2. Well, I might call you Doctor.

[bestsir]

Who: Harry Goodsir and OPEN
What: Doctor's hours
Where: Harry's cabin, around town
When: Anytime during October, early November
Warnings: TBD

It's taken some weeks—including the awful voices and even, ironically, the words of Cornelius Hickey—for Goodsir to finally act on advice he'd given to Edward Little when they'd first arrived.

He starts by placing a notice on the board. Then he starts scavenging the town for all the medical supplies he can find, consolidating a store of them in his cabin. What he does manage to find, in combination with the contents of his surgeon's chest, isn't nearly as much as he would like, but it will do.

He has learned much, these last few weeks. That disease and infection is caused not by miasma, by tiny animalcules that may be spread by various forms of contact, and that wounds must be kept clean—disinfected—thus averting festering and gangrene. That there are compounds in food that keep the body healthy, and that not all foods contain those compounds. He tries not to dwell on the lives he might have saved with that knowledge on the expedition, and to focus on the here and now. As he said to Little: to live, and do what good he can.

And to try not to let his hatred of Cornelius Hickey consume him.

Comments

[jackdawvision]

Another Edward drops in sooner or later, with no real injuries, just a curiosity that draws him from the notice board to Dr. Goodsir's cabin. The first thing Goodsir might hear is the sound of footsteps on the roof, because Edward Kenway is the sort of person who prefers taking to the rooftops than staying on the ground, and the gentle thud of a body hitting the ground and rolling.

Edward knocks on the door after that, brushing the snow off of his clothes, and when it opens, says, "So you're a Navy surgeon?"

[friendsfordinner]

"Mister Goodsir!" said in a sing-song, perfectly shitty tone of voice.

It's your best friend in the whole world.

Hickey pushes open the door of Harry's cabin, not even bothering to knock, blatantly being nosy as he takes in what's here, what Goodsir's collected, what he can possibly slip into his own pockets for his own use. "You've been keeping busy," Hickey muses, well aware that he's being a humongous shithead.

[questioningmermaids]

Crazy things happen when Holland March's coping mechanisms start to dwindle. The insane idea that maybe he should help around the place has been rolling around his mind since the beginning, of course, but why would he want to do that when he can chain smoke and drink himself into a nice little nest of purposeful ignorance?

His booze is almost entirely gone and somewhere in between raiding the houses for more bottles of anything he can get his hands on and shuffling around living rooms for packs of cigarettes, he's found a first aid kit or two. Not a lot, since most of it's been picked over already, but a quick glance at the notice board tells him there's someone who knows what they're doing. A surgeon, even.

"Dr. Goodsir?" March says it the moment he opens the door, not bothering to knock with one arm holding three plastic white rectangular boxes. He's got his rose tinted aviators from home on his face--they do wonders for how bright the sun is on the snow--and lifts them from his head, squinting as his eyes adjust to the light.

[bestsir]

Goodsir is organising the various medications that he's scavenged from other abandoned buildings, and now he has a collection that mingles the glass bottles from his own medicine chest with various plastic bottles of painkillers, vitamins, rubbing alcohol, iodine, and other items. He looks up when March enters and nods in greeting.

"Yes—can I help you?"

[bestsir]

Goodsir is standing right there, thank you very much, currently organising the books on the shelves. He's recently scooped up a few more texts of interest and is adding them to his collection.

When Hickey sails in, it's all he can do to not throw the battered Gray's Anatomy that he's holding at the man's head.

"As have you, if I'm not mistaken," he says. "Is there something that you need, Mr. Hickey?"

[bestsir]

The sound of something landing on the roof spooks Goodsir badly—then there's the knock on the door.

Cautiously he opens it a crack. When he sees it's Kenway—whom he recognises by sight if not by name—he opens the door wider.

Kenway will now see that he's holding the first thing he grabbed as a weapon when he heard the footsteps on the roof: a television remote control.

He lowers the remote. "I—yes. Yes, I am. Or I was. Do you—do you need aid?"

[questioningmermaids]

"Hey. Holland March," he introduces, and then almost immediately and incredibly unceremoniously dumps the three first-aid kits he'd hoarded right onto the nearest surface.

"For you." A beat. "From my basement." Mostly. March's eyebrows lift, settle, and almost immediately he begins to pace around the room, casing it. Old detective habits die hard. He's already got a million questions, but introductions first, right?

[bestsir]

There is a table onto which the kits can go, and Harry stares for a moment before picking one up. A smile spreads across his face.

"Mr. March! Thank you for this! What luck for you to have found them."

[jackdawvision]

"Not really, no," says Kenway, with a shake of his head. "But I did come by to ask if there was anything you might need. Food, drink, supplies, weapons." He eyes the remote control in Goodsir's hand, and says, dryly, "You may need the last one more."

A remote control is not an effective bludgeoning tool, unfortunately.

"Edward Kenway, by the way," he adds. "I used to be a sailor myself." He doesn't mention that he used to be a pirate—best not to bring that up just yet, unless Goodsir outright asks him.

[friendsfordinner]

"I just wanted to see your situation," said with a smile that can only be described as 'shit-eating' and 'troublesome.' He's very visibly taking a look around Goodsir's house, trying to get as much information as he can, reveling in the fact that he's a pest.

"After all, who knows. I might need to enlist the help of your skills. Easy enough for a man to be injured hunting or trapping. You wouldn't deny being of use to your fellow stranded, would you?"

[bestsir]

Goodsir has cleared some shelves and arranged various boxes and crates there, labelled with things like BANDAGES and DISINFECTANTS and MEDICINES. This front room of the cabin was once a sort of living and dining space, but is now on its way to becoming an examination room.

One that Goodsir would very much like to not have polluted with Hickey's presence.

"I would be remiss if I didn't provide aid where it was needed," he says. Which Hickey will undoubtedly see for the evasive answer it is, but Goodsir doesn't really care.

[bestsir]

Goodsir looks at the remote control in his hand and puts it down in that embarrassed way someone acts when they're trying to pretend they knew what they were doing all along. He opens the door wider to admit Kenway, if he wants to come in.

"I was hardly a sailor, as was often pointed out to me," he says wryly. "And I was more naturalist than surgeon, though I have studied and practiced medicine and anatomy."

Kenway will see that the main table in the front room is a bit of a jumble—Goodsir has a fair amount of gathered medical supplies and is trying to get them organised.

"As to supplies—of course I will welcome anything that you might find," he adds. "And ... I daresay something to defend myself wouldn't go amiss."

[questioningmermaids]

"Yeah, sure. I just found them around," March insists as the kits are set down, because he absolutely wasn't trying to hoard things for a brief moment in time.

...he was, but now that's just mostly the alcohol. As Goodsir and his alarmingly swanky facial hair examine the supplies, March occupies himself by having a proper look around, moving to the little baubles that very clearly aren't originally in the house. The urge to touch them is strong. He won't, but he is eyeing them pretty closely.

"Your note, by the way. Lotta letters. Not the message, the titles. 'RCSED?'"

[jackdawvision]

Edward comes in, and takes note of the medical supplies on the table. Makes a mental note to himself to keep an eye out, perhaps head farther out to see if there's anything at all they can use. The town's not so small that they've picked it all clean, right? Perhaps there's still a few houses that hold supplies they haven't found yet.

Hopefully, anyway.

"I've a flintlock pistol," he says. "To start you off with, if you wish. It ought to be familiar to you, aye?" Moreso than the handguns, at any rate. "And a kitchen knife," he adds. "You may have been more naturalist than surgeon, but you've a background and experience in medicine, which means you're a great deal more qualified than most."

Especially Edward himself, whose own experience with anatomy is more along the lines of where best to stick a six-inch steel blade in a human being.

[bigbaddy]

To be honest, Bigby was waffling for a good few days after seeing the notice on the board. There are quite a lot of upsides and downsides to the idea of going to see this surgeon, and he isn't really sure which outweigh which in the end, no matter how many times he tries to circle the same thoughts around and around in his mind.

.. in the end he just decides to go.

So there's a knock on the door of Goodsir's cabin, and if the man opens the door, he'll find a fairly gruff-looking man standing there.

