Fantasy Beasts & Burdens

[Pith]

"Thom--there's a couple of men at the door. Did you forget to lock the gate behind me?"

Biting back a groan, the man took a deep breath and slowly exhaled before he looked up to the frowning visage of Mrs. Cooper. She was a dark-skinned woman from India who'd married a British soldier back in her youth, and despite being well into her forties operated with every bit of strength and vigor of a woman half her age. Dr. Walked engaged her, and sometimes a niece, to come in two or three times a week for general cooking and cleaning, unlike Thom, who lived in. She was short but stocky, and was giving him an expression akin to that of a disappointed mother.

"Perhaps," he lied, standing up from the desk. "But if there's two of them then I think I have an idea who they are."

Mrs. Cooper looked doubtful. "They looked shifty." She'd been tidying the foyer when the knocking started and peeked at them through the curtains.

"You think I look shifty, Mrs. Cooper." She hummed, not denying it. Although she had come into the picture after him there had been some initial dislike, though in time she'd informed him he would look more presentable if he took better care of his clothes and got a haircut. "I'll handle them, thank you."

Although obviously skeptical, Thom heard her at least start to make her way back towards the kitchen, and he cursed under his breath every step of the way to the door. If they were going to make it past the front gates they could have easily done the same to the side-ones and taken the back entrance, even if it wasn't normal office hours. He wasn't one to care about what the neighbors would think, really, but had there been a patient staying, or Mrs. Cooper answered the door, he doubted she would take well to whatever grisly thing they were delivering.

Opening the door, his eyes fell to the bag Fredrick clutched onto, and then the placement of his arm. Annoyance fell into a neutral expression and he stood to the side to allow them in. He wasn't sure if it was medical attention, delivery, or both, but the foyer wasn't the place to discuss it. "Through here," he instructed, opening one side of a double door, ushering the pair in.

The foyer, while currently largely unlit, gave an impression of brightness with soft powder blue wallpaper and high ceilings, flowers carved into dark brown crown molding. The floors and furniture were made of the same dark wood, and there was little in the way of decor in the front save for a thick plush rug and a large vase of fresh flowers set upon a table, flanked on either side by small white statues of Apollo and Hermes, each clutching a caduceus. The room to the left had been converted into a waiting room, full of books and comfortable chairs. Further in was the room where Dr. Walker met with clients for discussions, intakes, and more casual check-ups and procedures.

Thom had led the pair back to the operating room, though on their last visit the double-doors had been obscured by a curtain.

 

[sspky]

“Morning Thom,” Fredrick said as the man ushered them inside. Both gentlemen had been dressed rather well when they’d left their apartment the night prior, and they’d clearly seen some amount of drama in the intervening hours. Fredrick’s black suit was scuffed with mud, and Robert’s woollen frock had a tear up the back of the sleeve.

As they followed Thom through the office, Robert made careful note of his surroundings, his keen eyes catching little details that Fredrick wouldn’t have noticed even had he been looking. When they had been outside, Robert had noticed the rustling of one of the curtains, but he saw no indication of anyone present other than Thom himself.

“Fine place your boss has here,” Fredrick observed as they entered the operating room, his lips pulled back into a tight, joyless grin, “Speaking of the man -- is the doctor in?”

There was an odd smell about the two men. Nothing wretched like the last time, but something almost sickly-sweet, like overripe fruit and too-potent spices. It wouldn’t have been an unpleasant odour in a small dose, but once the men entered the confined operating room, it quickly became more noticeable.

Thankfully, the bag in Fredrick’s arm seemed reasonably dry, still, and in no way threatening. If he was sporting a wound on his abdomen, any evidence of it was hidden securely behind the sleeve of his black coat.

 

[Pith]

"I expect he's dressing right at the moment," Thom replied, looking behind to make sure the older woman wasn't lurking in the hall before closing the door behind him, twisting the bolt securely shut.

In the foyer he's mostly only noted the scent of familiar early-morning damp from the outside mist and the light fragrance of the freshly replaced flowers. The cloying, sticky-sweet scent, however, was not something he normally experienced in the operating room. At its best it smelled faintly of copper and strong ammonia, neither smell ever fully dissipating from the area, but the whatever clung to the two men seemed to drive the familiar smells away like an exorcised spirit.

