Hilbert keeps his expression as calm and neutral as he can. Inwardly, though, he's chomping at the bit with interest. Because this is reassuring. This is also something he's experienced. Vash absolutely isn't going to learn all of the details in Hilbert's memory—nobody needs to know that he straight up killed his previous captain. But since Vash confided this in him, Hilbert can at least reciprocate a little.
"I can do basic scan for anything that might cause hallucination. Signs of oxygen deprivation, tumor, changes in brain chemistry. But I would not worry too much about your brain. Around same time, I also had hallucination, and I am of perfect health."
Well. He's close enough to perfect health as he can get. There are certain aspects of Hilbert's health that people don't need to know about.
Vash expected the suggestions to scan for, especially since he's had his fair share of concussions in his life (even if they have been treated). He's ready to spend quite some time having tests done... but then Hilbert says that.
"What? You too?" That makes the blue eyes behind the shades widen, and he's not sure if to be relieved that he's not the only one - or even more concerned. "Do you think the alien affected us?"
That's what he's expecting. Their emotions went haywire after all, so why not causing hallucinations, too?
Hilbert shakes his head. "I looked about the same as I do right now. However, I was on different space station. Odd, as the Mnemosyne is my first interstellar voyage."
He's keeping his tone calm, but the confusion slips into his voice a bit. Childhood would be interesting, but something like this? Something that's patently false? How odd.
"I can't say I've ever seen glowing female-shaped creatures in tanks, either."
'Creature' sounds so wrong. She was so much more than that, but he's not going to get into that. Or the fact that little him was definitely wearing handcuffs.
"That's not all, though... this morning when I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth, I noticed something weird with my eyes. They have strange lines if I shine a light into them."
Hilbert keeps quiet of his own thing that happened this morning: waking up, going about his business, then being hit by a memory of almost dying upon that strange space station he's never been before.
"That, at least, is something I can help with. Basic eye exam, yes? I can also do scan to check for any changes in brain chemistry that could explain oddities with eyes."
That's at least something to do, checking his eyes and brain to make sure he's not about to implode. The rest is just... weird and a little terrifying, really. All Vash can think of as an explanation is the giant alien.
"That would be great, thank you."
He lets Hilbert direct him in any way he wants so the doctor can look into his eyes... and as soon as a light hits them, they show strange, glowing lines. Almost like circuity, only more... natural. They're otherwise completely normal, healthy eyes. 20/20 vision.
Hilbert lets out a little 'hmm' of interest as he shines the light in Vash's eye, spotting the glowing lines for the first time. That is...interesting. Grabbing his scanner, he gives Vash a quick scan.
Vash's brain is also looking normal for an elheen, aside from a few old, healed cracks to his skull. He's as healthy as he can be for someone with one arm and a body chock-full of scars.
"Um... bad news first, please?"
Then he'd at least have something good after a bad diagnosis.
"I have no idea what these lines in your eyes do or how they appeared here in the first place." There's a moment before, "Good news is that they seem harmless. There is nothing in the scan that we need to worry about."
Try as he may to hide his true feelings, Hilbert's a little irritated about all that. At least whatever this is could give him a bit more of an answer than 'absolutely nothing.'
"...so I just have weird lines in my eyes all of the sudden for no reason at all? That doesn't make any sense!"
Vash might be pouting. Just a little. He almost expected someone to have given him mods while he was sleeping or something, but it's nothing. Just his eyes, now.
"Trust me, I am as irritated by this revelation as you are."
It's just a bit harder to tell as Hilbert's default mood is 'irritated.' But having people's body suddenly change without any rhyme or reason? Vash's eyes doing something interesting without any notice of why or how it started? Things aren't supposed to work that way.
But then again, nothing's worked the way it should since their arrival on the ship.
"Current prescription? Nothing to treat your eyes, but seek me out should you feel pressure, dry eye, or change in vision outside of normal parameters before lines appeared."
At least he's not alone in his frustration. It's all so confusing, but he might have been more panicked about it if he didn't also see it on his child self in that hallucination.
The female shape... she had them too. Somehow he trusts her.
