2. Send our Good Doctor some love from us. I’ve been missing that big ol’ smush 😘
🥺🥺 thank you doll. I've missed being here. Life's been crazy and I'm glad to finally return to something that is creative and joyous for me to work on!
As for the doctor- tell him yourself!!
Thane grumbles, setting down his icy, frosted glass with a satisfying thump to the old, hardwood. His eyes flickered your way, his cheeks tinted only the softest shade of a pale, purplish-pink,
"'Nough fretting, darling, I ain't goin' anywhere."
If it’s not too much to ask could we have the same prompt (Ophelia + rosalie) for thane? Would be interesting since they’re also our doctor 👀
Under the cut dear. Thank you!
You weren't quite sure you could believe what you'd just heard. Your mind entered an almost dream-like haze, and you swore you found your heartbeat grow silent and still.
How strange was it, that the bullet wound you'd find yourself agonizing over only seconds prior, became nothing more than a flesh wound compared to the declaration Thane had just spoken.
It wasn't right. It wasn't fair.
You were speechless, breathless, even, as you found your stomach twisting itself into knots. You didn't move, even when Thane had moved your wounded arm for easier access. You didn't move even when he tugged and pulled at the skin, sewing the gaping wound closed.
"I can't do this anymore."
You could've laughed, had it not been for anger that began to claw at the back of your throat. The rage and the fury and fire that pulsed at your fingertips. Do what? You felt yourself asking Thane silently What is so hard about any of this?
"I don't understand," You say with a rushed breath, "the hell are you talking about?"
Your answer came by the loud clatter of metal tweezers against porcelain, your eyes narrowing at the frown that only grew deeper on Thane's face. It was only then that you realize his hands were shaking,
"This is the third time I've had to pick bullets out of your arm. Do you know how close this was to your heart?"
"Not close enough," you say defensively, "I'm fine, aren't I? I wasn't the only one who got hurt-"
"-you're the only one on this crew with enough of a goddamn will to run headfirst into a firefight. You're the only one here with a death wish, and I- I can't. I can't do that. Whatever this is whatever- whatever we are, I can't..." Thane clenches his jaw, "...I can't do it."
"So that's it then?" You say in disbelief, "that's all you have to say to me? I was trying to prevent anyone else from getting hurt! I was trying to end it before the fight got worse, before you were fucking killed or became an even bigger target than you already are!"
This was the part where you start to feel bad for exploding- bad for saying what you wanted to say, for allowing yourself to feel the frustration long enough to snap back. But you were tired, and bruised, and bloodied, and you can't find it in yourself to care anymore,
"Fine," you say with hiss, "I see how it is,"
"No," Thane says firmly, "No, you don't. You're not the one stitching their partner back together one stupid move after another. You don't give a damn about any of that, do you?"
It was like getting slapped in the face- only the sting was far more worse than any physical injuries you've suffered. Was it true? Did it matter?
You slide off the table. Your eyes were no longer focused on Thane, your mind no longer focused on the pain of your wound. You wanted out. You needed to get out. It didn't matter if the stitches were complete or not; the ones over your heart had burst, your emotional scars bleeding, breaking.
Thane didn't stop you. Didn't call for you to come back. You entered the corridor numbly, and you weren't even aware that the lights to the medbay had gone quietly, quickly, out.
I just want Thane’s reaction to the shit stitching jobs MC (or Yoshie) did on themselves over the years when they didn’t have access to medical care or couldn’t afford it. I feel like it will be half judgey but also sad???? Especially if MC is romancing him??? Maybe? Like “what hack put you back together?” “Lmao me dickhead” “oh 😐”
;) Well now! Ain't this a beautiful idea!
"You promised you'd be careful."
You winced, though whether it was because of Thane's needle being pulled through your skin again or the guilt you felt for worrying him, it was hard to tell.
"I was," You insist, and this time you fashion a grin to flash to him. Thane says nothing at this, his eyes temporarily flickering over your smile and then back down to your shoulder where your wound rested.
