had moved on after a nice thirty minutes of somewhat peaceful existence in the home. Not silent, but not chatty. Just, existing .
The conversation was a blow for him. He knew he should have reacted well— and he did! But, it scared him to death. A human, staying on this planet with him. A human wanted to stay in the same vicinity of him, a person chose to stay.
Twelve years, no human contact can do a lot to a brain. Kirk knew he was different than the Hammett who was amnesiac, waking up in a confusing star system lightyears away. This Hammett, now, was more Eridian than human.
Every emotion he could feel, he was surely feeling it. So, when Dave got busy looking at the plenty of trinkets among Kirk’s living room, Kirk bolted for the bathroom.
Once inside, he shut the door quietly and sat back against the bath. Shaking, differently than the times before. This was a shake filled with hope and crazy amounts of joy, but an utter fear of failure mixed in. He raised his hand to his mouth and shut his eyes.
Of all things he overthought, this possible reaction was never planned for.
Kirk is happy but— lord this man is going THROUGH it.
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