"They're just stylish, no prescription." Just a present from his foster dad. "I'll definitely keep you updated if anything changes"
There's a bit of a pause, and he holds up his prosthetic arm. Maybe he should cover all his bases, even if his eyes were still the main focus. "Do you want to check this while I'm here?"
It would mean he didn't have to come back in a few days for the mandatory checkup.
"Lucky," Hilbert muses. He lightly taps the edge of his glasses before continuing, "Mine aren't."
It's obvious from the thickness of his lenses that Hilbert's glasses are prescription. But that's all he's saying on the matter before he turns to Vash's prosthetic.
"Best to cover all our bases. It should not take too long to check prosthetic as well. That is, unless you have somewhere to be?"
"Yet quite stylish, too!" Vash says with a smile, and it's surprisingly genuine in its awkward but well-meaning tone.
He clicks open the prosthetic and twists it so that it unlocks from the base, and then takes it off. The port looks healthy as the other times they've had a checkup, even if he has a bit of a bruise on the side.
"That's a filing cabinet, not the prosthetic. Darn things creep up on you if you don't pay attention."
"It also is not like we have had smooth ride," Hilbert muses, as he adjusts is position to get a better look at Vash's port. Pulling out his scanner, Hilbert gives Vash a quick scan as well. As he looks down at the data, sifting through it, Hilbert continues the conversation.
"Asteroid field impacts ship, large mollusk impacts ship," because that weird floating empathetic alien was definitely a mollusk, fuck you Rin, "I will be very surprised if we manage to make it through this month without any more collisions."
"That's fair," Vash replies with a sigh. There's not exactly any rest for their crew. If it wasn't working triple shifts to make up for missing people, it was strange things happening.
At least the big alien squid thing didn't physically collide with the ship. He's pretty sure they'd all be dead.
Scanning Vash shows the usual for him and mist likely everyone else on the ship; stress, fatigue and not enough sleep.
Stress, fatigue, not enough sleep...yep, that's Hilbert as well. He makes note of the symptoms but continues the conversation otherwise.
"I will put twenty dollars on our next problem being encounter with space debris that hits ship in just wrong spot. If there are extraterrestrial animals out here, who knows? Perhaps we might run into broken satellite."
Their entire ship is running on the fumes of overworked people.
At Hilbert's mention of space debris, Vash wonders if there's any space-faring civilizations out here that could even leave anything like that. Maybe that's their next alien contact.
"Honestly, though, that would be really amazing if we could get it inside and study it." He says as if it 'hitting the wrong spot' doesn't mean they all die, and then takes his prosthetic back to snap it on.
"I'll put 20 on some kind of planet being the next issue."
"I'll hold you to that," Hilbert says, with a nod. There's a hint of a smile on his face as he muses, "If we are both wrong, we can simply extend wager until one of us is proven right."
"You've got a deal," Vash says as he stands up, and puts his glasses back on his nose. The orange in them really do help mask the lines in his eyes, since the shades also mellow out the blue irises.
"...and, well. If you find out anything about either of these weird issues..."
His hallucinations, his eyes, whichever. Vash makes a bit of an awkward gesture and then heads for the door.
"Trust me," Hilbert sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose slightly. "If I find out anything, you will be first to know. And frankly? Now that I know I am not only person with brand new hallucination, this will move to higher priority on list."
Something happened. He doesn't know what, he doesn't know how, but he knows that something. Happened. And Hilbert doesn't like the idea of being somebody else's guinea pig.
Using people as nonconsensual test subjects is his job, thank you very much.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Hilbert keeps his expression as calm and neutral as he can. Inwardly, though, he's chomping at the bit with interest. Because this is reassuring. This is also something he's experienced. Vash absolutely isn't going to learn all of the details in Hilbert's memory—nobody needs to know that he straight up killed his previous captain. But since Vash confided this in him, Hilbert can at least reciprocate a little.
"I can do basic scan for anything that might cause hallucination. Signs of oxygen deprivation, tumor, changes in brain chemistry. But I would not worry too much about your brain. Around same time, I also had hallucination, and I am of perfect health."
Well. He's close enough to perfect health as he can get. There are certain aspects of Hilbert's health that people don't need to know about.
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"What? You too?" That makes the blue eyes behind the shades widen, and he's not sure if to be relieved that he's not the only one - or even more concerned. "Do you think the alien affected us?"
