snowblindrpg | [log] A Study in Patchwork [closed]

Entry tags:

[log] A Study in Patchwork [closed]

Characters: Ecks, Franken Stein, and John Watson
Location House 86
Date: Days 108-109
Summary: Three neighbors meet and it is not weird at all
Warnings: Likely references to self-injury; discussion of dubcon sexual situations (no actual dubcon sex)

[Day 108 | Evening]

It has been a good day. The problem of food has been solved for the time being, although the food to be found in Mallard River Market is not as good as the food in the large store downtown. There was only time to briefly explore and to take what was needed before it was necessary to retreat to the partial house where Ecks and Stein had spent the previous night, but Ecks is content. Her stomach is full, she has learned a variety of new things about the world in a short span of time, and she does not have to take her trousers off in the cold.

She has already piled her possessions in the bedroom closet and taken refuge there with her tablet, the closet door halfway open so she can keep an eye on her traveling companion. Her armor is unfastened to let her skin breathe, but it seems unwise to take it off before lockdown, and so she still sits in it as she checks and rechecks the network.

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The front door opens and the wind catches it while John is hurrying in. It slams, and the doctor has to wince before moving a little deeper into the house and finding... people. A person. A very tall person. He hasn't noticed the closet or Ecks, yet, but Stein's a little hard to miss. The stitches are very hard to miss.

"Dr. Stitches, I presume?"

Well, he wasn't joking about the aesthetic. That's horrifying.

"Yo!" He calls back, bright and casual and friendly. He's not worried by the appearance of a stranger, but why would he be? No one here has shown the capability to take him on and win.

Stein leans in for a moment, green eyes narrowed and focused behind the glint of glasses, then back with a triumphant laugh and a (really, overdramatic) point at the other man's direction.

"Ha! You're John Watson, aren't you? You look like you've survived, so far."

The sounds of another person arriving are unmistakable, and Ecks jolts upright before carefully setting her tablet aside and starting to refasten her armor with quiet, controlled movements. Dissect does not seem alarmed, but he does not seem alarmed at any time. John Watson? JWatson? He was the one who knew what condoms were for.

She shifts slightly, trying to get a better view of the room and its new inhabitant.

"John Watson, that's me, yeah." John's wary of this man for a great many reasons, but that's no reason not to pretend to be friendly. He steps toward Stein and offers his hand to shake. "Looks like you're doing all right yourself." He is concerned that the kid might still be around this guy, the one who said he'd offered to demonstrate the use of a condom for. "Alone, are you?"

While his tone is casual and friendly, his smile doesn't quite reach his eyes and there's something undeniably guarded in his posture. He hasn't set any of his things down, yet, and there's a plunger clutched in his left hand as his only weapon. His gaze flicks around the house in search of other people.

"Nope," he says as he shakes John's hand. Stein's smile is friendly, and his stance is casual, but his eyes are hidden behind the glare off his glasses, impossible to see.

"She's a bit territorial, she's in the closet right now." And he jerks a thumb at the door of Ecks' hiding place.

"You can come out." Stein calls, wandering over to the door and tugging it open. "I doubt he's going to bite."

She stills when Dissect tells the other man where she is, then hurries faster. She's not ready when he opens the door, still fumbling at buckles, but she shoots to her feet, eyes fixing on JWatson. No armor, dubious weapon, semi-hostile stance. "I did not want to come out," she points out, voice flat and toneless as it always is.

Uh... Okay. John just stares because if Stitches had been weird, this girl... Right. Okay. Is she Frankenstein's daughter? No. Put appearances to the side. The doctor blinks and looks away from Ecks, trying to relax his own stance to put her more at ease because she looks ready to bolt. He can't blame her, really.

It could all still be make-up, as well. The... zombie aesthetic to match Stitches. But she'd definitely acted like a child. Oh, god. Is the way she looks why Stitches had been interested in demonstrating before? Or did he do that to her?

"You don't need to come out if you don't want to. Leave her alone, doctor."

"She should probably learn to socialize more." But he closes the door on her (not all the way, just mostly), and walks off.

"She'll come out eventually." Stein calls back over his shoulder at the newcomer, before going back to dig through his pockets and backpack, tossing supplies on the floor to go through. He's got too much stuff, and right now seems like a good time to sort it.

"I will not," Ecks informs them, voice muffled by the door. Already, though, she's got her hand on the door as she watches them both through the crack. JWatson -- John Watson -- does not seem like a threat, but the house is small and there is nowhere to go. "Are you staying?" she asks, remembering to inflect upward to indicate the question.

John levels a disapproving look at Stitches as he talks about the girl like she's not actually there. He's been the recipient of that sort of treatment from self-important tall men more than once in his life, and he knows it isn't pleasant. But when he shifts his attention to the crack in the door he smiles ruefully.

