On the other- I'm damn curious now. How does Benjamin button happen in reverse but still not behave like normal aging?
[ The deer, now, he's not asking. That way lies madness. That's a walking nightmare if he thinks about it for too damn long.
Pass by pass, the cut vanishes, bone, blood, and tendon all mending like it'd never happened. Long as the kid doesn't ask for an explanation? They're good. ]
It was in the right direction, but it definitely wasn't normal. It happened all at once, in like a twenty minute period. I mean newborn baby, toddler, child, preteen, twenties, mid-life crisis, golden years, creepy old man, and then... poof again on fast-forward. It was... objectively horrifying.
( All of this to say, when you've seen as much weird shit as Jack has on such a regular basis, you tend to stop asking for things like explanations. Half the time they're not satisfying, and the other half you were happier not knowing in the first place.
He gives his finger a wiggle. It works. He perks up a little, faintly. )
( Yeah, based on all the screaming, he's inclined to agree with the excruciatingly painful thing. It was not pleasant to witness. Granted, probably less pleasant to experience. Generally not a good morning all-around for anybody involved.
After the prick comes the mildest, most monotone-sounding: )
Ow.
( Nerve-endings confirmed, all things seem to be in working order. )
So are you, like, a mad scientist or something? How do you even have... a finger microwave?
( Consider this less an earnest search for an explanation and more idle small talk. )
( It'll definitely solve the spiders-specific hallucination, which is really his biggest issue. The normal hallucinations he can deal with, you get used to those, but nobody likes spiders. They're creepy.
His hands drop back down into his lap, and he absently links his fingers — then spends a second or two marveling at the novelty of how symmetrical it feels again. Cool. )
Um.
( Shit.
When is the last time he ate? His condition and the meds he's on kind of kill his appetite — and that's on top of a lifetime of going hungry already. Forgetting to eat happens more often than not.
He takes his best guess. )
I had a frozen burrito last night sometime? Why, does that matter?
( Pretty sure. Like, 70% confidence.
He'll circle back around to that time displacement thing eventually. )
[ It's not a big kitchen, what he has tucked alongside his lab slash exam room- but it's big enough for him to feed himself and the occasional guest. The great weird wide world being what it is? He has guests slightly more often than previously anticipated.
Reasons the sofa's a pull out.
McCoy swings back out to the sitting area with a glass of sweet tea (calorie are calories at this point) before swinging back to the kitchen, muttering under his breath about underfed children stressing him out, reheating something hearty and home made. ]
( Calories are indeed calories. Frankly, Jack gets most of his from sugary drinks anyway. He practically survives on the contents of the frozen drink machines at work.
He does as he's told, but he does seem faintly perplexed as he goes — more perching on the edge of the cushion than sitting back comfortably. )
First of all, I'm not a child. Just so we're clear. I own a gas station.
( Which... granted, that's a pretty recent turn of events and he's not very good at running a business, but it's a credential worth pointing out. )
Second- is this like a normal thing doctors do... whenever you're from? Food service? Because the most I've ever gotten from any doctor's office is, like, a lollipop — which I realize doesn't actually help my case about being a grown-ass adult, but if you don't like candy you're dead inside and I'll die on this hill.
The last thing you recall is a frozen goddamn burrito more than twenty some odd hours ago, your vitals are all over the place- any supplements or further treatments I give you depend on some kinda reasonable baseline. You don't have one.
[ So.
Feeding. ]
You're a grown ass man, sure, but I hesitate to call you 'grown up'. To be fair, I don't call a lot of people grown up.
[ Shit, most of the time he doesn't call HIMSELF grown up. ]
If I'm gonna get done what needs do'n, you need to eat.
( He pulls a face, some muted, toned-down version of annoyed washed over with a tad more mild bemusement. )
Wow. It's been... a really long time since I've been condescended to by somebody actively heating up leftovers for me. I forgot how weird that feels.
( Somehow, this version of events comes with less vitriol than his foster mother had the last time it happened. )
I don't know whether to thank you or leave you a three-and-a-half star Yelp review. ( A beat. ) I mean, I guess you did make me an entire finger for free, so... maybe that's an automatic four.
You'll get a leg too, once I know replacing the marrow won't make the rest of your spine implode.
[ He can make the framework and lay down cloned flesh neat as anything- but the marrow? That's gotta come from somewhere already in the body- especially with how the leg had come off in the first place. After that's sorted, however long it takes?
He'll see what he can do about the rest. ]
What'll that bring me up to? Four point one?
[ he says, bringing over a platter of reheated roast chicken, potatoes, and asparagus. ]
( Okay, admittedly, this does smell a lot better than microwaved gas station burritos — his primary form of sustenance for the last five-odd years, alongside hot pockets, slurpees, and poptarts. His diet has less to do with an inability to cook, and more to do with a repressed appetite and general apathy. Why bother, when you're not hungry and you're just going to die any time in the next six to forty weeks? )
You're making it really hard to dislike you, and I'm not sure how much of that has to do with the free limbs. If you can make me slightly taller somehow, it'll be four point nine with a complaint in the comment section.
( This is honestly a feat. After Dr. V, it's a miracle his guard has dropped as much as it has since walking in here. Maybe it's because everything about McCoy feels like the exact opposite — where Dr. Vicedomini is manipulatively nice and made up of a series of mind games and microaggressions, this guy feels like super-honest strangely genuine-aggressions. He also hasn't bragged a single time about his abundance of extra medical degrees, so that's a nice change of pace. )
[ For himself, McCoy makes a pot of coffee and settles in an armchair opposite the sofa, having had something to eat earlier in the day. It's just one meal, it won't fix everything, hell, it won't fix anything, but it'll make McCoy feel better about discussing a full limb replacement and whatever the hell is wired slightly to the left in the kid's brain. ]
Don't much care about being liked, I'd rather be good at my job. And that depends less on my manner and more on whether or not I'm able to help someone.