"Wait here," he instructed, taking the door on the other side of the room into the back halls.

He considered, only momentarily, taking the lift up to the doctor's room--it was slower, technically, but only assuming he didn't get stopped and questioned by Mrs. Cooper, who would undoubtedly pester him for answers sooner than later. By all means, she was within her right to know who was in the house while she was working, but this was exactly why the doctor didn't hire her full time.

In the end he took the stairs, returning only a few short minutes later with a bright-eyed Elijah, still buttoning his vest, without cufflinks or a tie, and his hair only partially styled back out of his face. Compared to how he normally presented, the doctor looked almost sloppy. Thom trailed in after, though this time he'd had the foresight to at least bring his pistol in case whatever the men had brought to the house was energetic.

"Good morning, gentlemen, what an unexpected surprise!" Elijah greeted, before he paused a moment to sniff the air. "Goodness, but that's... ripe, is the term I'd use. So, what brings you this morning?" he asked, looking between the two, also noting the bag and arm placement.

 

[sspky]

“We’ve come for two reasons,” Fredrick said, his wry smile widening at the sight of the doctor, “First, I’ve brought you a rat king.”

Now, rat kings, as wretched and uncommon as they happened to be, were in no way supernatural. Fredrick put the bag on the operating table and untethered he drawstrings. The thing that poked out from the sack, while certainly similar, was in no way a conventional rat king.

Rat kings were the amalgamation of a nest of rats who had, unfortunately, become tangled up in their own tales. This creature was also an amalgamation of rats, except they seemed to be fused together at the spine. The largest rat was near the size of a small dog, and from it’s back sprouted at least four other malformed heads, a dozen or more twisted limbs, and three fat, hairless tails.

Thankfully, the creature was very clearly dead. The head of the largest rat had been crushed beneath something (Fredricks boot, to be specific), so little remained of it but the brainstem and a bit of its jaw. If the rats fused it’s spine had ever been alive, they were certainly dead now.

The rat seemed to be the source of the peculiar smell, although it wasn’t apparent why.

While Fredrick deposited the unsanitary thing on the once clean table, Robert drew back, arms crossed, and observed the scene with passive disinterest.

 

[Pith]

Thom had been a bit surprised at the initial proclamation. Even he knew the things weren't in any way other-worldly, and he'd even seen one when he was a kid. There was a chance the doctor would still want to pickle it, but he doubted there was any real intrinsic value. Eiljah, on the other hand, had every bit of confidence that if the pair was going to turn up with something to sell then it would at least probably be interesting. He would have hated to entertain the idea of them wasting his time.

Disappointment was no where to be found as he observed the deceased creature on the table, drawing forward immediately for a better look. Though the condition of the primary head was unfortunate the rest seemed to be remarkably intact and unharmed.

He was desperately curious if the other heads had ever shown signs of life, or if there had been movement in the other limbs. Better yet, assuming this was indeed something supernatural and not simply an unfortunate genetic mutation, he had to wonder if there was evidence of... well, more of the rest of the rats under the skin of the main rat. It was quite possible the two had found the thing already dead, certainly, but it seemed to have passed recently for all the elasticity of its parts when it had been set on the table.

Following the incident with Ms. Cokkrin and her fatal attachment, Elijah had made good on his mental note and invested in a camera. Busy as he had been, he had obviously set Thom to the task of learning how to work the things. The man had refused for a good few days, but been worn down with persistence and just the right prodding points. He wanted to get as many photos of the thing as possible, in its natural state and in its various states of disassembly.

"Marvelous," he breathed, itching for his gloves. Turned back to regard Fredrick, he smiled. "And the second?"

 

[sspky]

“If you say so,” Fredrick replied with a dismissive shrug, “Critter wasn’t nearly the weirdest bit of rubbish we’ve seen down in the Dens.”

The rat had just happened to be the most portable. Plus, the two had been rather pressed for time, since their little skirmish with the rat had caused Robert, the clumsy bastard, to knock over a crumbling old sconce. The sound had echoed down the subterranean hallways, alerting just about everything in a kilometre radius to their presence.

They’d done an awful lot of running after that, and it was only by some grace of their primeval God that the two had happened to surface near enough to Chelsey.

“As for the other bit of business,” Fredrick said as he unbuttoned his shirt, “I’d like you to take a look at this.”

