"Do you mind if I take a photograph? It'll be completely anonymous, for my research and records only," Doctor Ashland requested as he beheld Richard's near-miraculous muscle regrowth.
"I'd really rather you didn't," Richard refused. The wound was only half-grown back and still was a literal and metaphorical sore spot. "I'm a bit sensitive about it."
"Understandable," Doctor Ashland conceded and gestured for Richard to pull his pants back up. "Still, amazing, hm? I had read theories that such restorative growth may be possible, but not with the technology and knowledge we had on the surface. It's a shame that the rest of the world doesn't have access to it."
Richard fastened his belt. "What even is it?"
"Some sort of sea slug spit, if you can believe that. Very recent discovery, only a few months ago. The full potential hasn't been charted, not by a long shot, but once the medical community caught wind of it, well, we've been more than eager to make it available to our patients."
And even more eager to make money. Richard could have bought a small house in Queens for what he paid to be part of this experimental program. "How many more injections do you think I'm going to need?" It had only been a week of injections twice daily, but the more Richard thought about the strange glowing green substance he was putting into body each day the more he was disconcerted by it, especially when he took the experimental treatment angle into consideration.
Doctor Ashland frowned. "That's the problem, my supplier is telling me he's running low. I've got enough for three more days' worth of injections and I've got two other patients who need it as well."
Richard's eyebrow shot up in alarm. "What happens if I don't get my injections? Does the new flesh wither? Do I get dope sick?" Richard had been dope sick several times and he lived in constant anxiety of experiencing it again. Thankfully Rapture had a very robust opium industry.
Doctor Ashland shrugged. "I don't know what will happen. This is all experimental."
"You didn't test it on rats first? Or, or fish, or whatever in the hell people down here test unknown and powerful new medications on?" Richard incredulously asked. He had just assumed that there had been some sort of animal testing.
Again Doctor Ashland impotently shrugged. "It's not required," he offered as a way of explanation.
"Yes, but when I make a new turret I test the damned thing to make sure it isn't going to explode in the customer's face," Richard argued tersely. "I would hope that you, as a doctor, would have that same level of safety."
"If you don't like it you can find a new doctor," Doctor Ashland simply said.
The sinking sensation brewing in his guts as he contemplated some sort of super-charged dope sick fueled Richard's sudden anger. This is a terrible idea, all of it, doctors have to have rules, he inwardly raged. This whole place is a disaster waiting to happen. But his desire to lash out in rage at his doctor was tempered by his dependence. If Richard didn't play nice he might be cut off entirely. "If you want to keep me as a customer then, doctor, how do you propose that I am satisfied?"
"Since you are so unhappy with the experimental nature of the treatments it may not be for you, but a colleague of mine recently had some success with directly implanting the slug into the body of the patient," Doctor Ashland offered.
Richard couldn't help but laugh. "That's madness. You're joking, right?"
Doctor Ashland laughed a little himself. "Not a joke. I assisted in the surgery, they attach the little guy right to your stomach lining. He lives in there and you get access to his spittle and it'll cure what ails you."
"And what happens when the slug dies? Or decides he doesn't like how I taste? Or shits too much in my guts?" Richard questioned.
"I don't know. Would you rather find out what happens when you stop with your injections? Because that is your option," Doctor Ashland simply said.
No, I don't want that either, you absolute jackass, Richard thought. He didn't want Lupe to see him in the throes of whatever nightmarish withdrawal the sea slugs would put him in. If it cured so well, it stood to reason it would pack a helluva punch when taken away. But literally no one knew what the side effects of this surgery could be.
"How much is this going to cost me?" Richard asked, still lingering on the double-edged blade this new discovery was.
"It's hard to pin that down exactly," Doctor Ashland wavered. "There's a lot of variables, depending on your body type, on the slug, on what my suppliers ask, on-"
"Give me a number," Richard cut him off.
"Between a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand."
Richard wasn't surprised at the steep price. It meant no divorce, however. He lit a cigarette. "Can I sleep on it?"
"Certainly. Let me know by the end of the week, however, I've got a limited supply of slugs."