That's what he's expecting. Their emotions went haywire after all, so why not causing hallucinations, too?
"Were you a child as well?"
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He's keeping his tone calm, but the confusion slips into his voice a bit. Childhood would be interesting, but something like this? Something that's patently false? How odd.
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'Creature' sounds so wrong. She was so much more than that, but he's not going to get into that. Or the fact that little him was definitely wearing handcuffs.
"That's not all, though... this morning when I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth, I noticed something weird with my eyes. They have strange lines if I shine a light into them."
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"That, at least, is something I can help with. Basic eye exam, yes? I can also do scan to check for any changes in brain chemistry that could explain oddities with eyes."
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"That would be great, thank you."
He lets Hilbert direct him in any way he wants so the doctor can look into his eyes... and as soon as a light hits them, they show strange, glowing lines. Almost like circuity, only more... natural. They're otherwise completely normal, healthy eyes. 20/20 vision.
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"Good news first or bad news?"
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"Um... bad news first, please?"
Then he'd at least have something good after a bad diagnosis.
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Try as he may to hide his true feelings, Hilbert's a little irritated about all that. At least whatever this is could give him a bit more of an answer than 'absolutely nothing.'
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Vash might be pouting. Just a little. He almost expected someone to have given him mods while he was sleeping or something, but it's nothing. Just his eyes, now.
"At least the glasses help mask it a bit."
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It's just a bit harder to tell as Hilbert's default mood is 'irritated.' But having people's body suddenly change without any rhyme or reason? Vash's eyes doing something interesting without any notice of why or how it started? Things aren't supposed to work that way.
But then again, nothing's worked the way it should since their arrival on the ship.
"Current prescription? Nothing to treat your eyes, but seek me out should you feel pressure, dry eye, or change in vision outside of normal parameters before lines appeared."
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The female shape... she had them too. Somehow he trusts her.
"They're just stylish, no prescription." Just a present from his foster dad. "I'll definitely keep you updated if anything changes"
There's a bit of a pause, and he holds up his prosthetic arm. Maybe he should cover all his bases, even if his eyes were still the main focus. "Do you want to check this while I'm here?"
It would mean he didn't have to come back in a few days for the mandatory checkup.
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It's obvious from the thickness of his lenses that Hilbert's glasses are prescription. But that's all he's saying on the matter before he turns to Vash's prosthetic.
"Best to cover all our bases. It should not take too long to check prosthetic as well. That is, unless you have somewhere to be?"
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He clicks open the prosthetic and twists it so that it unlocks from the base, and then takes it off. The port looks healthy as the other times they've had a checkup, even if he has a bit of a bruise on the side.
"That's a filing cabinet, not the prosthetic. Darn things creep up on you if you don't pay attention."
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"Asteroid field impacts ship, large mollusk impacts ship," because that weird floating empathetic alien was definitely a mollusk, fuck you Rin, "I will be very surprised if we manage to make it through this month without any more collisions."
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At least the big alien squid thing didn't physically collide with the ship. He's pretty sure they'd all be dead.
Scanning Vash shows the usual for him and mist likely everyone else on the ship; stress, fatigue and not enough sleep.
"We should start a betting pool."
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"I will put twenty dollars on our next problem being encounter with space debris that hits ship in just wrong spot. If there are extraterrestrial animals out here, who knows? Perhaps we might run into broken satellite."
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At Hilbert's mention of space debris, Vash wonders if there's any space-faring civilizations out here that could even leave anything like that. Maybe that's their next alien contact.
"Honestly, though, that would be really amazing if we could get it inside and study it." He says as if it 'hitting the wrong spot' doesn't mean they all die, and then takes his prosthetic back to snap it on.
"I'll put 20 on some kind of planet being the next issue."
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"...and, well. If you find out anything about either of these weird issues..."
His hallucinations, his eyes, whichever. Vash makes a bit of an awkward gesture and then heads for the door.
"Thanks."
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Something happened. He doesn't know what, he doesn't know how, but he knows that something. Happened. And Hilbert doesn't like the idea of being somebody else's guinea pig.
Using people as nonconsensual test subjects is his job, thank you very much.
"Best of luck."