You can feel your molars grind together, the stabbing of his needing and pull of thread sending an almost out-of-body- feeling through you. Each and every suture felt misplace, like it wasn't supposed to be there.
But it was.
And besides; the machinations of medical-grade string was a far-better placement than the bullet that had once lodged itself there.
"Any further to the right and it would've hit your chest," Thane says calmly, "and I'd be lucky to remove all the pieces of your broken ribcage from the muscle, assuming it wouldn't lodge itself in your heart, first,"
"But it wasn't, it didn't," You repeat once more, your pained smile dropping from your face, "Thane, I'm okay. We're okay. They caught us by surprise is all- it won't happen again."
More silence. This time, the added sound of string and skin being cinched together to close a wound that the both of you ended up paying for; the price being, of course, the illusion of safety.
"I know," Thane says, the snipping of scissors letting you know that the suture was, by all intents and purposes, done, "I don't mean to be like this, but I...it's hard, is all. It gets...harder, watching you leave the ship."
Thane's fingers trailed down your arm, a gesture of affection, of affirming the reality right before him, then anything else. His hand stopped at yours, and he waited patiently to see if you'd except his hand. You of course, obliged.
"It's...gonna take some getting used to is all, now that we've-" Thane hesitates, "-we're, uh-"
Thane clears his throat, and ushers in a comfortable silence between the two of you.
Your gaze sets on your newly-formed suture, almost taken aback by how delicate it looked. From experience alone you knew the trials and tribulations that came with trying to weave skin back together, and Thane had done it flawlessly.
"You did a bang-up job on me, Thane," You complimented warmly, "I doubt there will be a scar for this one, don't you think?"
You swear you could hear Thane's eyes roll loud enough to accompany the scoff he gave you. In an instant, the soft and compassionate man you fell in love with transformed into the caustic, incorrigible ass you fell in love with,
"Obviously not. Unlike whatever sock puppet stitching was attempting on you, I can sew wounds back without much trouble."
You felt your eyebrow raise, "sock puppet?"
Thane levels with you, "Coulda said hackneyed,"
You blew air through your nostrils, trying to decide as to whether or not feel truly insulted,
"Not every doc was as compassionate a soul as you. Woulda been most of our money if Yoshie and I went to a clinic every single time we had an injury,"
"And your second best a sewing kit?"
"Hey, none of them ever tore open!" You exclaim in defense, only to give it pause, "...I think."
"Given the state of your scars? I'm rather surprised."
Honestly? You sort of were, too. How could you not be? You remember those awful nights you came back wounded, being pulled back together by bright yellow thread. It stung for ages, and took twice as long to heal.
Yoshie would say they were merely pieces of proof that you'd lived. What's a body without blemishes, after all?
"Not to say," Thane says suddenly, reflectively, "that I don't find you any less attractive with them. I do. They're...part of you, even if some of them look like they were done by a blind mouse."
Thane squeezes your hand softly. You do the same thing back.
"I love them," Thane continues, "as...as I love, you."
How would thane react if MC gave him a drawing/painting of him? 🥺💖
Under the cut, dearie! <3
Before him was the face of a man he could never find the ability to stare at for long.
Thane sees his father in his own self too much; his skin and hair so characteristic of the Kal'Morran, the eyes deep-set and he swears the wrinkles on his face are so like his.
His mother's smile- however faintly he remembers it, curled in the same way of his own lips on the rarity he ever could find a reason to grin. It shocked Thane to the core of his very being, and for a brief moment it was almost as if they didn't die, as if they'd never gone away at all.
It was an incidental moment you'd captured in time; a brief sketch of him caught in a particularly rare mood, and painted over with precious oils you'd fawned over at the markets. The canvas you stretched yourself over the ribbing of wood had cost you three paychecks worth, and you couldn't stop talking about all the wonderful things you could fill it in with.
Thane never thought that what you would fill the canvas with, was him.
He's seen more sunsets than he knows what to do with; more horizons colored with a blazing explosion of pink and orange with an ocean of grey and blue than he cares to admit. An artist with a good enough of eye and hand could make any one of the things he's seen a masterpiece- something worth viewing, over and over.
