Re: quicklog: atticus/matt
[He didn't comment immediately on Atticus' opining over the ghosts. He was focused on matters of the physical just now. Ghosts would follow.] Eaten anything recently? [Whiskey, it seemed, did not count as a food group.
Matt's checkered history as an ad-hoc medical resource wasn't long, and much of it had been with animals rather than people. Many of the principles remained the same, but malaise in a human being attacked by a vampire and followed by ghosts? He couldn't precisely compare that to malaise in an animal, except that unseen illnesses could cause apathy in both.
He had almost totally left the cold of downstairs behind him now. Atticus, bare and warm, provided an earthly human alternative to the ghostly chill and ancient history. He listened to Atticus read while he marked his pulse, removing his fingers before the last word finished.] Pulse is good. He sounds like a heel. [The bite marks were healing normally, and Atticus had good color with a strong heartbeat. It was difficult to judge without knowing what to look for, but he felt decently confident that someone slowly succumbing to vampirism would at least have gone a little pale.
The breath of smoke didn't trouble him, though he blinked once, sharply.] Were you raised in a barn? [He asked with amusement for Atticus' blatant disregard of smoker's etiquette, and his voice canted sharply into Brooklyn, as it did on occasion.
He hadn't stood up just yet, so he was still beside the bed when Atticus reached over and flattened his fingers against the sliver of scar tissue exposed by the collar of his shirt. It didn't take a lot of guessing to figure out where it rooted - it was on the left, six inches from the cleanly defined shoulder of the metal arm under the stretched cotton. He didn't exactly know what to make of it, and he was good at reading people, as a rule. A requirement of the position.] I could. [He nodded.] But I don't. It isn't mine anymore. It's alright to say when you're beat.
[It was rarer than Atticus knew that Matt let anyone get in his personal space, let alone allowed them to put hands on him. Decades of being handled and bridled like a fucking horse would do that to a guy. He was usually an intimidating enough physical presence, stalking in and out of rooms, that nobody tried. He had about a dozen fast thoughts about things like physical threats, compliance, and Atticus' warm fingers that sparked up unruly and absolutely out of fucking nowhere.
He didn't get up, and he didn't pull away. He didn't so much as rock back on his heels.] I didn't know. Glad she's with you. [He knew PJ was having some trouble, and Atticus was the right person for her to stay with, especially if she was keeping him fed while he was busy posted on this bed, reading, smoking, and drinking.
If his thoughts were inscrutable, his eyes were, at least, sharp. Atticus was definitely drunk. The whole bed stank of whiskey and smoke to his oversensitive nose, and the fug of a human being who had spent too long laying there. There was a second - and it didn't last long - where Matt/Owen looked all of his age, thirty rather than ninety and ageless. Apparently he was still capable of being surprised by something.] No.