The man was sporting a rather deep, but thin, cut just beneath his ribs. The skin around it was puckered and purple but it no longer appeared to be bleeding.

“There’s something in there, but Roberts being too much of a bloody child to remove it for me.”

There was something so absurd about the petulance in Fredrick’s voice, that Robert couldn’t help but snort out a laugh. This earned him a deathly glair from Fredrick, who returned an apathetic shrug right back.

Why should he go digging around in his partner’s guts, when they were a mere cab-ride away from a reputable doctor? They even had a dead rat to pay him with. Robert hardly saw what any of the fuss was about.

 

[Pith]

Elijah actually laughed out loud, shaking his head as he leaned in to get a better look, adjusting his glasses. "You know, you might've led with that one. Thom, table please."

Sighing and rolling up his sleeves, Thom gave the rat-king a brief once-over before kneeling down to press at the edge of one of the large white floor tiles a few feet off from the operating table. The tile moved down then popped up with a hiss and soft, drifting mist. It was a refrigerated chest set into the floor, currently empty save for the buildup of ice at its walls, and once he'd drawn the bag around the creature once again and tied it off, Thom set the thing gently down in the compartment. One the compartment was closed once again he set about retrieving cleaning supplies to disinfect the table.

"Now, when you say 'something,'" Elijah continued, kneeing down to he could he more level with the injury in question, "are you assuming some sort of sediment, or something a bit more energetic?"

He reached out a hand and pressed very gently at one edge of the cut, beneath as much of the purpled skin as he was able, in order to shift the opening slightly see just how deep it went and if there was anything initially visible. The color didn't appear to be the result of bruising, near as he could tell, and he suspected the puckering might be a reaction to whatever was inside.

 

[sspky]

“Rat was starting to smell,” he explained with a shrug, his eyes narrowing at the doctor’s sudden laughter. The wound hadn’t been bleeding and there wasn’t anything in the way of puss, besides; Robert had cleaned and bound it before their foray into the Dens. It throbbed, sure, but not in any way Fredrick found terribly concerning.

When Dr. Walker started to prod at the wound, Fredrick’s abominable muscles tightened in response, though he showed no other outward indication that he was in any pain. At the doctor’s question, Fredrick cast a questioning look over in Robert’s directions.

Robert, however, was pointedly looking at the registration unit Thom had just pulled up from the floor. He’d tried to help. He’d tried to warn him. He’d tried to force the two of them to return to the apartment. No. This little mishap was entirely Fredrick’s problem now, and he wasn’t about to humour him by offering even an ounce of further assistance or sympathy. He could practically feel his partners’ glair burning into the side of his face.

Biting back some horrible curse or another, Fredrick turned his attention to the top of the doctor’s head. Finally, he said, “It’s not alive, whatever it is. A friend saw fit to stab me -- “ this earned a scoff from Robert, which Fredrick pointedly spoke over, “ -- and when I pulled the knife out, the tip of it was missing.”

The blade had been a long, thin stiletto. Fredrick discarded it too quickly to take any note of the details, except that the end of the blade was squared off at an unusual angle. Back when Robert wasn’t being an utter ass, he’d indicated that he thought the tip was likely still lodged beneath Robert’s ribs.

The wound itself seemed a little over a centimetre deep and angled sharply upwards. It was a thin incision, and whatever was lodged inside of it was surely very small. Robert had noted the purple and the puckering but wasn’t sure if he had been looking at an infection, a reaction, or some sort of terrible curse.

And the idiot had still insisted on following this friend down into the Dens.

 

[Pith]

"Some friend," Elijah commented lightly, though it certainly wasn't the first of such explanations to wonder into his offices.

It was clear enough the stabbing wasn't recent, or at least not so recent that the doctor's office was the first place the two had stopped at. Although Elijah was not overly familiar with the Dens he of course know of them, and the general notion that most people preferred to steer clear. That was about the extent of his understanding, however, but he felt he could safely assume that however long they'd been in the Dens had been more than enough time for the wound to react... well, interestingly, to say the least.

He wasn't about to lecture a grown man on the importance of seeking immediate medical attention, especially not a known criminal.

Behind him Thom had washed down the entire examination table down with a strong smelling clear liquid and had already gone about setting up a cart with tools from the various side-cabinets. It was quite similar to the doctor's autopsy set, but also included a set of small syringes and small, clear bottles of liquid.