And yet under your blushed cheeks, your bashful gaze and slightly-shaky, nervous hands, you give him the one thing he never saw coming; a different view.
"Do you like it?" You asked him, your voice soft against the raging tides of emotion that crashed against the inside of his skull.
"I...like it when you smile. You do it when you laugh. I know you're not..." You trail off, trying to find the right words, "...I know you're not comfortable with grinning all the time, but...maybe you'll feel better. Seein' this and all. You deserve to be like this all the time, Thane."
Happy.
With his father's eyes and his mother's lips, and irises full of ghosts and regret.
Thane nodded, the words in his head never quite reaching his lips or tongue. It's hard to like echoes of your past, hard to like what you've become.
I'm insulted. I'll have you know 30% of my patients survive (if you squint). It's just that some people don't consider the results of my surgeries as being the "same person" or "falls under the technical definition of undead"
The unlikely friendship that blossomed between an engineer and a doctor came at the most inopportune time.
A look into Rosalie and Thane's relationship- from the beginning.
Thane, for all his medical knowledge, wasn't sure how it came to be that such a small, petite human with her hair done in braided pigtails was capable of such rage, but if one thing was absolutely certain- it was that this woman's got spunk.
Moxie.
Grit.
"-AND ANOTHER THING! IF I EVER HEAR YOU TALK BADLY ABOUT MR. MOSELY AGAIN, I'LL CALL YOUR BOSS! THAT'S RIGHT! I'LL GO TO THE HIGHER UPS! AND THEN WHAT WILL HAPPEN, HUH?"
What she doesn't have, however, is tough enough skin to withstand the burning, boiling steam of an engine to a train that had one real, pissed off conductor. The very same conductor, of course, that the woman was screaming at.
Thane sighed, irritation beginning to seep into his chest as he rolled up the sleeves of his coat, his mind a stream of curse words and expletives as he did something that could only be described as, "really, really painful".
Thane's eyes snapped back to the woman, and the familiar sound of boiling steam rising through copper pipes caused her words to be lost to the wind. The conductor said nothing, instead throwing his body weight into the motion that brought the ventilation of the engine open.
Thane jumped.
-
Rosalie, for all her engineering knowledge, wasn't exactly sure how it came to be that in one moment, she was upright, angry, yelling, to being slammed onto the floor like a sack of potatoes.
Or rocks.
The landing felt like rocks.
But if one thing was absolutely certain, if one thing made sense throughout this entire, horrible mess that was her train ride home, it was that a large man just tackled her straight to the ground; the air knocked clear out her lungs.
He's got moxie.
Guts.
Grit?
Might be a pervert-
But the sudden screams of steam practically deafening both of Rosalie's ears was enough to make all of her thoughts come to a screeching halt. Rosalie's eyes slammed shut and her hands moved reflexively to her head, ignoring how the stranger seemed to move toward the steam, and not away from it.
-
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-
One of these days, Thane will learn to stop giving a damn. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but when that day comes Thane won't have the care to jump in front of steam hot enough to give any human a permanent makeover.
Luckily for the random rage-filled woman, Thane was not only human. Sure, he may look a bit pink and red by the end of this and might want a cold bath, but dead or seriously injured he is not.
Hooray.
The screeching of steam ended before the clouds did, the hot gas rolling through the station and dissipating before it ever became truly harmful to the touch. Thane stood over the woman he'd tackled with a face akin to one of annoyance, not pain. His eyes flickered over to the conductor of the train, his face paled and eyes wide, as if startled more so by Thane's thick, Kal'Morran skin then by his own actions that caused this all in the first place.
Thane shrugged his shoulders, fixing his now warm and wet coat before bending down, extending a hand to the woman beneath him, wordlessly asking for a hand as to help her up.
-
Okay. Maybe not a pervert.
The minute the screeching stopped, Rosalie opened her eyes. Clouds of white steam wafted through the air, following the direction of the breeze and covering all other sights, save for the station that sat within yards of her own line of sight.