[ Which, nine times out of ten, he is. And even in that tenth spot- he makes a damn good fight out of it. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ Better for his sanity to not ask. ]
On the other- I'm damn curious now. How does Benjamin button happen in reverse but still not behave like normal aging?
[ The deer, now, he's not asking. That way lies madness. That's a walking nightmare if he thinks about it for too damn long.
Pass by pass, the cut vanishes, bone, blood, and tendon all mending like it'd never happened. Long as the kid doesn't ask for an explanation? They're good. ]
Do me a favor and wiggle that for me.
no subject
( All of this to say, when you've seen as much weird shit as Jack has on such a regular basis, you tend to stop asking for things like explanations. Half the time they're not satisfying, and the other half you were happier not knowing in the first place.
He gives his finger a wiggle. It works. He perks up a little, faintly. )
Woah, look at that. Neat.
no subject
[ Over and over, ad infini? The very idea makes Leonard want to twitch- but he's working, so his hands remain steady. ]
Good. I'm gonna give you a little prick, let me know if you feel it.
[ Nothing more complicated than a sanitized, single use needle, tapping the pad of the kid's finger. ]
no subject
After the prick comes the mildest, most monotone-sounding: )
Ow.
( Nerve-endings confirmed, all things seem to be in working order. )
So are you, like, a mad scientist or something? How do you even have... a finger microwave?
( Consider this less an earnest search for an explanation and more idle small talk. )
no subject
[ The simplest thing, clearly, the leg is gonna take another few sessions he figures. But that'll solve the hallucinogen problem.
He thinks.
He hopes? ]
...Let's just call me a physician that happens to be time displaced and leave it at that. Now- when's the last time you ate?
no subject
His hands drop back down into his lap, and he absently links his fingers — then spends a second or two marveling at the novelty of how symmetrical it feels again. Cool. )
Um.
( Shit.
When is the last time he ate? His condition and the meds he's on kind of kill his appetite — and that's on top of a lifetime of going hungry already. Forgetting to eat happens more often than not.
He takes his best guess. )
I had a frozen burrito last night sometime? Why, does that matter?
( Pretty sure. Like, 70% confidence.
He'll circle back around to that time displacement thing eventually. )
no subject
[ It's not a big kitchen, what he has tucked alongside his lab slash exam room- but it's big enough for him to feed himself and the occasional guest. The great weird wide world being what it is? He has guests slightly more often than previously anticipated.
Reasons the sofa's a pull out.
McCoy swings back out to the sitting area with a glass of sweet tea (calorie are calories at this point) before swinging back to the kitchen, muttering under his breath about underfed children stressing him out, reheating something hearty and home made. ]
no subject
He does as he's told, but he does seem faintly perplexed as he goes — more perching on the edge of the cushion than sitting back comfortably. )
First of all, I'm not a child. Just so we're clear. I own a gas station.
( Which... granted, that's a pretty recent turn of events and he's not very good at running a business, but it's a credential worth pointing out. )
Second- is this like a normal thing doctors do... whenever you're from? Food service? Because the most I've ever gotten from any doctor's office is, like, a lollipop — which I realize doesn't actually help my case about being a grown-ass adult, but if you don't like candy you're dead inside and I'll die on this hill.
no subject
[ So.
Feeding. ]
You're a grown ass man, sure, but I hesitate to call you 'grown up'. To be fair, I don't call a lot of people grown up.
[ Shit, most of the time he doesn't call HIMSELF grown up. ]
If I'm gonna get done what needs do'n, you need to eat.
no subject
Wow. It's been... a really long time since I've been condescended to by somebody actively heating up leftovers for me. I forgot how weird that feels.
( Somehow, this version of events comes with less vitriol than his foster mother had the last time it happened. )
I don't know whether to thank you or leave you a three-and-a-half star Yelp review. ( A beat. ) I mean, I guess you did make me an entire finger for free, so... maybe that's an automatic four.
no subject
[ He can make the framework and lay down cloned flesh neat as anything- but the marrow? That's gotta come from somewhere already in the body- especially with how the leg had come off in the first place. After that's sorted, however long it takes?
He'll see what he can do about the rest. ]
What'll that bring me up to? Four point one?
[ he says, bringing over a platter of reheated roast chicken, potatoes, and asparagus. ]
no subject
You're making it really hard to dislike you, and I'm not sure how much of that has to do with the free limbs. If you can make me slightly taller somehow, it'll be four point nine with a complaint in the comment section.
( This is honestly a feat. After Dr. V, it's a miracle his guard has dropped as much as it has since walking in here. Maybe it's because everything about McCoy feels like the exact opposite — where Dr. Vicedomini is manipulatively nice and made up of a series of mind games and microaggressions, this guy feels like super-honest strangely genuine-aggressions. He also hasn't bragged a single time about his abundance of extra medical degrees, so that's a nice change of pace. )
no subject
[ For himself, McCoy makes a pot of coffee and settles in an armchair opposite the sofa, having had something to eat earlier in the day. It's just one meal, it won't fix everything, hell, it won't fix anything, but it'll make McCoy feel better about discussing a full limb replacement and whatever the hell is wired slightly to the left in the kid's brain. ]
Don't much care about being liked, I'd rather be good at my job. And that depends less on my manner and more on whether or not I'm able to help someone.
[ Which, nine times out of ten, he is. And even in that tenth spot- he makes a damn good fight out of it. ]