".. sir," he says, though something is a little uncertain about his voice as he says that word, like the man isn't used to using a whole lot of politeness.

But he realises he's coming here to ask something, and though diplomacy through anything but his fists isn't exactly his strong suit, he's trying.

"I saw your note, and I have what's probably a pretty odd request."

[friendsfordinner]

It is a remarkably evasive answer. Hickey walks inside, taking a look at everything, before sitting down on top of one of those crates, absolutely polluting the vibe of the examination room.

"You know, I missed out on some of these crates. Glad you manage to find some." And hey, don't mind Hickey as he looks over at the crate labeled 'medicine.' He really wants to see what's in there.

"You've been busy. Not just here, but with chatting up those here. I talked with Miss Kate Marsh recently."

[bestsir]

"Well—thank you very much," Goodsir says. He starts unpacking the kits—he's been separating them down to their component parts and re-organising the contents into larger containers by type.

"Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh," he explains, in answer to the question. "I studied there as an anatomist, and was curator of the Surgeons' Hall museum for a time."

[bestsir]

"I have never fired a pistol or gun of any kind," he admits ruefully. "I should be afraid of blowing my own hand off. I have my scalpels and saws, of course, but ... were I to find myself in danger, I don't suppose they would do very much, would they?"

[bestsir]

Goodsir opens the door—recognises the man, having seen him about, but doesn't know his name as yet. He nods in greeting, then—

"Of course—please, come in."

He opens the door, admitting him to a room that was once a sort of living/dining/kitchen room, and which is slowly being converted into a medical consulting room.

[bestsir]

The contents of the "medicine" crate are mostly plastic bottles—the pain medications and other tablets and things gathered from around the town. The more dangerous compounds are tucked safely away elsewhere.

At the mention of Kate's name, Goodsir almost flinches.

"Miss Marsh did tell me she'd spoken to you," he says, giving Hickey a very direct look. Go on then. Tell me your version of it.

[jackdawvision]

"Eh," says Edward, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "No matter, I can teach you how to use a pistol. We'll start without the gunpowder and ball, I don't have very much in the way of ammunition and you need your fingers intact." He'll have to figure out how to make his own bullets somehow, in the meantime.

He pauses a moment, thinking. "A scalpel could do a great deal of damage with enough force," he says, with the voice of someone who has experience ramming sharp objects into a body with enough force to do significant damage. "It's a matter of knowing where and how much." This is a very disturbing thing to say very casually, and judging from the rather rueful smile, Edward's aware of it.

"But here I am talking weapons," he says, "when I simply wanted to say hello and check on the only man of medicine in the town."

[friendsfordinner]

"Really?"

Oh color him interested.

"What did she say?"

[bigbaddy]

"Thanks."

The word is mumbled more than it's actually said, like the man might just die if he would properly thank someone out loud. But really, Goodsir actually bothering to help other people here and even allowing him in too is at least worthy of some gratitude, even if Bigby sucks at expressing it.

He does follow the other to the room, actually bothering to take a seat on whatever chair might be in there. Bigby sits there faintly awkwardly. Even though he's not really a super big guy, he sits on the chair as if he is - like there's something larger about him than his physical stature.

"Something has changed about my body ever since I showed up here," he explains. Perhaps a little too direct or blunt, not giving Goodsir the opportunity to really ask what's wrong or what Bigby's request is before the man is already throwing it out there. "So I was wondering if you could take a look and see if there is something wrong or different about me."

.. It's all a touch vague, huh. Like he's purposefully wording this in the vaguest possible way, avoiding mentioning directly what has changed as he looks at the other man.

[bestsir]

Yes, that is indeed rather vague. Goodsir frowns slightly and tries to work out the best way to phrase the questions that are forming in his mind.

"It will be difficult to ascertain what's changed, as I don't know what you—what your condition was before," he says. "Could you—it might help if you could explain a little of what concerns you."

[bestsir]

Goodsir considers a moment, then shrugs.

"I heard from her that you've decided to be generous with your supplies," he says, as if that was all they'd spoken of. As if he hadn't warned her away from Hickey, or she hadn't repeated his comments about morals and practicals.