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kittydesade) wrote2007-02-10 08:02 pm
kittydesade) wrote2007-02-10 08:02 pm
Entry tags:
[Fic] Old Man Hands
Title: Old Man Hands
Fandom: Kingdom Hospital
Prompt: Yellow
Characters: Dr. Gottreich (II), Paul
Word Count: 1,076
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Doctor Gottreich has corrupting hands
Iodine had long since ceased to stain his hands, already wrinkled and yellow. They did not shake, a danger of old age that he was successfully and gratefully avoiding, but they were creased and the skin callused and the tips of the bones beneath his fingers could almost be felt by the sensitive bodies they poked and prodded. They often the first thing before the children's eyes when he began attending them, and sometimes the last thing they saw in life.
"Pass me the, er, scalpel."
His nurse gave him what he fancied a disapproving stare, but she was forced by protocol and status to obey. It didn't matter what she thought, at any rate. He knew what he was doing.
Of course there was always that faint buzzing in the background, something to do with the lights or the new wiring he had had installed that they had never quite fixed. It bothered him when he permitted it into his consciousness. It bothered him more that some of the nurses said it sounded like screaming. Of course it didn't. They were ridiculous, and could greatly benefit from psychiatric care. Unfortunately he was not in charge of their care and could not recommend it.
He made a careful incision along the back of the subject's neck, exposing the base of the skull. This was nothing in particular, this was a build-up of water on the brain, pressing down on all the parts of the brain that enabled the person to function. A swelled head, in the truest sense of the word. He let out the blood and water easily, stitched the poor boy back up again. He would feel better by morning.
The doctor went and washed his hands, the red coming off but the chemical yellow still staining his skin. Under the light it made his hands look even more unhealthy, pallid and green. Like some sort of consumptive, never mind that he had never been sick a day in his life that was not at someone else's hands. The nurses, for bringing in unhealthy meat. Leaving the window open so that the cold came in. Foolish women.
He scraped the worst of the bodily fluids and remains off of his instruments, made sure that which was supposed to be sharp was, that which was supposed to be pointed was. The bloodstain here, the mucus there, it bothered him less than it did some of those new, more squeamish doctors. Sterile technique, indeed. Horse-hooey and poppycock. Merely doctors who were afraid to get their hands dirty.
"Nurse, would you see to the patient…" There were moans coming from behind him in the surgery, evidently she wasn't doing her job. Surrounded by incompetent women and feeble-minded, fearful doctors. He had no wish to use any of them, but even with his remarkable and ground-breaking experiments he could not be everywhere at once. He would have had a difficult time, he admitted, dealing with all of his patients' problems if he did not have at least a few more pairs of hands.
"Nurse, would you see to the patient!" The moans hadn't stopped. He was getting annoyed.
There was a shuffling sound in the back, bodies moving tables and trays. "I'll see to him, doctor," she said, in that insolent I-know-better-than-you tone. Stupid bloody women. He wished he could find better help, but they were the best to be had out of the bad lot that had crawled up north from New York and Boston. Unfortunately the north was where his practice was best suited. Any number of mental degenerates and young persons in need of his experimental psychosurgery.
Doctor Gottreich pushed the door open and stepped down the hall to his prized possession, one of his most revolutionary patients to date. The boy in the tank, what was his name, Paul. Prone to starting fires, bullying the other children, but under the influence of his tank he became calm, docile. They were already seeing an improvement. If things kept on along this vein he would be sending the boy home to his parents soon. But see him again within two months for treatment again, of course. If matters improved, the treatments would lessen, but the would never fully go away.
A trans-orbital lobotomy would improve his personality tremendously, but his parents would hear nothing of it. Gottreich snorted, pushing the doors to the resting room (as he called it) open.
He had such quaint names for the areas of his laboratory, his hospital. Given to them by the patients, but he allowed it because he rather thought it reassured them. The pain room. The resting room.
The boy was floating in the tank, stripped bare of everything except the apparatus that let him breathe, suspended in salt water the weight and temperature of the body. Deprived of all that outside stimulus that drove him mad. The doctor put one yellowed, stained hand to the glass to feel the temperature.
A fist pounded the glass where his hand was, loud in the silence. A ghastly, boyish grin beamed at him from the smoky green glow of the tank.
Doctor Gottreich stumbled back, one hand flailing into a wall of sample tubes. Two of them cracked, spilling bodily fluids and glass all over one valuable hand. He screamed, more in anger and surprise than pain. He would be pulling glass out of his hand for an hour after this.
"And it is your fault!"
Paul was floating in the tank again, for all outward appearances oblivious to the doctor's rage. The little brat had done it on purpose. "And for that," he snapped. "You will spend an extra two hours in the tank."
One angry hand pushed the door open nearly hitting a nurse in the face. She didn't matter. What mattered was getting the glass out of his hand and cleaning the cuts so that they did not scar and create an inflexibility in his hand. His beautiful instrument of medicine and healing. There was more iodine in the medicine room, and he sat on the stool and pulled out each little shard, cursing to himself as he did so. A little swab of iodine on the hand, bright yellow surrounding dark black red. Not the first time he had been cut, and it wasn't the last. He knew how to take care of his hands. His hands and his patients. Two things he knew very well.