Elijah stood up and nodded, rolling up his sleeves ."Right. Fredrick, if you'd be so kind to remove the shirt and lay down on the table." He busied himself retrieving an apron and set of gloves before throwing a switch, which brought to life two massively bright overhead lights, each ringed with at least six buzzing bulbs. From another cabinet he retrieved a set of glasses on a thick leathers strap, ringed not with magnifying glasses like a jeweler might have, but small, dull mirrors. They allowed him to reflect light more directly into the area he wanted to look without risk of burning the patient.

"I don't suppose you have the knife?" he asked, putting them on and pushing them to the top of his head for the time being while his assistant continued to prep the work cart. "Or could show me about how big you think the missing piece is? If it's big enough I might be able to poke around a bit, but there's more than likely a chance I'll have to make a bigger incision just to find the thing."

 

[sspky]

“Best friend a man could ask for,” he chirped as he stripped off his coat and shirt. He laid both nearly aside and then hopped onto the table. As to be expected, Fredrick’s torso was a patchwork of burns, scars, and tattoos -- some were ritualistic but many were of the variety common among his class of criminal. He had the sort of wiry muscles one would expect from a back-alley pugilist, with the low body fat consistent with a man who regularly skipped meals.

At the very center of his chest, right above his solar plexus, was a palm-sized tattoo. It was made up of an even triangle, with a circle extending from the upward peak, and a curved line drawn down from each of the two lower corners. In the center of the triangle was an uneven ‘x’.

Hands resting on his stomach, Fredrick squinted up at the lights in consideration. Finally, he said, “Afraid not, Doctor. It was lost in the scuffle.”

And by lost, he meant that he’d pulled it out of his ribs and had attempted to gut the old man who’d stabbed him. The knife had fallen somewhere in the struggle, and no one had been in any state to remember to grab it.

“It would be small, I think.” he examined his hand, and added, “Smaller than a fingernail, probably.”

Although he was admittedly feeling a little vulnerable lying on the table as he was, he projected an air of cool indifference. If the thought of being cut open bothered him, he certainly didn’t show it.

 

[Pith]

Hm. That was troubling.

The blade that had been used for the stabbing had been exceedingly thin, and he would have accurately guessed it was a stiletto, but if the tip had broken off then it meant either the blade had been extremely brittle or it had nicked something. Whether that was bone or organ, it was equally likely to still be in something, and even if he clamped the small wound open he would be unlikely to see anything. It was seeming more and more like making a large cut was the best course of action. There was also the matter of the discoloration... Clearly the wound had been cleaned out a little, at least, and bandaged, there wasn't nearly enough on it or Fredrick's clothes to suggest otherwise, but there was still no small chance of infection.

"Definitely an incision, then," the doctor said, nodding to himself, then regarding Fredrick. He glanced at the various visual tales of injuries past and body modifications. "I can see you're hardly a stranger to pain, but I am obligated to offer you some sort of anesthetic before I proceed."

He had a wide range of varieties on hand--laughing gas, chloraform, even ether, outdated as it was. Such methods of pain relief during procedures had become commonplace in modern hospitals, but he could still remembers lectures in the medical theatre where old-fashioned professors had insisted on demonstrations without. The screaming hadn't bothered him terribly, per se, but it was rather loud, and required procedures to go on longer than ideal.

"Typically I don't actually offer the option, I just proceed, but I don't know what obligations you gentlemen have and this procedure is, technically, off the books."

 

[sspky]

Never the sort of turn down a chance at intoxication, Fredrick flashed Elijah a smile and said, “That's very kind of you, Dr. Walker. I’d appreciate something to take the edge off.”

Robert, who was leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed, rolled his eyes. Had the option not been available, Fredrick would have bitten through the pain and spent the rest of the day in a violent mood, and Robert was by now very used to looking after his inebriated friend, and far preferred him languid over volatile.

Given his preference for opioids, Fredrick was personally hoping the doctor would offer him some sort of morphine, but he was hardly picky. He’d experimented with just about every sort of sedative, stimulant, hallucinogen, and narcotic, legal or otherwise, that he’d been able to get his hands on.

"Do keep me aware enough to look after myself, if you can." he requested. While he trusted Robert completely, he had absolutely no faith in the city of London and some suspicion that the man who had stabbed him might still be looking for him.

