Re: quicklog: atticus/matt
[Atticus was obviously right that he hadn't been killed at the door, but the comment about slighting women didn't earn him much more than a grunt from downstairs while he was still fixing the fire.] Feel lucky. [At Atticus cheerful promise to lie, he just rolled his eyes.] Get one of the ghosts to make themselves useful. [It seemed like a reasonable request, if the implications of 'battery' meant what he thought they did.
Matt watched as the prospective patient nudged up his glasses and got to work reading. He was an attentive listener to a good reader, watching Atticus' face as he worked his way through the passage. He liked to read, but this one hadn't been on the list just yet. Maybe he listened a little too closely. It made something in him rise up, want to make a sound.] Only the cheerful stuff for the invalid. [Dry as a bone, but, at last, a flicker of a sly bemused smile.
He stood, dropped his coat on the second bed, then crossed to Atticus and knelt there, because there were no chairs on hand and it seemed like a better idea than craning his body over him to check his vitals.] The ghosts could at least empty the fucking ashtray. [Observed caustically. They really weren't pulling their weight around here. He reached for Atticus neck with his right hand, two bare fingers. If he let him, he took his pulse, and looked for marks while he was at it.]
Matt. [He was looking at his fingers, but he glanced up. This close, Matt had the nicks and thin, small marks of scars in some unusual spots - peeking out from beyond his hairline, near the edge of the shell of his ear, and at his collarbone, sliding under his shirt on the left side and out of sight.] Try not to go by names that got declared dead in Brooklyn about seventy years back. General policy. Any residual symptoms?