Fandom: Kingdom Hospital
Prompt: Yellow
Characters: Dr. Gottreich (II), Paul
Word Count: 1,076
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Doctor Gottreich has corrupting hands
Iodine had long since ceased to stain his hands, already wrinkled and yellow. They did not shake, a danger of old age that he was successfully and gratefully avoiding, but they were creased and the skin callused and the tips of the bones beneath his fingers could almost be felt by the sensitive bodies they poked and prodded. They often the first thing before the children's eyes when he began attending them, and sometimes the last thing they saw in life.
"Pass me the, er, scalpel."
His nurse gave him what he fancied a disapproving stare, but she was forced by protocol and status to obey. It didn't matter what she thought, at any rate. He knew what he was doing.
Of course there was always that faint buzzing in the background, something to do with the lights or the new wiring he had had installed that they had never quite fixed. It bothered him when he permitted it into his consciousness. It bothered him more that some of the nurses said it sounded like screaming. Of course it didn't. They were ridiculous, and could greatly benefit from psychiatric care. Unfortunately he was not in charge of their care and could not recommend it.
He made a careful incision along the back of the subject's neck, exposing the base of the skull. This was nothing in particular, this was a build-up of water on the brain, pressing down on all the parts of the brain that enabled the person to function. A swelled head, in the truest sense of the word. He let out the blood and water easily, stitched the poor boy back up again. He would feel better by morning.
The doctor went and washed his hands, the red coming off but the chemical yellow still staining his skin. Under the light it made his hands look even more unhealthy, pallid and green. Like some sort of consumptive, never mind that he had never been sick a day in his life that was not at someone else's hands. The nurses, for bringing in unhealthy meat. Leaving the window open so that the cold came in. Foolish women.
He scraped the worst of the bodily fluids and remains off of his instruments, made sure that which was supposed to be sharp was, that which was supposed to be pointed was. The bloodstain here, the mucus there, it bothered him less than it did some of those new, more squeamish doctors. Sterile technique, indeed. Horse-hooey and poppycock. Merely doctors who were afraid to get their hands dirty.
"Nurse, would you see to the patient…" There were moans coming from behind him in the surgery, evidently she wasn't doing her job. Surrounded by incompetent women and feeble-minded, fearful doctors. He had no wish to use any of them, but even with his remarkable and ground-breaking experiments he could not be everywhere at once. He would have had a difficult time, he admitted, dealing with all of his patients' problems if he did not have at least a few more pairs of hands.
"Nurse, would you see to the patient!" The moans hadn't stopped. He was getting annoyed.
There was a shuffling sound in the back, bodies moving tables and trays. "I'll see to him, doctor," she said, in that insolent I-know-better-than-you tone. Stupid bloody women. He wished he could find better help, but they were the best to be had out of the bad lot that had crawled up north from New York and Boston. Unfortunately the north was where his practice was best suited. Any number of mental degenerates and young persons in need of his experimental psychosurgery.
Doctor Gottreich pushed the door open and stepped down the hall to his prized possession, one of his most revolutionary patients to date. The boy in the tank, what was his name, Paul. Prone to starting fires, bullying the other children, but under the influence of his tank he became calm, docile. They were already seeing an improvement. If things kept on along this vein he would be sending the boy home to his parents soon. But see him again within two months for treatment again, of course. If matters improved, the treatments would lessen, but the would never fully go away.
A trans-orbital lobotomy would improve his personality tremendously, but his parents would hear nothing of it. Gottreich snorted, pushing the doors to the resting room (as he called it) open.
He had such quaint names for the areas of his laboratory, his hospital. Given to them by the patients, but he allowed it because he rather thought it reassured them. The pain room. The resting room.
The boy was floating in the tank, stripped bare of everything except the apparatus that let him breathe, suspended in salt water the weight and temperature of the body. Deprived of all that outside stimulus that drove him mad. The doctor put one yellowed, stained hand to the glass to feel the temperature.
A fist pounded the glass where his hand was, loud in the silence. A ghastly, boyish grin beamed at him from the smoky green glow of the tank.
Doctor Gottreich stumbled back, one hand flailing into a wall of sample tubes. Two of them cracked, spilling bodily fluids and glass all over one valuable hand. He screamed, more in anger and surprise than pain. He would be pulling glass out of his hand for an hour after this.
"And it is your fault!"
Paul was floating in the tank again, for all outward appearances oblivious to the doctor's rage. The little brat had done it on purpose. "And for that," he snapped. "You will spend an extra two hours in the tank."
One angry hand pushed the door open nearly hitting a nurse in the face. She didn't matter. What mattered was getting the glass out of his hand and cleaning the cuts so that they did not scar and create an inflexibility in his hand. His beautiful instrument of medicine and healing. There was more iodine in the medicine room, and he sat on the stool and pulled out each little shard, cursing to himself as he did so. A little swab of iodine on the hand, bright yellow surrounding dark black red. Not the first time he had been cut, and it wasn't the last. He knew how to take care of his hands. His hands and his patients. Two things he knew very well.