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John's eyes feel full of sand. It must be past midnight, and he's been up since five – too much of that time on his feet. His left shoulder aches fiercely, from carrying a heavy bag, and at every step his right leg feels as though a knife is being driven under the kneecap. His right hand is spasming nearly as badly as the left, from clutching his stick for hours without respite. He is exhausted, and cold even with his jacket, and gut-crampingly hungry.
Part of him wishes he'd walked past Mike Stamford that afternoon. Mike might have seen him, recognized him, perhaps bought him coffee or even – He cuts that thought off. He'd made the decision without thinking about it: seen Mike in the distance and at once turned in the other direction, avoided being seen by anyone who knows him. Better to turn the other way than to face – he knew – Mike's awkwardness, his uncomfortable politeness, his eventual eagerness to get away. Or, worse, Mike's pretense not to have seen him at all.
He glances around, and then cautiously turns down an alley. There's a spot here, in the angle formed by two walls: he might be able to snatch a few hours' sleep. He has a newspaper in his duffel.
He's not sleeping wrapped in newspapers. Not that, not yet. Just sitting on one, against the chill and damp of the pavement; putting a couple of sheets behind him, to save his clothing from the grimy wall. Not the same thing at all.
It's not as if he's at Vauxhall Arches with the bin-liner-and-shopping-trolley lot. He's just … between places, that's all.
Tomorrow – today now – is the thirtieth. Saturday. He's got enough change in his pockets for two cups of tea – one Saturday, one Sunday. Load them with sugar, for the calories, and that's breakfast. Lunch … walk, same as today. Dinner, a cup of hot water with a sachet or two of sauce, call it tomato soup. Just two more days, then it will be the first of the month and his pension will be in. (A year ago this time, a few days on his feet – even on short rations – would have been nothing.) Just two more days. Not that long.
Mike might even have put him in touch with someone who could offer him a job –
(sinecure for a cripple – )
Exhausted and distracted, he doesn't realize he's been followed into the alley until he hears the footsteps. Three sets of them. Not trying to hide it, he looks back. Kids, late teens at an estimate – hard to tell with the light behind them. Probably they flatter themselves that they are moving like predators. “Oi!” one calls, seeing that John has noticed them. “Old man! Where you going?”
John sighs. “What do you want?”
“Just want to talk to you,” one voice calls. And another: “What you got in the bag?”
John puts his back to the wall, sets the bag down at his feet. “Nothing of interest to you.” He shifts his body slightly, aware of the comforting weight in his belt, at the small of his back.
Laughter. “Well, how do we know that?” And, “Come on, give us a look, old man.”
Old man. Frail, crippled, limping, helpless – prey.
In the shadows, John braces his legs and shifts his grip on his cane, holding it now about halfway down the shaft. “Look, lads,” he says, keeping his voice steady. “I don't have anything valuable. Why don't you lot go that way, and I'll go this way, and then nothing bad will happen to anyone?”
“But nothing bad's going to happen.” The boys are close, now, hardly a body-length away. “Not once you give us that bag, and maybe that nice warm jacket.” He can see what's in their hands now: one is grasping an empty bottle by the neck, one something that looks like the handle of a hammer, one a foot-long scrap of iron. No blades, although he knows what could be done with that bottle.
John sets his jaw. There's little in the bag he can afford to lose – and still less the jacket, not with February still to get through. But he can afford no more to use the gun – and if he's forced to use it, he can't run away. He bites down, hard, on the surge of excitement. Eagerness?
“Good evening,” a new voice calls, from the alley's entrance. “Is this an open-admission mugging, or do I have to buy a ticket?”
The tone is lazy, amused, the accent achingly upper-class. John swears under his breath. Now he has to divide his attention between the three boys and this newcomer – he catches a glimpse of a long dark coat, but no more. “You just keep walking, mister,” one of the boys snarls.
“Oh, but I'm interested.” The man's long strides have brought him to within a few metres. “It's amusing to observe just where people's mistakes are made, even in something as simple as basic arithmetic.”
The biggest of the boys turns to stare, confused. He's obviously just stupid enough that incomprehension will invariably shade into anger. “What's arithmetic got to do with it?”
“Well, take the equation you thought you'd worked out tonight, right here. Three's necessarily greater than one, right? The units being equal, of course, which wasn't stated at the beginning. You assumed that, you and your friends.”
The three of them have turned away from John, are approaching the newcomer now. He seems unperturbed by their air of overplayed menace. “You thought because there were three of you and only one of him, you must have him outnumbered.”
With all the strength in his arm, John brings the weighted head of his cane down across the nearest boy's kidneys.
The boy's scream seems torn out of him with hooks. He goes to his knees, clutching at the small of his back, shrieking. His friends turn on John, snarling, one with a hammer handle, one with a bottle.
