milliways_bar | (no subject)

Guppy comes over, with coffee and kitten. He puts the coffee down and gently places Scampi on Asar-Suti's shoulder from behind.

Asar-Suti reaches up for the kitten and smiles at Guppy, putting down his book.

It is a hardcover book, with a pale grey dustjacket that has white 'ye olde' style writing and a colourful picture, and is definitely not in English.

"Morning, Guppy," he says. "Thanks for the feline company. I didn't know you drink coffee."

Scampi purrs. Guppy smiles and sits down next to him with the coffee.

"I don't really like the stuff, it just keeps me awake. Caffeine boosts go down well in the middle of long shifts that started at ridiculous times in the morning."

Asar-Suti lifts an eyebrow.

"So you're not quite fired yet, if you're working?" he asks.

He's not used to people with iffy job situations, and finds it rather interesting.

"No, I grovelled and he's let me off, thank goodness." Guppy replies ~~causing his mun to reach for the mini-dictionary to check the number of multiple consonants in the third word~~. "Like I said, the fact that I wasn't blackmailing him or sleeping with his daughter counted in my favour. But I'll have to tread carefully for a bit and get back into his good books."

"I'm glad you weren't fired; you seem very attached to your job," Asar-Suti nods. "And really, you deserve commendation for your courage, if anything, for standing up to your boss, even if you later turned out to have been wrong."

"No, really, I don't. I made a total mess of the whole thing. Not to mention being completely unprofessional about it before confronting him. I was extremely rude to him."

He fiddles with his hair, remembering a few rather tense scenes ~~in which his mun wanted to strangle him for being such a twit~~.

"Turns out he was investigating my father too. So the correct justice should prevail, which can only be a good thing."

"That means your father gets fired, and you don't have to work in the same place as him any more?" Asar-Suti asks, hopefully.

He is, after all, the Dark God of the Ihlini. He he no pity for anybody who harmed someone he counts among 'his people', which are friends nowadays, no longer follower, but take the same sort of priority over any ethics, pity, or common decency.

"Possibly. I don't know what the exact rules are, but the worst thing that could happen to him careerwise is that he is struck off by the GMC. But that might not happen. He might just be disciplined or suspended on full pay pending investigation. It depends on the strength of Harry's evidence."

He is torn between the underlying love that he has for his father, the unbreakable bond between parent and child, and the feelings of disgust and betrayal. His heart still wants the friendship that his head knows can never come now.

Some parents, you have to disown, is Asar-Suti's opinion. Ginevra, after all, killed both hers without a second thought when she brought down the fortress of Valgaard. And, if Asar-Suti now thinks of Cynric, she was right to do so.

"What's a GMC?" he asks, instead.

"General Medical Council. It's basically the people in charge of all the doctors in Britain. We have to register with them to make it legal to practice medicine. If you get struck off, it means you can't be a doctor any more. It's most doctors' worst nightmare.
They keep an eye on doctors to make sure we're doing our jobs properly. To make sure we aren't abusing patients and so on. There have been a few pretty nasty cases of doctors committing murder and such in the past, by abusing their positions of trust. Systems like the GMC are there to try to prevent that sort of thing happening again."

"That sounds very sensible - healers have a great responsibility and should always be answerable to some council of peers," Asar-Suti agrees.

"Oh yes, absolutely. Can't have corrupt people like my father running around doing whatever they feel like."

He fiddles with his hair, again feeling the pang of divided loyalties.

"So, what have you been up to?" he asks, feeling the need for a change of subject.