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Substitution - Chapter 11

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Chapter for Nex_Canis - enjoy!

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Roman Kyle sat on his chair with an attentive scowl on his muzzle. Opposite to the pajamas-wearing wolf sat a smiling mare. She held a computer pad on her hands, and kept it pointed at the wolf.

"Let's try this next one, shall we?" Mrs. Calhoun said, to catch the wolf again.

"Hmmmm," said Roman Kyle.

"Okay, tell me what this is," the mare pointed at her screen.

The wolf stared, and frowned some more. His lips were moving like those of an uncertain reader, the lips moving about while the brain was trying to decipher the words on the page.

"...k...k...k...k..." the wolf rasped.

"Yes, that's the first sound, Roman," Mrs. Calhoun replied with an encouraging, broad smile. "Do you remember what this is called? When you're on it, you d...d...dr...dra...dra..."

Roman Kyle tried again.

"...ca....ca..." he repeated, a couple of times before his voice slurred out.

"Yes... you drive a - explore the sound and remember...you remembered this yesterday, Roman, "the mare was firm yet kind in her comments.

"...k...k...car..." he announced the word, finally, while staring at the cartoonish image of a car on the tablet screen.

"Oh that's good! Wonderful!" Mrs. Calhoun nickered happily. "Can you repeat it for me? Say it again for me."

The wolf did his lip-moving thing again.

"...d...drive..." he said.

"Yes, you drive a...what was it called again, Roman?" the mare asked. "You just told me. Try again."

The wolf rubbed his muzzle with his big, fuzzy paw and squinted.

"Eh...eh..."

"Just take your time, Roman."

"...engine!" the wolf blurted out.

The mare's ears flicked in brief surprise, but her smile didn't waver.

"Yes, a car has an engine, too."

"Engine..." Roman said, in agreement. "Yes, engine."

"Well, we will come back to it," said the mare as she flipped the pad and tapped on the screen to conjure up another image, this time that of a football. "Now, look at this and tell me what you see here?"

Roman's ears flicked curiously at the sight.

"Hmmm..."

"Just take your time, Roman."

*

Brantley had decided that from now on, the best way to help his father was to be in a great mood all the time, to take everything as it came, when it came, and to bring his father an obscene amount of gifts. Even though, sauntering along the hallway with a mask of determination on his muzzle, he carried a bag containing cake, fruit, chocolates, and a new set of pajamas for his dad. He didn't really need pajamas, nor the treats, because the patients were very well tended for, but he wanted to do something really nice for his father, to make him feel like he was important, and loved, and what a better way to show it while he was still stuck in the hospital?

He only dropped by around midday, because from 11 till 12 his father had speech therapy, and barging in on them in the middle of a session never did much good. There had been progress but it was not going as fast as Brantley liked it would.

The worst part was that he didn't even know what his father thought about it.

He might've still been smiling vaguely, but the deep consternation he kept under the surface was threatening to grip him once again. He still needed his sleeping tablets, and work was nearly an impossibility, especially since he had to do these frequent trips to the Institute to make sure that his father was being treated properly. He wasn't always entirely convinced of it. His father appeared happy enough, but it was extremely difficult to tell, in general, what his father was thinking at any given moment, or about anything. Mostly he just seemed to...be...at the moment, and that unnerved Brantley to no end. His father would smile, nod, grimace and mutter a word or two, but his opinions seemed to be limited to "yes" and "no" and most worryingly, "uh?" , which was the most common answer. Brantley wasn't sure just how much his father understood, let alone remembered. Perhaps it was all hiding underneath his father's shockingly youthful, stoic face, and at the best, his true personality and thoughts were simply obstructed by his at the time poor verbal skills.

Or there simply wasn't anything else left...

Brantley refused to believe that option. The doctors seemed to be keen on a similar denial of the worst case scenario, and who was he to say no to the medical professionals?

The irony wasn't lost on him. His earlier own insistence on fighting the nearly impossible odds of having his father make a recovery from his injuries had been toned down by the medical staff, but now the doctors were the one who seemed to be engaged in near-hysterical optimism.

How the tables turned.

He still had to ask a staff member to open the door into his father's room, kept locked for the moment yet. At least he was allowed to sit with him without a chaperone now.

Deep breaths, Brantley thought.

Don't stop smiling, he reminded himself.

"Dad!" he announced himself with a big, booming hello.

Roman Kyle was still occupied with somewhat educational activities. He had a pad of his own, and he was playing a game on it that vaguely resembled that ancient mind control device Brantley knew was called Tetris.

He didn't really look up from it either, fingerpads moving along the surface of the screen. Brantley approached further, put his bag down, and knelt by the chair.

"Hey, dad," he put his paws on the armrest, "what're you up to?"

Roman Kyle's big ears flicked curiously. He did spare an eye to glance at Brantley, but was mostly concentrated on the multi-colored blocks moving along the screen.

"Looks like something I used to play as a kid," Brantley commented after a moment. "I'm not sure if you remember, though, dad."

Roman Kyle looked at his son again, with the eyes that definitely looked too old for the body he was in now. Brantley put up a brave smile in response.

"Do you remember that?" he asked.

Brantley cursed the fact that he hadn't brought the photos with him that day. They'd tried looking at them a couple of days earlier, but it hadn't really gone anywhere. He'd been too disheartened to come back with them on the day before, and on this day, he simply had forgotten about trying them again. Right now he watched his dad expectantly, hoping that he would show a flicker of proper recognition, whether of the idea or the wolf crouching next to him.

"...ro...ro...ro...road."

"Hmm?" Brantley quizzed. "What about a road?"

Roman Kyle continued his game.

"...car. Road...car."

Brantley's stomach felt sick. He was sure that his father was just repeating random words, but the awful idea that he could actually be remembering something about the crash was not easy to avoid. What a specific horror would that be, that if Roman Kyle's memory was coming back, the first recollections would be about burning alive in his car with his brains leaking out of his nose. He knew that it was probably impossible, even if his father had experienced a miraculous total recall.

"I don't see a car here, dad," he said, quickly. "Don't think that game has one either...does it?"

Roman Kyle nodded.

"Game."

"That is a game, yeah," Brantley said. "Do you like it?"

Roman Kyle patted on the screen somewhat clumsily and the tablet let out a chime that told the game was over. His fingers froze on the screen, and he gave the screen a curious look. A colorful bubble was asking him if he wanted to start a new game or not, with the YES/NO options in their own floating bubbles alongside.

"Do you wanna play some more, dad, or do you want to talk?" Brantley questioned. "I brought you chocolate, and some other stuff."

"Stuff," Roman Kyle said.

"Yeah, I brought you plenty of stuff to eat, do you wanna see?" Brantley pointed out the bag.

Roman Kyle looked over at the rumpled bag, but said nothing. He did seem quite curious about it.

"Let me just - "

The bag was quickly fetched and placed between Brantley's knees. The allegedly senior wolf sniffed the air that now had a distinct scent of nutcake floating upon it.

"Stuff," said Roman Kyle.

"Yeah."