Nothing wrong with a consult.

[housepital]

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

Someone's throwing a rubber ball against a door. That's not annoying, is it?

"Hey, new guy. Need you for a consult. You don't have family in town, do you?"

Comments

[notatvcharacter]

Luke doesn't look up, at the thunking of the ball. Not immediately. He takes his own sweet time, highlighting a line in the file he's poring over as he answers House. "Name's McCoy."

McCoy who is definitely not a Gotham native, if that accent is anything to go by.

He gives the page another once-over, and finding it to his satisfaction, closes the folder and flips it face-down. Then and only then does he look up. "And correct me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't sound much like a consult question."

[edsidlemirth]

"It'd throw things off if I had something to stay calm? I don't want you guys to think I'm being a moron about it, it's just really damn scary, really... I mean... haha... yeah. Yeah, I'm not adjusted to the idea. Yet. I guess it's good to know what time frame I'm looking at. It's a strategic advantage, really. I guess... oh god..."

[notatvcharacter]

"Easy, now. No one's gonna think worse of you for being a bit scared. You'd have to be an idiot not to be put off by the idea of someone mucking about inside your head."

They don't have to worry about consent, really, in Eddie's case. He's legally insane, the state's responsible for that. But he's still a goddamn human being, and deserves to not be left in the dark about what's going to happen to his own brain.

"We've got that taken care of, too. You'll be on a mild sedative, and talked through the whole thing. It won't take long. Ten minutes at least, maybe an hour at most."

[edsidlemirth]

Eddie shuts his eyes and nods. Easy. It's not stupid to be scared. "And then... we wait for it to come back? Keep on doing this until I die?"

[notatvcharacter]

"That would probably be easier on us both. After I'm done with you, you'll be put on radiation or chemotherapy -- I'm not an oncologist, so you shouldn't ask me the specifics -- to clear out the cancer the knife can't get. Then we just keep watching you, checking up on you from time to time. If you're lucky enough to go five years with no recurrence, some people would call you 'cured.'" He does, in fact, do air-quotes. "Which is a bunch of hooey that just means you haven't had anything happen in five years. You'll want to keep checking up, even after that, to be sure."

[edsidlemirth]

"But that's a long shot. No sense not going for it, I mean... beats the alternative." He keeps his eyes shut, tone a bit flat. "At what point would you know it's become untreatable? Is there a chance you could go in there, now, and find out it's untreatable?"

[notatvcharacter]

"It is a long shot. But not impossible."

There's a lot of questions, here. A lot of difficult questions, and unsatisfying answers. Lucas answers them anyway, even knowing they won't fix everything.

Tells Eddie the chances of there being something in his brain that the scans haven't picked up is almost nil. Tells him the criteria for untreatable cancers, and what they do even after that. (Keep removing what they can, treat the symptoms, take as good of care of him as they can.) It probably takes a damn long while. He doesn't mind too much.

[edsidlemirth]

Eddie is attentive, even if he's far from cheerful. It's always good to have as much information as possible, and he takes to new concepts quickly. He doesn't have problems with the technical terms, and wants pretty specific explanation. It helps to cover up not wanting to -be- here like this.

See? He can be good.