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WHO: Shiro
WHERE: The Hospital
WHEN: 12/1, morning
OPEN TO: Liv the zombie doctor
WARNINGS: Voltron S7 spoilers, otherwise n/a atm

It's the flash of white-blonde hair that catches Shiro's eye, and even though he only spots her for a moment as she ducks into the building Altair had pointed out as the hospital, he knows that has to be the woman from the broadcast on his communicator. He'd watched it, then the conversations that spiraled out from it, and hadn't felt compelled to comment: He didn't know her, had only a vague idea of what a zombie was outside the sort of comics and games Lance and Pidge had liked, and while Shiro couldn't readily imagine any comments he could make that would offend her due to her condition, the fact that she was managing one at all had piqued his interest.

He steps into the building, absently tapping the toe of each boot against the threshold before crossing it, to loose any excess dirt from the treads, then pauses a moment to take the building in.

The hospital. Right.

Like the rest of the village, it's fairly quiet, and he easily follows the light sound of her own footsteps, making sure to step a little heavier as he does and clearing his throat so he doesn't startle her, or give her time to get the impression someone's following her who doesn't want her to notice.

"Excuse me. It's - Liv, isn't it?"

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There's this understanding when you work in an emergency room: It's butt-crazy busy, or it's dead. There's not any real in between. If you were new here, like really new, you might think the same — Until about a week ago, we were dealing with nearly half the village sick, including me, and now it's quiet as a church.

But no, it's actually just quiet as a church in here 99.99% of the time. Maybe someone will come in with a minor burn or a scrape, just wanting to make sure it doesn't get infected in a place with a dearth of antibiotics. If it's a really exciting day, somebody's been bitten by a purple alpaca.

So you can't really blame me for probably seeming a little eager when I turn around, eyebrows already arched, pale face the picture of hope.

Except them I kind of screw it up by faltering at the missing arm situation, eyes darting down and then up again, for reasons that have zero to do with what this poor guy is probably thinking.

"Hey," I reply, and sweep another quick, assessing gaze head to toe. Not bleeding anywhere, damn. "That's me."

Shiro smiles slightly, not visibly reacting to whatever moment she just mentally went through. He wasn't grievously injured, which, if she was a surgeon, he can understand being a bit of a let down.

"I saw your- broadcast," he settles on, lifting his wrist enough that the comm band shows above the cuff of his flannel and coat. "It brought some things up that I hadn't much thought about since arriving, and I was hoping I might be able to ask you some questions."

With the implied confidentiality that came between doctors and patients, but they aren't even introduced yet, and Shiro doesn't want to, well, freak her out.

"I'm Shiro," he adds quickly, "village resident for... almost two weeks, now."

Only two weeks, and during one of the worst spans of time I've had here; I feel a little less crazy for not having noticed the presence of another guy wandering around without an arm.

Human arm. Bucky has an arm, it's just extra-fancy.

"Um, sure," I reply, curiosity piqued, and motion the guy further inside and to one of our very empty beds in the event he'd like to sit. It's only then that it occurs to me that his shock of white hair might not be an effort at looking punk rock — And yeah, I know, I'm supposed to notice these things, but nothing else about this guy says baby zombie. He is not nearly pasty enough, for one, and seems perfectly genial and not at all like he might have sugar-plum brains dancing in his head.

"Wait," I begin again, squinting. "Were you scratched?"

Not by me, and I'm the only resident zombie these days that I know of.

Shiro leans back against the bed, absently curving his hand over its edge for lack of an ability to cross his arms.

"Scratched by what?" he asks, eyebrows hitching nominally upward. If there's about to be another mini epidemic, it'll be nice to get a head's up, but he really hopes there isn't.

"...a zombie?" I ask, although apparently my worst fears aren't materializing, judging by Shiro's reaction. "It's just the hair," I add, motioning to the white bit. "That's a thing that happens when you get the zombie virus. Eventually you go all-platinum." I flip my hand back toward my own hair.

"So, you're not becoming a zombie, which is awesome. What's up?"

"Oh! No. That's been that way for a while," he tells her with a reassuring half smile.

"It just occurred to me, after seeing your message, that I - have an illness. A rare form -at least, in my time - of degenerative muscular atrophy. It hasn't been a concern for quite some time, due to extenuating circumstances." Access to the therapeutic machines he'd needed, at first, and then of course not having a body at all.