The tall man leaps at them, arms windmilling. He gets in one good punch, sending Hammer Handle across the alley to sprawl, unconscious; then the third boy's bottle impacts with his ribcage, comes down across his skull. It doesn't shatter, but he sinks to hands and knees, dazed. The boy aims a vicious kick into his ribs.
As he draws his foot back for a second kick John swings his stick, low, and the boy goes down. The bottle does break, now, as it flies from his fingers. He rolls onto his back, and John plunges the cane's head into his solar plexus. Draws back for the killing blow to the throat (enemy action he attacked that unarmed civilian do what's necessary), then manages to step away (Jesus, Watson, this isn't a battlefield, it's fucking London and they're just kids).
Fumbling, breathing hard, he gropes for his duffel. Surveys the situation: three attackers out of commission, one friendly in need of medical help. “Come on, lad, off your arse and on your feet,” he says, hauling the tall man upright. (Blunt head trauma with probable mTBI, rule out skull fracture, haematoma, contrecoup injury; possibility of rib fractures, rule out internal injuries; conscious but dazed, ambulatory with aid, safer to move than to remain in position.)
The main road is quiet, almost untrafficked; one or two cars, a couple of delivery vans. And – there, blessedly, the slick black high-sided shape: “Taxi!” John and the taller man shout in chorus.
John propels the man into the seat, drags the bag in and dumps it at their feet. “The nearest A&E,” he says to the cabbie.
“No,” the man says. “Not necessary. My flat – Baker Street. Two-two-one.”
John sighs. This is a bad idea. “Two-two-one Baker Street,” he repeats to the driver. “As fast as you can reasonably get there. I'm not saying you should drive like you've got a couple of bloody American tourists in the cab, but be reasonable.” As the cab pulls away, he tries in the changing light of the street lamps to examine the other man. “Damn. You don't have a pen torch, do you?” he asks the cabbie.
“I've got one.” The tall man fumbles in a pocket of his coat, hands John a pocket torch. It's difficult to do a proper examination in a moving car, but John at least manages to make out that the man's pupils are equal and reactive. “I hope you've got money for this ride,” John murmurs.
“What?” The man blinks. “Oh. Of course.” He shifts his position, pushes his wallet into John's hands, relaxes back against the seat. His eyes fall shut.
“Oh no you don't,” John says. “Stay with me, son, talk to me. Now's not the time for sleeping.” He pats the man's cheeks vigorously as the cab pulls up to an address just off Regent's Park. John thrusts banknotes at the cabbie, manages to get himself, his cane, his patient, and his bag out of the cab, manoeuvres the swaying man to the building's door.
And then, somehow, pain knifing into his leg at every step, he gets self, cane, bag, and patient up the flight of stairs.
Unceremoniously he drops his bag just inside the flat's door, the man's wallet atop it. He strips the man's coat off, discards his own jacket, not bothering to find a place to hang either. He barely takes time to glance around the room. “Where's your toilet?” he says.
The man points vaguely. Leaning heavily on his cane, and with the taller man leaning as heavily on him, John makes his way to the little room. Not closing the door, he lowers the man to sit on the seat. “Look at me.”
Absently he'd pocketed the torch earlier. Now he checks the man's eyes again. Still equal, still reactive, and as he watches they seem to snap into focus – full consciousness. Satisfied for the moment, John turns away and addresses himself to the sink. “Best get that jacket off, shirt too,” he instructs over his shoulder.
Water, hot, at full force. He rolls up his sleeves. There's a bottle of antibacterial handwash – consumer grade, not betadine nor hexachlorophene, but it will do – and a nailbrush. He washes thoroughly. Behind him the man is stripping to the waist, wincing at intervals. John shakes water from his hands. “Let me see your head.”
Obediently the man leans forward. John examines the huge lump under the dark hair, not quite black, darker than brown. The skin is unbroken. “Your head's clear now? Can you tell me where you are?”
The man sighs. “I'm in my flat at two-two-one-B Baker Street. Which is in London,” he adds with exaggerated patience. “It's early the morning of January the thirtieth, two thousand and ten, the Queen of England is Elizabeth the Second, the Prime Minister is – oh, I saw it a few hours ago.” He snaps his fingers. “Brown! Gordon Brown. And you – I'm fairly certain – are the man who rescued me from the muggers I was trying to rescue you from.”
John manages a brief, close-lipped semblance of a smile. All the smile there has been for him in – how long? “Oriented in place and time. Very good. How's your vision? Any blurring, double images?” The man shakes his head.
“I'm going to move my finger. Follow it without turning your head.” The eyes are sage green, with a trace of epicanthus and a dark spot in the right iris: haemorrhage? Pupil abnormality? No, just heterochromia. But – oh, shit. The man's gaze moves quickly to his right … then slowly, in a series of small jerks, to his left. Quickly to the right, slowly to the left. Better get him to A&E after all –
“Pre-existing and idiopathic, possibly congenital, not progressive,” the man says.
