[closed to Watson] maladies georg, who gets harmed over 10,000 times a day,

[theotherright]

Who: Watson and Arthur
What: Much-needed medical consultation
When: Beginning of October
Warnings: Starvation and disordered eating will come up, will add more as needed


Arthur couldn't tell you why he's been putting off consulting a doctor.

It's not because of the flowers, though they were a good excuse to stay in. It's not just stubbornness, though he's sure it looks that way. Maybe it's the fear of what a doctor might ask, or what they'd be able to tell. Maybe it's the feeling that if he tries to better his lot here, he's accepted that he isn't going back to John.

It could, he admits, be argued that those aren't good reasons.

The flowers are gone, taking an excuse with them, and Arthur takes that chance to force himself down to the infirmary. He's just going to hang out there and hope to run into Watson. Yes, he could ask somebody for Watson's number instead, but he's private anxious painfully aware that he would never send that text down this way anyway, so why not?

He takes a book with him, so that he can, you know, stand sitting down there for more than three minutes.

Comments

[theotherright]

"Please, it's -- ah. Thank you -- it-it's quite all right. As you said, we haven't properly talked, really." The last thing Arthur wants is for a fuss to be made about his sight, unless he's good and ready to initiate it himself. Simply perceive him as little as he does you please thanks.

He pushes his cane out ahead of him, and the ball at its end rattles informatively across the floor until he finds the offered chair. He identifies the front, pats the seat, touches the arms, and sits.

While Watson's seeing to the door, Arthur's considering how best to explain his problem without inviting too many questions about the missing information. "Thank you for listening, Doctor," he says in the meantime, even though he hasn't actually shared anything to listen to yet. "I realise it's an imposition."

[lightconductor]

"It's not an imposition at all," Watson says, returning to his own seat. "Quite frankly... well, it seems important that someone here takes this role, and as I am able to, it may as well be me."

Which is to say it's his own personal mission that he has given himself.

"I am always glad to be of service in whatever way I can."

[theotherright]

A smile, small but warm, moves onto Arthur's face at that. Watson really seems like good people. (And, incidentally, also the most wonderful case of nominative determinism. He's probably heard this a dozen times, more if he comes from a world with them, but there's this series of detective stories--)

"Well, I appreciate it," he says softly. Then: "Well, I should, er, get to the point, then."

He leans forwards slightly and rests his forearms on his knees, cane between his fingers, twisting it in restless circles. (One of the fingers, which he's kept to his side until now, is, well, black. Black and shrunken past the last knuckle, and held in place by little roots.)

"It seems that the Erda attempted to pull me here a second time, from a later point in my life, with the result that I experienced a few months i-in my world without ever leaving the ship." Not his world, very much not actually his world, but he's trying to make this the short version of the story. "All this to say, I had trouble, trouble eating right for those months..."

He's tense, and there's a flat, droning quality to his voice, like he's practiced paring down everything into those few words, unemotionally delivered.

"...and of course here, the situation is better, but I can't seem to... to shift it. The exhaustion and pain and malaise that I am certain must be worse than before. I realise the solution is to eat more and make it up, but I feel worse when I do, and--" He's talking faster now, unhappily animated. "--I've been advised th-that my body has forgotten how to safely eat, which sounds-- would sound invented, did the effect of eating on me not speak for itself."

Pause. Normal voice again, self-consciously: "So I, I would like advice on solving that issue, if you have any."