#zanvir

-chaotic tired cat

AAAAAAAAA I forgot to answer this one.....

Caretaker 36. "Please let me help you."

"No, you should be paying attention to Alek or Byruk. They need your help a lot more than me. I'll be fine."

Talic growled a little in annoyance under his breath. He watched Zanvir turn away from him to continue cleaning the rest of the medical instruments. He always did this, minimized his own health and concerns by saying others should be prioritizes first. While that may have been true a few times, Zanvir’s growing limp currently became Talic’s primary concern. 

“They will be fine, Zanvir. All they really need now is time for rest. You on the other hand are worse than when I brought this up three days ago. We have time now, so we’re talking about it now.” 

Zanvir growled and set down a freshly cleaned scalpel. He looked back at Talic with a disgruntled look and inhaled deeply. 

“Yes, I may have been a little more stiff the past few days. It happens on occasion, believe it or not, as I've been getting older. Amazing what we've been able to uncover with our combined medical expertise, right?"

"I do believe it, actually," Talic was good to match his sarcasm. "But see, I also don't want it to develop into something worse, especially if it's something easily preventable. That would just be bad."

Zanvir scoffed. "You're worrying too much."

"Oh God, a doctor who's concerned for his patients, how terrible." Talic pointed firmly at one of the observation benches. "Now, please sit and let me help you."

Zanvir narrowed his eyes at him, but must have decided it wasn't worth arguing anymore and turned to sit down. Talic didn't always win their battles, so he was glad and didn't plan on gloating. He came up in front of him and knelt down, propping Zanvir’s leg up on his thigh and searching for any issues.

“This is pretty rigid,” Talic ran his fingers from his ankle along the wall of his booster. The color of his skin looked dull and flaky too. “Have the supplements not been working properly?”

Zanvir said nothing and Talic stared up at him, the realization now dawning on him. “You haven’t been taking them.”

“I have been,” Zanvir corrected him, “I’ve just had to ration them out a bit more. We don’t have an unlimited supply.”

“When was the last dose?”

“… About eight days ago.”

Talic sighed and looked over his other foot. Just the same as the first, growing rigid and losing flexibility along the wall of the booster. Nothing that couldn't be mended at this stage, but Talic knew that it had to be hurting him to walk around like this for so long. Grounders had to take supplements to keep their systems healthy with no jets or wheels to do the work. While he understood why Zanvir made this decision, her still didn't like it.

"I just wish you told me sooner."

"Eh," Zanvir waved his hand dismissively, "I can take care of myself. It's not like I haven't dealt with this kinda stuff before."

"You just haven't deal with it while being over seven hundred."

Zanvir exhaled and nodded. Good, he was conceding to at least one good point. "I've planned out the amount that's left. Even with me now being the only one needing them, there's enough left for five years if I ration, but only two if I take them regularly."

Therein lay the topic none of them really wanted to think about, just how much longer they would be stuck on this planet. The cruel irony was they had to think about it for reasons just like this one. Their supplies wouldn't last forever, and they had to hope help would come soon.

At least Earth wasn't a desolate world. It offered them some chances.

"Look, start taking them regularly for now until this improves," Talic said as he set Zanvir's foot down, "I'll start looking into a way to synthesize more in the lab. Who knows, maybe we'll find a viable alternative on Earth. But... just do that for now, okay?"

Talic knew very well he couldn't make Zanvir do anything without his cooperation. The best he could hope for was to try and convince him through words and the discomfort not listening to his advice would lead to.

"Hm," Zanvir huffed and stood up, "I'll take some now."

He left without another word, still limping slightly as he exited the room. Talic watched him, getting the feeling that he would still try to ration the supply out.

(I opened this file and it said 'last modified in July 2018'.......)

I don't have a lot actually written for this, but the premise was focused around Talic and Zanvir. Talic starts noticing that their medicinal rations are more than they should be for the seven of them, and also starts noticing Zanvir's increasing irritability and avoidance whenever he tries to check on him. He finds out Zanvir has been cutting back on his supplements and medicine so that there's enough for everyone else.

I haven't even gotten to that part in the fic yet but here's a snippet anyway XD...... CW for eye stuff