@stormybisexual wanted a ficlet about Ryan Is Cute And Literally Everyone Knows It. ilu phee!
As soon as the new doctor—Ryan Dalias—cleared the room, Jane lunged for her comm pad. She switched from the nurse-on-duty account to her own personal one, clicking through until she got to Chatterbox.
jane ‘better than u’ johns: guys
jane ‘better than u’ johns: guYS
jane ‘better than u’ johns: NEW DOCTOR ALERT
holly ‘the pretty one’ redden: THE ONE WITH THE PINK HAIR I KNOOWWWWWWWWW
holly ‘the pretty one’ redden: I SAW HIM WHEN HE DOCKED. I DID HIS ID CARD FOR HIM
holly ‘the pretty one’ redden: JANE HE SMILED AT ME
holly ‘the pretty one’ redden: HE HAS A STUPID CROOKED SMILE
henry ‘professional gay’ osolong: dibs
holly ‘the pretty one’ redden: YOU CANT DIBS HIM I ALREADY DIBS’D HIM
henry ‘professional gay’ osolong: fucking watch me?
Other members of the chat chimed in with their opinions. Chatterbox was a perfect platform for the frustrated singles on EOS 10 to keep tabs on newcomers and cry about their dismal love lives. (And hey, if you really got desperate, someone would usually be dtf). The so-called HottieWatch had been moving pretty slow for the past few months. Then a pink-haired piece of ass with a stupidly charming smile and fuckin’ dimples, lord above, arrived and shook things up.
The only problem was that there was no way he was going to last, not when he was here to replace Urvidian. Too bad. Jane hoped someone would be able to tap that perfect ass before he inevitably gave up and left them all behind.
Ryan, for his part, noticed that he seemed to be drawing more stares and whispers than he had expected. Maybe word had gotten out whose son he was—Admiral Dalias was pretty well known, all things considered. Or maybe Doctor Urvidian had thrown a drunken hissy fit about Ryan being his ‘replacement’. Whatever the reason, more than one person stepped up to introduce themselves while he was walking down the corridors or on his lunch break. He ended his first day with a dozen new contacts on his comm pad, which was great. Admiral Dalias had drilled it into him to start making professional connections as soon as possible. Unfortunately, some of the contacts had accidentally given him their personal info. He deleted those numbers to be polite, making a mental note to get their professional contact info from their superiors.
Over the next few days, HottieWatch fell from the heights of elation to the pits of despair. Ryan hadn’t contacted a single one of them. Not an email, a call, not even a text. Jane got temporarily kicked off the servers for bragging one too many times about working with him. Osolong wisely kept his mouth shut, and stayed on. The GimJahh stand owner got bragging rights and a blurry photo when Ryan stopped by to try their….whatever GimJahh was. An anonymous user known only as Robin got kicked off for making up rumors about seeing Ryan’s dick, which he assured them was as prefect as the rest of him.
Ryan never figured out how so many people knew him without ever introducing himself, or why shopkeepers tended to give him discounts ‘just because’. Maybe it was just because he was new, because after a few months, right around the time of his father’s funeral, the random encounters slowly stopped happening.
One day after his shift ended, he picked up Jane’s comm to check the schedule and found it open to a group chat. All of the users were discussing how someone working double-triple shifts back-to-back, saying that he looked tired and worn out. Curious, he scrolled up a little in the chat. They talked a lot about this one guy, Ryan noticed. Jane said she was worried about him. He’d been through some terrible things lately, and that they should stop approaching him in public for a while, give him some space. The others agreed with her, which led to the lamenting about how listless he’d been looking lately. Ryan frowned—he’d been through some shit lately, and he knew how awful it was to face that alone. It seemed almost cruel to jointly agree to just leave the man alone while he struggled through whatever he was dealing with.
Ryan set up a new profile.
ryan dalias: hey, who are you guys talking about?
holly ‘the pretty one’ redden: um
No one else added anything, though Ryan could see several people typing at once. And then, suddenly,
[chat deleted]
Ryan set down the comm pad, frowning. He’d ask Jane about it later. Or maybe not. Maybe he didn’t want to know after all.
“Well,” he muttered, standing up slowly. “Whoever you are, I hope you’re alright.”
He thought about the new cat currently sitting in his room, about the friends that knew him well enough to snap him out of his depressive funk. He hoped that guy had friends as good as his.