 

[Pith]

Elijah, for one, appreciated that the offer was taken. The surgery would take as long as it would need, and much as he wouldn't want to cause any patient undo suffering, he refused to be rushed. There were straps on the side of the table to grip onto, even more to hold a patient down when needed. He even a supply of leather strips in one of the drawers to place between the teeth, since there'd been more one than broken tooth from gritting down too hard.

"I shall do my best," Elijah assured, moving to one of the cabinets to prep. "Though please don't feel the need to rush. We have recovery beds here, you're welcome to stay until anything wears off." Normally patients stayed at least a day for observation and aftercare, but again, as this was more of an off-the-record procedure he couldn't very well insist too much.

Thom could have killed the doctor in that moment. His last visit to Whitechapel hadn't been unpleasant, and Robert had proven knowledgable, but allowing the pair access to the house would likely be too much for Robert's quick fingers. Cheap and replaceable as they might have been, he'd lost too many things in the man's presence to consider any other possibility to be likely. He was shaken from his thoughts by a knock at the door, and groaned softly.

Drawing the curtain closed that would block the room from sight, he unlocked and opened one of the double doors. "Mrs. Cooper. Doctor Walker is about to go into surgery."

The woman frowned, glancing around Thom and pursing her lips to see the view was completely unviewable. "It's not even seven. And you said he didn't have appointments."

"Emergency surgery. The patient was a referred to him by a mutual acquaintance," Thom explained, not technically lying. "The doctor will be unavailable until it's over. However, the patient does have a guest waiting..." The implicit request was conveyed and, despite her annoyance, the woman turned around and made back for the kitchens. Once she was far enough away, Thom re-locked the door.

Elijah returned to the table, holding out a colorless, fizzing glass. "Down the hatch, if you please! Shouldn't take more than a few minutes, then I can begin."

Chloroform had seemed the best option. Administered orally and in small doses, it produced a somewhat euphoric effect, but still reduced the sensation of pain considerably. Unlike laughing gas, unless the procedure took drastically longer than he'd hoped, it would only need to be administered once.

 

[sspky]

As instructed, Fredrick tipped back the glass and knocked down the liquid. He’d smelled chloroform several times (both willingly and otherwise), but had never through to drink it, and was a little surprised by its sweetness. Chloroform wasn’t something Fredrick personally cared for, mostly due to headache it usually left him with when he finally drifted free from its spell.

He held the glass for the doctor to take, his head resting back down on the operating table. He let his eyes slip closed for a moment, waiting for the sensation to wash over him. The lights overhead burned red behind his eyelids, and he could see a trail of veins dance across his vision.

Robert wasn’t exactly pleased by the notion of staying here, either, but he supposed Fredrick would be easier to manage if he got a few hours to sleep off the sedative. Besides, at this point, Robert had been up for a good thirty hours and had last eaten sometime the previous morning. While both men were used to running on empty, Robert could only go so far before his mental threads began to fray.

At the sound of knocking, Robert’s attention snapped towards the door. He frowned as Thom disappeared behind the curtain, and listened carefully to the trail of voices. So there was someone else here. A secretary, perhaps? Or a housekeeper? Not his wife, clearly. But Thom had the good sense to be vague about the identities of the two visitors, and for that Robert was thankful.

On the table, Fredrick was finally feeling an agreeable lightness and a sense of relaxation the normally frenetic man could rarely experience without medical assistance. Humming a note, he let his eyes slide open, and watched the doctor above him.

 

[Pith]

Elijah had accepted the glass and set it well aside, busying himself with double-checking everything Thom had set out, though it was, of course, perfectly adequate for his needs. He'd offered more than once to train the man as a true medical aid, but he'd declined, stating he did better with prep work than with fixing things. After a few moments, when he heard the soft hum, the doctor looked back with a searching expression for a few long seconds before a smile pulled at his face, and he spotted the familiar glaze in Fredrick's eyes as well as the loosening in his frame.

He moved down so he was over the wound and set to work.