Richard's head swam with questions. He belatedly realized he should have asked all these questions before the first mystery injection. It was too late to turn back now, however. Richard yearned to go back – to the surface, to before the war, to his own body. Maybe he could get his body back, or maybe he could lose it entirely…
Richard smoked another cigarette on his way out of the Medical Pavilion, another while waiting for the bathysphere, and yet another as he rode the elevator up to his apartment. The temptation to return to normal so soon was almost irresistible, but if it went wrong? Perhaps he'd turn into a sea slug himself.
Richard was so preoccupied with his dilemma that it took him a few moments to realize he was listening to Dorothy give instructions to Lupe without yelling or calling her a whore when he stepped into the front room. "…make certain that everyone has finished their appetizers before you clean the plates away," she instructed in her pert and business-like tone. "Wait several minutes after you've cleaned the plates, then bring out the wine for the first course, then when Miguel has finished the first course you bring those out, and always serve from the left and clear on the right, understand?"
"Yes, ma'am," came Lupe's attentive voice.
He had forgotten that Dorothy had arranged a dinner party tonight to show off to her friends what a fantastic and loving marriage she had. The whole point was to quell a rumor that had been floating around that she and Richard were going to divorce. Richard was willing to tolerate this whole charade as long as Dorothy kept up her end of the bargain. He wasn't too excited about making small talk with his wife's friend's husbands, but the whole thing seemed so insignificant compared to his medical dilemma that he couldn't work up the energy to be irritated with it.
Dorothy had hired a chef for the evening. Despite his attraction to Lupe Richard did have to admit she was not a stellar cook. If he was being generous, which he was, he would call her adequate, but someone who was not smitten with her would call her an amateur in the kitchen.
They both turned to look at him when they heard him enter. Lupe was wearing her good uniform, the black one with the white apron, and she smiled warmly at him. He smiled back. The exchange was not lost on Dorothy, who set her lips into a thin line. "Go give the silver service a clean in case anyone wants tea after dinner," Dorothy ordered Lupe.
Lupe didn't lose the smile on her face but hustled off to obey Dorothy's orders. He hadn't told her about him and Dorothy's arrangement yet. A little bit more of the cloak-and-dagger would be good for his cloaked dagger.
"Our guests will be arriving soon," Dorothy curtly informed him. "I was hoping you'd be home sooner."
"I had a doctor's appointment. Do you want to know how it went?" Ever since he had told her that he was going to walk with a cane for the rest of his life she was performatively uninterested in his health issues.
Dorothy rolled her eyes. "Does it matter?"
"Yes, actually, it matters a lot," Richard angrily replied. "You haven't noticed I've been walking better, have you? Or that I'm not in pain all the time?"
Dorothy's sour expression faded at this new information and was replaced by genuine surprise. "Have you? No, I hadn't noticed."
"Well it's true. And I may get a surgery that could fix it all," Richard informed her. "Is that a good enough excuse for being late?"
Dorothy appeared stunned still. "How?"
"Modern medicine," he cryptically replied. It would be worth the risk to see the look on Dorothy's face when he returned home fully-formed only to sweep Lupe up in his arms and carry her off to the bedroom.
"That's…." Dorothy sputtered, as her primary reason for disliking Richard had been his unattractive disability and the removal of that obstacle suddenly brought her around. "That's amazing! When?!"
"Soon," Richard answered, closely observing her reaction. "You've never cared about my medical problems before, why do you now?"
"Are you joking? We can go back to normal!" Dorothy exclaimed. "If we can have physical relations, everything can be fixed!"
"We always could, you just didn't care to try," he coldly replied.
"But now that you're normal again-"
"Am I? Do I not still have the same perverted, degenerate desires that disgusted you so much?" Richard questioned her harshly, outraged that she would just brush off seven years of a terrible marriage just like that.
Dorothy paused before replying. "We can fix things. We won't need this abominable agreement anymore, we could get rid of Lupe, we could have a normal marriage." Dorothy reached out and took his hand, which wasn't something had done since…Richard couldn't remember. At least not before they came to Rapture.
"You're getting a bit ahead of yourself," Richard shortly said. "The agreement still stands. I will see you at dinner."
He then turned and strode down the hall, taking extra care to draw attention to how little he relied on his cane. He hadn't supposed that spite would be at the top of his list of reasons to get the surgery, but, well, he just about had his mind made up to get it done. I'll show her, I'll come back home fit as a fiddle and spend all night with Lupe doing it the proper boring style Dorothy wants, and – his mind sputtered out trying to figure out a way that Dorothy would know it was the standard man on top procedure.