Rosalie turned her head to find what she believed to be the man that knocked her down, a hand in place of where he was- directly in front of the steam pipes only moments ago.
"You-" Rosalie started, her voice soft- a contrast from her yelling of only moments before, "Are you alright?"
"M'fine," The man says gruffly, his hand shaking in front of her face for emphasis, "You need help up off the floor, or do you just wanna stay there?"
Rosalie's cheeks burned, flushing at the sarcasm in the man's tone. Rosalie smiles, nodding wordlessly before taking his large- incredibly large- hand, and finding herself upright before she could blink once more.
"I-" She started, "thank you. I don't typically like to start fighting with people, but that conductor was a mean ol' bastard and I just- I just couldn't stand it!"
"Then pick a fight with someone not working on a steam train," Thane points out before pausing, adding, "maybe don't pick fights with people taller than you, either."
"I wasn't pickin' a figh-"
"Right," Thane says, well aware that the excuse the woman would come up with next will not be a good one, "'Course. He started it, right?"
"Obviously!"
Thane nods, running his hands through his hair with a sigh,
"Take care of yourself, ma'am, I'll be at my clinic if you want to do a check up-"
"Rosalie,"
Thane double takes, "Huh?"
"Rosalie," The woman repeats, "That's my name. I-I sorta figured you'd want to know it, since you took all that steam instead of lettin' me get hurt. What's yours?"
"Thane," He answers with a sigh, "I'm the town's doctor. Like I said, I run a clinic down the way if you wanna get a check up, alright?"
"I might just do that," Rosalie says with a smile, "though I think I got myself handled."
I absolutely adore your if (it’s definitely in my top 5) and I’m really looking forward to future updates! The whole premise is just mwah *chefs kiss* and the characters…I just wanna love them all (but mainly Thane (hopping on the Thane train as well lol)).
I was wondering though, I noticed in a Thane ask a while ago (no I was not stalking through your tags, perish the thought!) that he gets a lot of racist comments for being half (forgive me if I spell this wrong) Kal’Morra. Would it only be half-Kal’Morra’s who receive racist comments or would full-Kal’Morra’s also receive racist comments from humans? Would this also be the case for other ‘alien’ races such as Harpii/half Harpii?
Sorry I know this isn’t a particularly fun ask but I was just curious how racism etc…is treated in this world.
Long answer, under the cut!
It would be the fact that he is half Kal'Morran and half human. Humans and Kal'Morrans have a rather decent political relationship, and for the most part can get along just fine. The comments and anti-Kal'Morran hate from the humans, however, come from the association with the Battle of Kneps (an event that will be explored fully and is central to many, many problems in the story)!
Kal'Morrans, on the other half of the coin, have the tendency to want to keep their species and by extension, their culture, to themselves. To be half-Kal'Morran is to be almost un-Kal'Morran, and by default will be considered "other" to the Kal'Morrans. To "mix blood" is an offense to the Kal'Morran identity.
Harpii have an imperialistic society, and by default will consider themselves superior to all others. They're particularly hostile to the Kal'Morra, and have little in terms of political leeway with humans. This would be something definitely seen if one were Half human and half Harpii.
Instance of other forms of racism or general intolerance for other alien species (the Anderrans, for example, are prolific slavers) will be touched on throughout the story! Thane's experience and backstory will play a major role later on :)
Here are the romance options’ portraits. A reminder that this is also a sci-fi story, and there are three specific characters that have very specific features that cannot be shown with Artbreeder. These characters are:
- Thane: Thane is half-Kal’morra, a semi-aquatic alien race that has features such as: scales, gills. Thane has such features, these are not shown with the portrait.
- Ophelia: Ophelia is a Harpii, a warrior-bird race of people. She has feathers, sharpened teeth, and bird-esque eyes. These are not shown in the portrait.
- ????????????????????: Due to spoilers, I won’t go into the reasons as to why this is not exact, but I can assure you that this is closest I can get to what they look like in my mind.
And now, without further ado, the Artbreeder portraits for the main cast of ITOOS:
