veryroundbirdfics | Arknights | Hand in Unlovable Hand, Chapter 9

Rating: Spicy
Chapter: 9/28
Characters: Doctor (F), Kal'tsit, Amiya, various others
Relationships: Doctor/Kal'tsit, Kal'tsit/Theresa, Theresa/Doctor
Summary: Dr. Lau returns to Rhodes Island a stranger in a strange land, in a labyrinth of things that feel like they should be familiar but aren't—and at the center is Dr. Kal'tsit and all the things she's not saying. Even if amnesia's changed her, though, the Doctor wouldn't be the Doctor if she didn't have an impulse to solve for the missing variable.
Notes: while this fic is marked as "spicy" the only actual sexual content is in chapters 8, 9, 17, 23 and 27, and there's cliff notes for the scenes at the bottom of the chapter. sexual content is noted in the start of chapters where it appears.

You roll into the 0900 meeting as fast as you can while running with a mug of coffee filled to the brim.

You're only a couple minutes late, to your credit, while managing to look more or less respectable. Amiya smiles reassuringly at you,¹ gives your mug a slightly odd look,² and you take your seat next to Kal'tsit...

...who doesn't look at you, staring straight ahead at Amiya and her presentation, jotting down notes on her tablet with a very singular focus.³ After watching her for a few long moments,⁴ you settle in yourself, fumble for your own tablet, and start doing your best to absorb the status of the Lungmen operations.⁵

Afterward, you try to catch her on the way out, but she's already briskly off to another meeting with the medical department; it's Amiya who tugs on your sleeve, lightly.⁶

"Is Dr. Kal'tsit all right...?" she asks, tapping a finger to her chin. "She was tired, and I don't usually see her like that..."

You do a double-take.⁷ "Was she? I couldn't tell."

"Ah, well, she's pretty alert, but she usually asks a lot more questions..."⁸

"Mm..." You do your best to look like you know absolutely nothing. "Well, maybe she had a late night."

Amiya gives you a look and—for a moment, looks very flustered, like she just noticed or realized something,⁹ and you clear your throat, looking away. "But, ah, I'm sure, really, that she'll be fine."

"I'm sure that's true—" says Amiya, a little squeakily, and laughs a little too quickly, looking down at her hands. "Um—Doctor, and, ah... you're doing better?"¹⁰

"Ah—" You tug on your collar, slightly. "A lot better—or, at least, I've got a clean bill of health as far as the concussion goes."¹¹

"I'm glad to hear!" Amiya claps her hands together.¹² "I was worried—after all, you shouldn't have been in the line of fire in the first place, so..."

You shake your head. "If I'm going to be in charge of operations that put all of you in harm's way... I'd feel strange about being the only one that wasn't. Besides—it doesn't seem realistic to expect that I wouldn't ever find myself in danger. It's a lot to put on you."¹³

She sways on her feet slightly, and twiddles her thumbs together. "Even so, Doctor. Both you and Dr. Kal'tsit mean the world to me, so—"

Her watch beeps, though, and she doesn't quite finish the thought, jumping slightly, ears standing straight up. "Ah! Right, the ten-hundred meeting. Sorry, Doctor, but I'll see you this afternoon, and remember, no cigarettes—"¹⁴

Hey. "Wait, who told you—"

And she's off.¹⁵ You pinch the bridge of your nose, and then look at your tablet for your agenda.

...only to see a meeting request for later in the afternoon, from Kal'tsit.¹⁶

[1] If looking just a little strained underneath it all, because. Well. That's understandable.

[2] You realize belatedly that your mug says "World's Best Mom" on the opposite side. This should probably not surprise you as you keep meeting operators who Kal'tsit seems to have adopted, like the tiny Lupo in the red jacket who appeared out of fucking nowhere the other week and scared the daylights out of you.

[3] What must it be like to actually be able to focus on things like that. You'd love to know.

[4] It's definitely the look of a woman who is very much trying to avoid looking at you, yet again, which—well. It stings, a little. You're not sure what you expected, but maybe not quite that.

[5] You do all right. You've started just hitting the audio record button on all your meetings so that you can have PRTS transcribe them later due to your very hit-or-miss memory that gets worse when you're tired. You're tired all the time.

[6] That worried line of her mouth—you're starting to hate seeing it.

[7] If she was tired, damn, you wish you could be that put together even normally. How does she do it? How do you get some of that?

[8] Now that she points it out, actually—that's true. Most of the time, she's not only alert, but engaged and thoughtful and—
Shit. You don't even remember being a schoolgirl and you keep going absolutely schoolgirlish about this.

[9] Have you been caught? Did she figure it out somehow? No one can prove anything except oh no you did in fact bring Kal'tsit's mug to the meeting. Shit.

[10] Oh thank goodness a change of subject.

[11] The rest—well, you still have to clear a couple more evaluations, and Dr. Gavial can smell uncertainty and lies, probably.

[12] She's genuinely happy, and in a way that feels a little desperate. Which—actually, makes sense. If nothing came out of that mission and you were injured long-term, it would feel awful to her, wouldn't it?

[13] Maybe you should ask about actually doing some self-defense training. You could certainly use it. Especially since people keep trying to kill you personally for unclear and unsettling reasons?

[14] Did Kal'tsit tell on you? Kal'tsit probably told on you.

[15] Actually she's even more the one where you want to know where she gets all that energy despite having so much on her shoulders.

[16] You're never going to get your feet under you, are you.

It turns out that neither of you has gotten it out of your system, in fact.

The little things escalate, when you're alone. It's a meeting with a distinct purpose, about suspected Reunion movements, and yet... her hand brushes yours; your hand idly finds her shoulder and then her hair¹⁷ when she asks you to look at her screen; she calls you by your given name without frowning.¹⁸

And right now, she has this look on her face you're sure you'll never forget—biting her lower lip lightly, brows lightly shiny with perspiration, knitted together as if in deep concentration,¹⁹ one elbow propped on her desk to hold her chin up—and she uses the other hand to shove your head down harder between her legs, where you've got her dress hiked up to her waist.

At which point you laugh quietly against her skin, and redouble your efforts, a hand on each thigh spreading them apart—coaxing each little noise and gasp and shiver that you can out of her.²⁰ You can feel her tense under your hands, against your tongue; she doesn't cry out, but just folds over—pressing her face into her desk, holding your shoulders with both hands to pull you in closer as she shudders—

"What are we doing," you murmur in the afterglow, arms folded across her lap, as her chest begins to rise and fall more steadily.

She doesn't answer.

Kal'tsit doesn't acknowledge you when you next cross paths in the medical offices, or outside of the most professional of business talk, and when she does it's always full title, dry, clinical.²¹ But still, over the next few days, you keep finding yourself in her bed;²² one or the other of you gravitating in the other's direction toward the tail end of the evening, when everyone sane has turned in already.²³

One time she curls a hand lightly around the side of your neck, thumb pressing up under your chin; for a second, you think she wants to press down and squeeze.²⁴ You think if she did, you'd let her.

[17] Now that you've discovered the purring sounds you're a little obsessed with them.

[18] It's always just Zhanchi, not Dr. Lau or Doctor, which she sticks to the rest of the time. You will never get this out of your system because you will never get enough of that.

[19] She's beautiful. You're so compromised.

[20] She works so hard to hold herself together; maybe you're this obsessed with her because it feels like you're almost, almost able to coax a secret out of her for once.

[21] You start fantasizing a little bit about somehow making her acknowledge you. All of it's shit you would absolutely never be able to do or would never work, because you're pretty sure the second you push her boundaries this is done.
But also sometimes you really want to put your hand on her thigh under the conference table. Just for science reasons.

[22] Somehow it's never yours, but you're pretty sure she's aware of how messy you are.

[23] She's a workaholic; you have found yourself trying to avoid sleep as much as possible and have therefore become a workaholic.

[24] Not that you think you were wrong—just that she brushed the feeling aside. That she thought, for a moment, that she'd like to see you dead.

The photograph still sticks in your mind, though. Every time you get the chance you look at it, lingering. It haunts your thoughts; sometimes, the Sarkaz woman with the crowning black horns and the radiant smile passes through your dreams.²⁵

You could ask Kal'tsit.

Instead, you ask Closure, one afternoon when you're getting a few extra necessities from her. "You've been here for a long time, haven't you?" you ask.²⁶

"Mm, yeah, about as long as this hunk o' junk's been in service—" She twirls her tablet pen idly through her fingers. "You should've seen the shape it was in then. Why d'you ask?"

You tap your fingers on the counter.²⁷ "I was going through some old documents, and found some old photographs—just wondering who someone was that I saw with you in a picture." You give a brief sketch of the woman in words—

"Oh, wow, I mean, I don't get out much and I didn't back then, either. Spent a lot of time fixing doors."²⁸ She shrugs, waving a hand. "People came and went a lot. Probably it's the kind of thing Kal would remember."²⁹

You brush it off as an idle curiosity, nothing special, finalize your requisition order, and leave as fast as you can, heart jumping up into your throat. Maybe you regret asking, but—maybe Closure will let it be.³⁰

Maybe you should just ask Kal'tsit, you think.

It's late when you're leaving your office and something grabs you by the shoulder and spins you around—you don't see it, even in the night-dimmed panel lighting, just something dark and flash of green, and then—

No, it's—Kal'tsit. Of course it is. But this time there's no tenderness in the way she backs you against the wall.

"Who gave you the right," she hisses, through gritted teeth³¹, ears flattened back, fingers digging into your shoulders. "To ask about her behind my back, to ask about her at all—"

A strange emotion is welling up inside you, and even though you feel like you're going to choke on it, you spit it out, poison-caustic—

"How was I supposed to know? You won't—hh, no one will say anything, everyone's always dancing around... something with me—I don't even know who... whoever that is, I don't know if I can trust you since you keep everything to yourself—"

It comes out less like a diatribe and more like an extended wheeze,³² but—she recoils from the last part as if stung.³³

"Theresa," she says, flatly. "Her name was Theresa."

For a moment, she holds your gaze; you're the one to break it. And then she steps back, shakes her head, and—before she peels off down the hallway, leaving you to sag against the wall—

—you get a long enough look at her face to realize she's been crying.

[25] You try not to let your eyes drift that way when you're with Kal'tsit. It feels like something you weren't meant to see, even if it wasn't hidden.

[26] Casual! Casual. You can be casual. Right?

[27] You're trying not to fidget and it's the most professional-looking outlet for it you have, anyway. Makes you look thoughtful... probably.

[28] You know without a doubt that this is a lie. She straightened just a tiny bit, but still in a way that you noticed; her smile doesn't quite reach her eyes, anymore.
Well, the doors part might be truth. They're still slightly sticky in some areas.

[29] Yeah, she's definitely lying, and Kal'tsit told her not to tell you. Damn.

[30] This is wishful thinking. You should know better by now.

[31] In a way, you wanted this. You got a reaction out of her—only, instead, now you just feel ill. This time, she's not going to hold your hand.

[32] Because you're hyperventilating! Great! Love it!

[33] For a moment, you wonder if she really is going to kill you.

The night absolutely sucks. You barely sleep at all, and find yourself having kicked all your covers off the next morning.

Blearily, you drag yourself to the bathroom, fumbling for wherever you put your phone—oh, there, on the... refrigerator...?³⁴

You squint at the display while also searching for your glasses,³⁵ and put the display right up to your face. And frown. And tap the top notification, and immediately feel the bottom drop out from your stomach.

SUBJECT: Immediate Field Mobilization - Chernobog Sub-City Facility 14 (URGENT)
FROM: Dr. Kal'tsit <kt@med.rhodesisland.org>
TO: Dr. Lau Zhanchi <zh@med.rhodesisland.org>

Dr. Gavial has cleared you for duty. Meeting at 0800 hours.

...Shit.

[34] Probably a sensible location for the you of last night who had lost all sense of anything reasonable.

[35] They are, for some reason, on your coat hook?

Clean Radio Edit Summary

Kal'tsit and the Doctor are not quite done with whatever the heck they're doing
Also, the Doctor thinks sometimes that Kal'tsit kind of wants to kill her? But also, that she doesn't really care?