Richard threw the door to his room open, knowing he should probably change out of his work clothes, which smelled faintly of oil and gunpowder. A proper husband who dresses smartly can get his figs picked by the maid later, he reminded himself while picking out a clean shirt. At least Lupe was decent at laundry.
There was a knock on the door. "Don't tell me they're here already, I haven't even had a chance to change," he yelled at who was presumably Dorothy.
Lupe pushed the door open. "No Mr. Stone, no one has arrived for the party. I was hoping to speak with you though."
His mood and tone softened. "Yes, of course, come in."
Lupe did look quite fetching in her chic uniform now that he was focusing on her as opposed to being distracted by Dorothy. She smiled and brushed her hair back before speaking. "I was hoping you could help me. I'm in a spot of trouble. It turns out with my former employer, he says I left my contact illegally and he's tried to force me to come back."
Richard was just about to put his new shirt on but he halted at this. "Force you how?"
"Drag me back. He sent a…private cop or something, I don't know exactly, I didn't ask many questions. I managed to get away though," Lupe explained.
Richard forgot all about the party for the moment. "When? Today?"
"No, last week. It's not a big deal really-"
"Not a big deal?" He stepped over to her. "Of course it's a big deal, someone tried to abduct you." He put his hand on her shoulder. "What did this guy tell you?"
"That I had to come with him, and it wasn't over and he'd track me down, and…" Lupe sighed. "He threatened to beat me up, I guess. I don't want to make a big issue of it, I got away and I talked to my friend Helena and the same thing happened to hear and another girl we used to work with, honestly, I'm not scared of him, I just want to be free and clear of my old contract, that's all," Lupe rushed out, clearly more afraid of the situation than she claimed to be.
Richard squeezed her shoulder. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because..." Lupe trailed off. "Because I don't want to be a problem at all. I thought that if I became a problem you'd think that…I wasn't worth the bother."
He pulled her close to him and kissed her forehead. "It's my privilege to bother with you." That didn't sound good spoken aloud, he realized, but the sentiment was genuine. He held her face in his hand. "Please don't think I only care about you physically. I care about all of you."
Lupe put her hand over his hand and sighed happily. "Good. I was worried that you were only interested in sex."
Hearing her say it so bluntly was a kick in the gut, but then again he'd never given her a reason to think otherwise. He sighed sadly. "I'm very preoccupied with that, I'm sorry," he weakly offered in his defense.
She smiled at him and kissed him quickly. "Don't apologize. So am I."
He gazed at her, mesmerized by her beauty, lost in the depths of the abrupt rush of love and desire and need and want that washed over him in that instant. He didn't know what to say, he was never great at romantic words anyway, so instead he took his hand from her face and stroked her soft hair for a few moments before speaking again.
"Tomorrow morning, first thing, I'll take you to my lawyer," he promised her. That was not the romantic thing he wished to say, but it at least was useful. "We'll get it all sorted out, don't worry." Say you love her, whispered the carefree voice in his head that had been so quiet since the war. That you need her here with you in the house, that she's the only bright spot in your life, that you'd do literally anything for her or even just to see her smile. But that wasn't wise. He needed to be cautious.
"Thank you," she gratefully replied. "That helps me so much." She put her arms around him and hugged him.
He relished the physical affection. He felt as if he was ascending finally, that he had become unmoored from this unnatural place. "Lupe, even if he does take you back somehow, I'll find you. I promise. I'll turn this whole damned place inside out," he found himself saying. He had to get the surgery, he realized. He couldn't protect Lupe completely in this place unless he was complete.
Lupe kissed his chest, then worked her way up with little kisses to his mouth. "You've got to get ready for the party," she whispered into his ear. "But first I've got a little present for you." She let go and reached into her pocket. "Open your hand." Lupe placed a pair of small metal balls connected by a ribbon in his outstretched hand.
Richard inspected the lightweight spheres. Aluminum, probably an alloy with a bit of zinc added, judging by the color. "What are these?"
Lupe grinned wickedly at him. "Our little secret at the party tonight," she answered.