The Doctor approached the door with a sprint, seeing it slid open as though on his command, he slowed not. Instead nearly skidded to a halt in the middle of the room, before even seeing her, let alone realizing her actual current position. The door closed behind him, the thickness of the humidity had engulfed him instantly, drawing a sweat to his skin. It was like walking into a solid block of steam.
When Vik had barely caught some of his bearings and spotted her, he sped to his knees beside her, dropping his bag there. He practically yelled out to her several questions but they came out jumbled, the usually patient Doctor had lost his cool. He'd only had that once before on the clock and that was when he learned of V's, then, inevitable demise. To his relief, she never registered the questions as incorrect.
"V, breathe to me, can you talk?"
Thankfully his actions were still correct and in order, checked her vitals, and cyb'wares for visible external damage. Their good state calmed him somewhat. The young woman was still forced to look away from him though, eyes shut tight in the hopes of purging the visible tears and shame on the edge of her limit.
"I need to check your Kiroshi's pupils, relax your eyelids. Please, V."
She summoned what strength and air she could to force words out of her own mouth. Voice trembling, confidence wavering,
"Please don't look at me, Vik! I didn't want it to be like this…"
The fact that V could speak in coherent sentences settled his nerves immensely, his patience and calm grew back stronger than before. The bastard even chuckled a little,
"Oh V, that'd make my job a bit impossible. Besides, I'm your doctor, I know your body from memory by now. It's got very few secrets from me." Sadly, this did not make her emotional situation any more stable. It actually almost had her burst, but instead he saw her choke up, bite it all back even harder.
"Y'know I always wondered how you stay so limber, you should teach me some moves sometime."
"You for real?" V hopefully asked, relief dependent on his following reply.
He got back onto his feet with some effort, knees not what they used to be and never having been much for running, looked around for the apartment controls,
"Hell yeah. Honestly, ever since I gave up pro fighting, sure, I've been keeping up my health and strength, but I'm as stiff as a board. Hey, while I turn this sauna back into your room, why don't you tell me what happened?"
He fiddled with the apartment's control panel as she mulled over her next few steps. It was a choice she didn't think she'd have to make, and one she did not at all expect to make in this fashion.
Life is a shit storm, might as well lean into it,
"I don't know… I was just doing my exercises when suddenly all my servos seized."
V couldn't see him, but definitely heard the man rummage somewhat through her wardrobe,
'That's my girl,' Johnny thought to her, but V refused to acknowledge it. Ashamed she'd taken this route.
Meanwhile Vik returned within her view, to her surprise and counter to his own statement, he covered her from the neck down with a bathrobe. Maybe it was because it was going to get a hell of a lot colder in the room, or because he recognized something in her that he knew all too well himself.
"Thank you," she gratefully uttered in fading indignity.
"Of course, now, what else you got for me?"
'Besides the hots?' V and Johnny thought together yet separately.
She couldn't tell if it was the candle strength room lighting, a glitch in her ocular software or Johnny playing tricks on her, but V could swear to hell and back that Vik winked at her. His sunglasses and stupidly charming smirk didn't help either.
She shyly continued sharing mostly truths,
"Can't move, can't tap into my hud, my home UI. Been panicking for the past 2 minutes, how did you even know? Or get here so fast?"
He scratched his neck and chuckled,
"Well uh, reckon we got our buddy Johnny to thank for that. He forwarded me your Kiroshi's feed, looked much worse than what it turned out to be though. Thank fuck."
From his bag he pulled out a handheld diagnostics terminal,
"I'm going to have to jack you in, see what's up. Alright?"
"Giving me a blow-by-blow, Doc?" She smirked.
Alas, he missed it as he looked down at the terminal.
"You gonna complain it's like being at the dentist's? Again?"
"N-no, actually, I'd really appreciate it. You sharing that is calming,"
That man could read her the weather forecast and she'd be fascinated, but that wasn't something she was ready to admit to yet. Not to him, at any rate.
Vik chuckled,
"Never woulda thunk I'd hear you say that, alright, let's pull out your wire. Lemme know if anything hurts or feels… off."
"Of course, Doctor."
Gently holding her wrist, seemingly glued to the floor, he slowly started pulling out her link cable. It was somewhat corrugated though, so the motion of the ridges lightly rubbing against her cybernetic parts sent forth waves of vibrations, reaching from her palm to most of her torso. It never bothered her when she did it herself, but this was different, like when you tickle yourself versus someone else tickling you. She tried to be quiet but a sound still escaped her.
"Did that hurt?" The concern in his voice was tangible, endearing even.
She smiled a tad,
"No, not at all."
Vik raised his brow, just above his sunglasses,
"V, don't minimize these things, I need to know if it caused pain or even slight discomfort."
She faced him because she had no choice, so she looked away as far as she could,
"It was quite to the contrary, is all I'm comfy sharing right now, Doc."
Her skin heated up just admitting that.
"Oh? Oh, 'kay then…" When he realized what she meant, he looked away from her face and to his diagnostics terminal, both missing the slightest blush on each other that one could possibly see in this lighting.
"Hmm..." He scrolled through his findings, trying to keep any concern from her.
V gazed at his puzzled look from the edge of her vision,
"Give it to me straight, Doc, how screwed am I?"
"Well… No trail nor trace of an outside force, so you didn't get hacked. It's not listed in the error/crash or bug logs either, not even as 'unknown'. Maybe the combination of sweat and high humidity could've triggered some servos, but they're all designed and proven to be liquid proof, guaranteed. So that makes no sense whatsofuckingever. Perhaps, hmm…" he trailed off and V feared he'd concluded the truth, she swallowed with great difficulty, ready to confess at the drop of a hat.
"Nah. Doubt Johnny would torture you like this. Maybe you had a panic attack? Or coulda been static shock, perhaps from rubbing your exercise mat."
She'd wanted to sigh in relief, except feared that would arouse suspicion in him.
"Something that could upset the balance between your bio electricity and the resistors or capacitors for your cyb'wares. Either way, yeah, looks like I'll be able to manually unlock them without a full reset."
"That's good, right?" Her expression lightened.
The man threw her a signature Viktor Vektor smirk, along with complimentary exaggerated wink at the end,
"Yeah, will save us a lot of time. And I won't have to carry your bare ass to the shop."
"Awesome because this position is killing me! Thank you Vik, you're my savior... I'm glad he called you over anyone else."
"So am I," he had immediately started on unlocking the servos, each of which in turn summoned her moans, which released pain, stress, but also something different. Something outside of herself.
"I mean, that is to say, uh, I just want the best care available for my friends. Y'know what they say, you want something done right, gotta do it yourself."
Considering she didn't have high hopes, or any hopes really, it wasn't like her heart sank. More as though her expectations were vindicated, and in a way found herself somewhat psychologically relieved.
'Ouch, V, maybe you were right.' Johnny posited in her mind, to which she retorted,
'You think?'
She feigned a slight grin, the sentiment nevertheless true,
"Of course, anything for friends."
Johnny had dipped out after this section of the night, mostly in part for V's privacy, but also because this was just too cringe for him to witness live. For once the young woman wished she had the same opportunity.