As an initial precaution, he first marked above and below the ends of the incision with an ink-dipped pen, noting where the original injury had been. If he was having difficulty finding anything inside it would at least give him an area to start looking around in. Following that he made a quick extension in on direction and applied a small clamp--it wouldn't stop the bleeding but it would staunch it slightly, in addition to holding the opening wider so he could actually see what he was looking at. This was mirrored in the other direction--cut and clamp--and thus satisfied, he moved his goggles down over his glasses, adjusted the mirror to best direct the light, and set out with tweezers and a metal compressor to have a look both at the edges of the original cut, in hopes of accounting for the discoloration, and around inside.

Thom returned to the open operation room but stayed back, observing the doctor at a distance. Unless he went through all his tools or made some sign that he required something, it had been his most positive experience when he stayed well out of the way. He spared a glance at Robert, and wondered if the pair of them ever had days where they looked well-rested.

 

[sspky]

When Dr. Walker started on the wound, Fredrick mutter something, but his voice was slurred just enough to make it unintelligible. It sounded suspiciously like something profane. Evidently, the patient could still feel some amount of pain, but the chloroform had, as requested, worn much of the edge off of it.

Robert watched Dr. Walker closely, his arms still crossed and his expression neutral. He had long since become numb to the sight of gore, and any of the very real concern he felt for his companion was hidden safely beneath his apathetic mask.

He supposed he trusted the doctor to do his job, but should anything go horribly wrong under his care, Robert would endeavour gun both men down, and their maid, before burning the entire building to the ground. He would hardly relish the task -- he found he quite liked Thom, and he certainly had no ill will towards Dr. Walker -- but he would do as he must, all the same.

He took sick comfort in knowing Fredrick would do the same for him.

Meanwhile, Fredrick's wound seemed mostly conventional. It bled as expected, and didn’t seem terribly infected. Apart from the peculiar purple discolouration, the injury appeared surprisingly clean and well cared for. Which, considering the events of the last 24 hours, was remarkable in and of itself.

As for the tip of the knife buried beneath his ribs: the piece was small and thankfully whole. Once the doctor found it, it would likely not prove too difficult to remove.

 

[Pith]

Thom liked watching Dr. Walker performing surgeries and other legitimate medical procedures. For all his strange, manic energy when he took an interest in something and his recent foray into the otherworldly, it comforted him to know that the man still exercised his extensive skill for healing. In the servant's experience, it was far easier to wreck a body, destroy it in parts or altogether, and bringing someone to the brink of death was ten times more likely to succeed than bringing them back from it.

Occasionally he glanced to Robert, who seemed to be transfixed on the proceedings. It made sense to be worried about one's partner, even if he'd witnessed--to a very small extent--the stress that came with the cohabitation. He didn't look worried, but it seemed unlikely that he would be anything but with a gaze that steady.

It did occur to him that if anything went wrong he might have to go for the other man first, before he could get to the doctor. It would have been far from the first time he'd had to put himself between the doctor and harm, but he had to admit, he liked his chances less in this particular case.

Elijah could easily ignore the slurred comment of discomfort. He'd just cut into the man, after all, it wasn't meant to feel pleasant. But he was pleased to note the lack of debris in the wound, or even dirt around the opening. He would clean the lot of it before sewing Fredrick back up, of course, but it was a welcome sight to be sure.

After a careful moment of searching the initial area he utilized the compressor to press and shift gently, and soon enough, there was the knife tip. He did not remove it immediately, checking the area for anything that might have been punctured or grazed, but to the best of his efforts he only saw the fresh blood and the tiniest bit of fabric. Long tweezers, guided by steady hands, took hold of the fragment of metal and carefully slipped it out with every care not to let it touch anything else of the soft insides. Once removed, he dropped it into a glass container with a soft click.

He would test it later, just in case. But for the moment he busied himself with removing the fibers, cleaning and disinfecting the area before he would move on to stitches.

 

[sspky]

Although his hands were clenched tightly enough for his blunt nails to leave crescent-moon indents in the flesh of his palm, Fredrick otherwise remained remarkably still. His brow was furrowed and, despite the liquid state his brain currently seemed to be in, his gaze remained transfixed on the man operating on him.

His stomach did jerk briefly when he felt the sick sensation of the tweezers moving inside of him, but he corrected himself quickly enough.

When the doctor did get around to examing the knife-tip, he’d find it wasn’t metal at all, but rather some sort of bone -- a fact that Robert, should he discover it, would find both confusing and deeply troubling.

“The fucking thing out of me?” Fredrick rumbled when he heard the clinking of the jar. His voice felt heavy in his own mouth.