"Yeah, sorry. I'd move on, but I was getting the lockdown message on my tablet even before I got in here. I'll keep out of your way." He would absolutely not move on after finding these two together and seeing the way the other doctor is treating her, but it seems better to just stretch the truth there.

"I'm John, by the way. I didn't catch your name, but you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Dr. Stitches is a mysterious bloke not handing out his, hmm?" See how you like it, Stitches.

But he does eventually turn his attention to his fellow doctor when the man starts throwing things around. "Uh... do you need some help with that?"

"Yes you will, Ecks." Stein calls back, without looking up from the pile of junk he's... sort of randomly sorting into smaller piles. "If you stay in there for too long, the admin will start shutting your brain down."

He has to sort these piles of useless trash. He knows he thought they were important at some point, or he wouldn't have picked them up, but as he's staring down at twist ties and dental floss and cookie cutters and car wax, it all looks like junk. He wants to throw it all out into the snow. And if he hadn't spent a lifetime constantly working on his impulse control, he would have.

"I have too much shit." He snaps, and tosses one of his two absurd tree-shaped cardboard air fresheners vaguely John-ward.

"A backpack, a pillowcase, pockets." This is the sort of rambling that Ecks is probably used to by now, a bit disjointed and irrational. "I should just... throw it all out and start over."

Ecks might think it is nice of John to think about her feelings if she knew what was on his mind...or if it ever occurred to her to be offended when people talk about her as though she is not there. It is not so very different to how things were often done at home. She reaches into her pocket to touch her scissors, though the scissors aren't any proof against Admin shutting her brain down.

"He is Dissect when he is using the network," says Ecks, who doesn't think Doctor Stitches is such a very unusual name. "I am Ecks. I am Ecks when I am using the network and when I am not using the network. Do not throw away the pillowcase and pockets. Those are useful things."

John catches the air freshener with what may be surprisingly good reflexes. He's on edge, though. It's a moment before he replies. "Good to meet you, Ecks. Nothing's going to happen if you stay in the closet for the night, by the by." He hopes not. "But you're right." The next part is directed at Stitches as John steps closer.

"Bad idea to just go chucking things out. If you've got things you don't need, we can set up a supply cache in this house. You can come back to it or others can if they need something you've left here." There's something... manic about the man. John is beginning to suspect it's not just him being highly energetic or eccentric. "And how are you feeling?"

Might explain the propositioning the girl. Some episodes come with an increased drive, after all.

Edited 2016-04-21 21:40 (UTC)

Soap, more soap, a toothbrush (he's been using that), a bottle of pills (labeled morphine sulfate) that gets shoved next to a bundled handkerchief containing more pills (half of one of Tim's bottles), hairbrush, cotton balls, and the sudden realization that John just asked a question.

Stein pauses for a moment, a hand coming up to the side of his absurd blanket turban to grab at the head of the bolt. Not to twist, he's managed to get the damn thing temporarily locked in place with dried blood and lack of washing, just as a sort of attempt at a refocusing.

"Uh," he says, intelligently. "Cold. How are you feeling?"

Dissect is doing that thing again. Ecks nudges the door slightly wider ajar to get a better view, trying to make out some hint of why he is grabbing at his turban. "Do not let him throw away the pillowcase," she says softly.

"We won't." He's making this a joint task for himself and Ecks. Hopefully, drawing her into this and making them an 'us' will help with how shy and standoffish she's being. In any case, it would be a waste if they did let him toss things out. There's definitely something off about Stitches, though. He looks confused just being asked a simple question, mind leaping around, running too fast. Why is he clutching his head?

"Mm... It's pretty cold, yeah. Is your head all right there?" John finally unshoulders his pack and crouches down near the other doctor. He's extremely aware of how much larger and seemingly unpredictable the other man is, so he remains on the balls of his feet, tense, but his eyes are on the turban and where Stitches' hand is.

His hand drops, and he glances towards John, studying him, shifting his weight in an unconcous mimic of John's pose. Green eyes slide sideways, Stein's attention struggling away from the task in front of him and to the man beside him. The wariness is acceptable, in the sense that it's normal. But the rest of it isn't.

Stein knows he's off right now, he's been vaguely aware of it for weeks now, but he hadn't realized it was at all obvious, certainly not enough to warrant medical concern. The pile keeps dragging at his focus, he can't feel anything but annoyance at John for the interruption. He needs to get back to the task at hand, so he can get it done before this burst of attention is over.

"My head is fine," he says, sharper than he means to. "I wasn't aware I asked for a second medical opinion about it."

This is all typical behavior for Dissect as far as Ecks is concerned. She's been curious about his head, which he never seems to unwrap, but not curious enough actually question him. Mostly she has done her best to herd him in the general direction of food.

Her grip on the door tightens at the tone of Dissect's voice. She just watches and listens, though, wanting to see what John Watson will do.