"But now, being here, it might... resurface. In which case, I'll need to come up with a treatment plan, I guess. And given that back home that plan was mostly predicated on postponing the disease's worst effects with electronic devices, I'm not exactly sure what that would be."

I listen as he talks, careful to keep my expression engaged but neutral. If whatever it is he had before does come back, that... would definitely not be good. To put it mildly. We're lucky if we have proper bandages in this place; advanced treatment might as well be aiming for the moon.

But, I remind myself, we do have a fair amount of geniuses here. And electricity. Unreliable, occasionally scary electricity, but we do have it.

"Okay," I slowly reply once he's finished. "Can you give me a little more detail? Symptoms, rate of advancement? And as precise as you can get on that preventative treatment."

"Of course," Shiro replies, mind suddenly racing as the most prominent memory he has proves itself to be Adam looking at him with deep exasperation as Shiro failed to answer this exact question, posed when the information had been much fresher.

"My muscles were weakening and seizing up, over time, starting in my limbs and then eventually, it was anticipated, spreading into my core and my respiratory system. I had- well," he says, lifting his left arm, looking at the device on his wrist.

"It wasn't dissimilar. It would feed electric pulses into my limbs to keep the muscles from freezing up. I was diagnosed as a teenager. I'm-" He hesitates, realizing his grasp of time is a little skewed.

"-26 now." Almost 27. Unless you don't count the time spent in a formless void. He hasn't decided yet.

"As of two years ago, it had only just started to be a real cause of concern for my superiors." This is not an outright lie, just a vast understatement.

"I'm an astronaut," he adds, to make his statement seem, hopefully, vastly less shady, even if this is also an understatement of criminal proportions.

"Oh," I say with a slight arch of my eyebrows. It was kind of apropos of not much, his being an astronaut, but cool. There are a few people here he can talk shop with, least.

"Okay, so here's the deal. And you may have caught on to some of this already, so just bear with me," I begin again, motioning Shiro's way. "This place, it takes away things from some people — Special abilities and things like that — but a lot of times it heals people, too. So you might be fine. But the unfortunate reality is that I don't have much in the way of equipment here. So what I'm going to do is give you a physical, if that's okay, and we can get a baseline. Paper is kind of hard to come by around here, but I'll try to scrounge some up, and I want you to keep a journal, just a quick jot down of how you feel each day, okay?" Who has paper? Mark maybe. Probably Karen, I never see her without a notebook in her hand.

"Also, I've got a few prescriptions: One is to drink a glass of spring water daily. You need the hydration anyway, might as well get it through something that has healing properties. Second, visit the spring twice a week and soak for at least twenty minutes. Third, talk to my boyfriend if you want." My mouth hitches up. "He's missing his left arm. He has a prosthetic now, but didn't always, so. You know. He gets it."

He might be fine. The idea makes him freeze up a little, as the thought turns over in his mind. He might be fine. That would be.

Well, that would be something.

Shiro listens carefully, nodding with each instruction. It's habit to start running the logistics of it, and also gives him something to focus on other than the possibility that he just might not be sick, anymore, which would have him staring blankly at her for an indeterminate amount of time if it was his overriding thought.

"Does the spring water... carry? Or does it have to be imbibed at the source? And there are a lot of water plants in the region, they probably wouldn't be hard to turn into pulp, has anyone been producing paper with it?" He can learn how, if someone has an established technique.

He hesitates, remembering Jake's very strange initial greeting in the inn

"Would that be Bucky? Someone else mentioned him to me the day I arrived. I don't know that I was exactly in the right head space to appreciate it, at the time."

Edited 2018-12-25 05:19 (UTC)

"That would be Bucky," I confirm with a nod. "Tall, painfully attractive, metal robot arm. You can probably find him just by following the sound of wood being chopped, but I can also arrange a meet-up if you want," I add with quirk of my smile.

"The spring water retains its mystical properties, yes. A lot of people actually carry it back for daily use. I personally use it to wash my hair. And I am pretty sure someone at some point was making paper, I've seen some very pulpy specimens, but I am not an expert on that. You could maybe try the school house, see if there's a book about it?"

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