This was hardly the worst pain he’d ever been in, but it was still worlds away from anything pleasant. With the pain came the usual anger that pulsed deep inside of him. It was a beast he temporarily placated by imaging all of the horrific ways he was going to soon repay the man who’ had stabbed him.

 

[Pith]

"Yes," Elijah replied, though he was still rummaging about carefully in the flesh and insides, triple checking for any thing he missed. "Won't be long."

Once satisfied he moved to place a cover on the glass dish to protect the extraction, and paused. The material was... Not like any knife tip he'd seen.

Cleaning the blood was easily done with a few gauzes to soaked in the stuff, but the clamps really did their jobs of helping with the mess up front. Stinging solution was applied, though it could have hardly have been worse than the cuts themselves. Soon enough he'd taken up the pre-strung needle, sealing up the opening with small, neat stitches.

Thom meanwhile had wetted several wash cloths so the doctor could dab off the last of the blood. Once done and seeing the doctor was wrapping up, he addressed Robert. "Gunna let him wait it out here?"

 

[sspky]

(( I've gotta crash pretty quick. This might be my last post for the night. ))


Robert allowed himself to slowly exhale, for what felt to him like the first time since the doctor had begun the operation. When Thom addressed him, he cocked his head towards the man, the look of cold focus on his face finally washing away. He looked like his normal, awkward, long-suffering self again.

He considered the offer, before nodding. It was better he let Fredrick recover a little under a professional's watchful eye. There seemed to be fewer ways his friend could find trouble here, or for trouble to come looking for him.

On the table, Fredrick seemed to be growing restless. This wasn’t exactly ideal conditions to enjoy a high, and the prolonged discomfort was making him quickly irritable. Once that all-too-familiar prickling sensation of the stitches had passed, he started to gracelessly push himself up onto his elbows.

He was looking somehow paler then usual, and a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his brow.

 

[Pith]

( Pretty sure I passed out 0.2 seconds after I clicked 'post' on my last tag. )

Elijah would have been surprised if the man hadn't looked a little pale, staying on an operating table with a fairly minimal amount of painkiller. Even with such a minimal incision and no visible internal damage, he was all too aware it wasn't a pleasant process. He'd cut himself open more than once, more as practice, but at least once for impromptu work on himself.

Catching the confirmation that the pair would be staying, he nodded and pulled off his gloves so he could hand Fredrick his shirt and coat without bloodying them further. "Thom will get you both situated upstairs. I'd reccomend letting him wheel you up in a chair and taking the lift, just to keep the strain off the stitches for a few hours."

The manservant had already maneuvered the chair from its place in the corner, covering it with a fresh blanket from one of the cupboards.

Leaving the operating table briefly to refill the glass from before and take three white pills from an amber bottle, the doctor offered them to Fredrick to take before getting off the work surface. "These might help a bit, assuming you don't throw up from the chloroform." They were regular pain pills, though perhaps a little extra-strength, all things considered. It wasn't anything against Fredrick personally that he didn't surrender the whole bottle--after all, he was hardly aware of the man's vices, or at least the extent of them. But patients before had misused unattended bottles and he didn't relish producing more.

 

[sspky]

Not about to be wheeled about like some invalid, Fredrick waved Thom off. After knocking back the offered pain-pills, he hopped off the table and immediately his vision was swimming, edged with gray, as his stomach lurched up into his throat. Robert, who had drifted over to the operating table, had apparently expected the scene to play out exactly as it had, turned and roughly grabbed his companion’s bare shoulders.

He managed to maneuver his rubber-limbed friend over to the chair. Fredrick was already seated by the time the haze cleared from his eyes. Some obstinate part of him wanted to rise and try again, just to spite Robert, but that twisting, lurching in his stomach hadn’t yet settled, so he remained where he was.

Collecting Fredrick’s shirt and coat, Robert offered Dr. Walker a polite nod, before looking expectantly towards Thom. He knew it would be best to get the inebriated idiot deposited in a bed quickly before his current bout of dizziness wore off and became his belligerent self again.

 

[Pith]

It wasn't unusual for patients to try and avoid the assistance--a man's pride could only take so much, even against all common sense, so Thom had said nothing when Fredrick waved off the help. If the man walked, he walked, and if he fell, he'd get him in the chair. But thanks to Robert's intervention he was able to avoid that particular avenue and shot in a brief, but grateful look when their eyes met before releasing the locking mechanism and making his way out of the operation chamber.