The only outward response to Stein's tone is a slight raise of John's brows. Good to know his head's not fine at all. "Okay. Let's just go over this to make sure I've got it:

"You've told me to be careful about trusting people. About five minutes after I walked in, you dumped all your things on the ground in full view. You want to throw everything out in the middle of a survival situation with minimal supplies. You're having concentration issues, talking about a mile a minute, jumping from one thing to the next, assuming that clutching was self-soothing or you've got a problem here." He taps his head where Stein had been grabbing at on his turban.

"Have you noticed your own behavior changing in the past several days or weeks? I'm assuming you know the symptoms of mania as well as I do, doctor. Did you hit your head or is this a known condition for you that we need to be asking the Admin for your medicine on?"

There's a knife up his sleeve, tied carefully so a tug on a string will drop it into his waiting hand. He could kill John Watson before the man had a chance to respond. It's childhood memories that stay his hand, padded rooms and straight jackets and electric shocks, a stubborn little boy learning by slow, painful degrees that he couldn't do what he wanted, that he had to do what they wanted, that he had to learn to follow arbitrary rules and obey commands he couldn't see the sense in. It may have been years ago, but those lessons still stick to him.

And at least this doctor is right. Mania is the right word for how he's been feeling recently, but it's a new word when applied to him.

"No recent head injuries, though patient did undergo an experimental lobotomy ten years ago, which was successful at reducing symptoms of behavioral disorder. No family history of mania or other mental illnesses, personal history of psychotic episodes and medical diagnosis of anti-social personality disorder since early childhood but no previous manic episodes. Patient is on the upper edge of the age range for onset of bipolar disorder, and has not previously experienced any depressive episodes."

A rapid-fire medical history as relevant to the current situation, detached and detailed.

She watches, hand slipping back into her pocket to emerge with the scissors, slow and silent. She does not know at what point she would intervene, but she is apt enough at reading body language (if not other forms of communication) to see the tense lines of their bodies and to sense that things could go very badly for John JWatson if that tension were to spill out into action. If she knew of the knife, perhaps she would have intervened already.

Then the moment of danger seems to her to slip away as Stein lets loose instead with an explanation she only mostly understands (anti-social personality disorder and bipolar are meaningless to her, but she has lived among the medically minded and knows enough about the rest).

One thing especially surprises her into speaking up. "A lobotomy?" she asks, knowing what that is and dreading the word. "They cut your brain? Why did they cut your brain? What did they make you lose?"

John's expression remains unchanged through Stitches' delivery. Mental health is a delicate issue. He's had his own problems... still tries to ignore some of them with the dreams that have come back along with the tremor since Sherlock's death. Luckily, the limp seems to have stayed gone, and he's been able to keep his temper in check.

"Okay. Let's-" Before he can get any farther, Ecks breaks in, and John glances over at her. "Why don't you answer her and let me know when the mania symptoms first set in. Reckon we might be able to work out what's going on between the pair of us. I'll try to keep you focused." And calm. But focused would appear to be the other doctor's main issue at the moment. John's used to dealing with that, though - keeping a mind that's running full stream on track with simple, direct questions.

"Dealing with three things at once won't help me stay focused," he says. But he does sink down to a position where he's more comfortable and less ready to attack. He pulls out his tablet, and starts flipping through recorded notes. Thankfully, he's been keeping a record, even if it's just a one word entry every day.

"A lobotomy." Stein confirms, to Ecks, as he flips back through on his screen. "I was incapable of behaving properly. Nothing else worked, so I--"

He freezes, staring down at his tablet. Then back and forth a few time, checking entries around the one he's noticed.

"Shit. The autopsies." He stands up in a rush, and walks away. "It started when I investigated the mass graves. A month ago? I didn't realize it at the time, but my notes started deteriorating then. I remember thinking I could keep track of everything. That must have been an initial symptom. It's been getting worse since then."

That is what lobotomies are for -- to stop behavior. Ecks has her doubts about what 'behave properly means, but it is surprising and confusing that Stein has had a lobotomy and is able to think and talk the way he does.

He is distracted again, though, and now the distraction itself is a point of interest. "This is different?" she asks, pushing open the closet door, forgetting that the scissors are still in her hand. "This is not how you behave normally?"

John would wholly agree with Ecks' confusion about the lobotomy. They're pretty much the textbook definition of what not to do these days. All of the horror story case studies he's read... The people who specialized in psychiatry and neurology probably got it worse than him on that front. Still, that's not the important thing if this was something that happened when he was a child.

The doctors eyes turn to Ecks and to the scissors in her hand when she steps out. He doesn't react to those except to stay in his at-ready crouch rather than matching Stein for something casual. Not that it matters much when the man bounces up half a moment later. John follows suit. "This is very unusual behavior for anyone," he confirms. And he does want to keep Stein's mind on just one thing at a time. "I know Mr. Beckett's investigated the mass graves. Was he there with you during the investigation or was this something independent?"

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