Through the doors and down the halls back towards the loading bay, an into the narrow left. It was a tight squeeze with all three men, even if the chair hadn't been there--it had been converted from a dumbwaiter some years before, and the dimensions had barely been expanded. If there was any grumbling Thom was able to let it pass through him, and if the man got sick... well, he'd clean it after. Once up two floors they came to a dimly lit hall, though grey, timeless light spilled in through two of the four doors, which were open.

The room was furnished simply--a full bed that looked to have been recently turned down, side-tables, a long couch, wardrobe, and writing table where a tea set had been recently laid out, along with a pair of plates with silver covers, porridge and thick bread waiting underneath. The windows looked out onto the river but had the option of thick curtains to obscure any light. Everything was decorated in soft greens and dark browns, all somewhat washed out in the misty morning light.

"Mrs. Cooper opened up the next room if you want a bed," Thom mentioned to Robert, wheeling Fredrick up to the bed and gesturing to a buzzer resting on the bedside table, its cables disappearing into the wall. "If there's an emergency, that goes to the lab and kitchens."

 

[sspky]

Thankfully, Fredrick only dry-heaved once in the clanging, lurching enclosure of the elevator. Living and working with Fredrick had numbed Robert to a great many things -- including the sight and smell of just about every substance that could possibly leave a human body. Still, he was silently glad that everything that was meant to stay inside Fredrick had, indeed, stayed inside Fredrick.

The room was far nicer then Robert had expected, and wondered at what this was going to cost them. The novelty of the rat-king might have covered the operation, but if they were being offered room and board for the day, then surely Dr. Walker would be expecting some larger form of compensation. Robert had a little money on him (and in a neighbourhood like Chelsy, he could pocket whatever else he might need during a quick stroll to the shops) and he supposed the doctor would likely also be satisfied by another quick document on some esoteric bit of grim metaphysics.

After nodding at Thoms instructions, Robert made a quick writing gesture, and then an indication that he wanted something closer in dimensions to a legal document. He had a small notebook on his person, but the paper therein was dog-eared and thin. If he was going to take the time to write up a proper summation of a magical concept, he’d rather do so on a proper piece of paper.

The smell of a hot breakfast brought the memory of hunger rushing back to him, but Robert resisted the call long enough to help his friend to bed. He’d take the couch if it was all the same to his gracious hosts. As tired as he was, he didn’t want to leave Fredrick's side quite yet, and he assumed the cost of putting the two up for a day would decrease a little if they only disturbed a single room.

 

[Pith]

Had Robert communicated his concerns of mounting costs to Thom the man would have probably laughed aloud. It wasn't that the doctor wouldn't keep a sort of tab, but he wasn't one to micro-manage little details like an additional room or food when what he was getting in exchange interested him. For the time being, and likely for a time to come, Robert and Fredrick would have a firm upper hand in negotiating a trade, fair or not. Dr. Walker was like a man dying of thirst, which only knowledge could quench. Between the two men could acquire and what they could share, they would be fine.

At the pantomime Thom simply nodded and left the room, returning only a moment later with a thick sheaf of parchment and couple of pencils, setting them down on the table. "There's a washroom is across the hall," he offered, setting an extra blanket he'd grabbed at the end of the bed. The ones in the room were usually sufficient, but it was a chill morning with the mist still so thick. "And a basin under the bed, if he starts to look green."

Like Robert, Thom was familiar with cleaning up whatever the human body could produce. He took care of the more unpleasant cleaning tasks, leaving Mrs. Cooper to upkeep and cooking, and was fairly certain he'd be down in the operating room mopping up the blood in short order. As long as Robert didn't need anything he could go down angst to it.

Elijah, meanwhile, had relocated to the lab with the tip of the knife in tow. Within moments he had it under an intense light, examining it through a magnifying glass, and had confirmed his suspicion that it was not, in fact, metal. His initial guess was some sort of porcelain, but that seemed hardly a practical material to make into a knife. He considered for a long moment before carefully partioning off a chip from the broken end, rinsing it in water, and setting it under the microscope.

Underneath was a series of spidery, connective arms, porous and jagged, and almost certainly bone.