John blinks. “Sorry – what is?”
“The nystagmus. I've had it at least since I was three. It doesn't interfere with my vision. Comes and goes, doesn't bother me in the slightest.”
John holds his breath for an instant, then releases it. “That's good, then. Any ringing in your ears?”
The man moves his head slightly, holding up a hand as if to request silence; then, “None.”
John wraps the man's left hand around his: “Squeeze.” Then the right: “Again.” The grips are firm and symmetrical, with no tremors. “Pull my hand towards your shoulder – good. Now the other. And, push it away, towards me – good – and the other. Yes, good. Can you stand?”
Too quickly, the man gets to his feet, and has to steady himself. He's young, in his mid-twenties – no, John corrects mentally, seeing the fine creases around the eyes, closer to thirty. Tall, slightly built, but still too thin for his height – no more than ten stone, probably closer to nine. Fair complexion. Skeletal structure apparently normal. (John does not allow his eyes to linger on the neat rows of needle scars marking the man's left arm.) Two separate bruises forming on the lower left chest – one from the bottle, one clearly a boot mark. He palpates them gently. “Breathe in, as deeply as you can.”
“Don't worry about it, it's just – ”
“Breathe. In.”
Looking put-upon, the man inhales. Suddenly the breath seems to catch, and his lips tighten against his teeth. Gently, John brushes the larger, boot-shaped bruise: “Pain there?
“Just a bit. Nothing severe.”
“How do you define 'severe'?”
“When I can't stand up.”
“Any abdominal discomfort at all?”
“No.”
“Would the statement 'You have a broken rib' persuade you to come to A&E?”
“Probably not.”
John sighs irritably. “Do you have any surgical tape?”
The man nods towards the cabinet. “Top shelf.”
John opens it, passes the man a bottle of paracetamol – “Two” – and locates the roll of micropore, 5cm wide, still in its blister pack. He opens the package as the man swallows two tablets with a cupped-palmful of water. “Raise your left arm.”
Wincing slightly again, the man draws his arm up. He adopts an air of deliberate, almost histrionic boredom as John applies strips of tape, wrapping them around his entire left side, midline to midline. “Fine – arm down,” John murmurs. “How's your breathing? Does the tape pull?”
The man inhales experimentally. “Only a bit.”
“Breathing restricted?”
“Moderately, but that's what it's for, isn't it?”
“Very good. Oh, and no smoking for a week.” John makes a mental note to check for Kehr's sign at the first opportunity.
The man scowls at him. “Are you quite finished?”
“Almost.” Not asking for permission, John seizes the man's right hand, moves the fingers experimentally. “At least you know how to throw a punch without fracturing or dislocating anything. There – done, get dressed. And best ice that hand before the bruises swell.” He reaches for his cane and exits the room.
The tall man follows him, then disappears into what's apparently a bedroom. John moves quickly through the kitchen – the table is occupied with, bafflingly, an assortment of laboratory glass, some of it in use. A cupboard stands open and completely empty. “Afghanistan or Iraq?” the man calls.
John freezes. “ … Sorry, what?”
“Which was it? Afghanistan or Iraq?”
“Afghanistan. How did you – ”
“Have a seat, make yourself at home. Well, you might have to move something.”
Beyond the kitchen is the living room, piled high with boxes and clutter – obviously the man's just moved in. There's a skull on the mantelpiece, not a cheap toy but either the real thing or a medical-school-quality model. “I'm good. Actually, do you mind if I freshen up?” John calls back. Seize the opportunity. At a vague “Mm” from the bedroom, he retrieves his duffel from the doorway, places the man's wallet on the coffee table, hurries back into the bathroom.
When he emerges, the man is dressed in fresh clothes, half-reclining in a leather armchair, with one arm across his eyes and the other hand wrapped in a glass cloth, lumpy with ice. “Is your shoulder bothering you at all?” John says.
The man doesn't move. “No, I have no referred pain from internal injuries. Thank you.”
(Great, one of those. Reads a bloody Wikiwhotzis article and thinks he's a medical expert.) “Good. Is there anyone I can telephone?”
Now the man moves his arm, only to scowl at John. “Why?”
John speaks patiently. “Maybe I didn't make it explicitly clear, but you do have a concussion. You need to be kept under observation – ”
“Not necessary,” the man interrupts dismissively. “I'm perfectly capable of observing myself.”
“This is not negotiable.” John takes his mobile from his pocket, snaps it open. “Either you give me the number of someone who can come over and keep you company for the next eight to twelve hours, or I call nine-nine-nine and get an ambulance to take you to Casualty. Take your choice.”
“Well. Er.” For the first time, the man's voice is hesitant, almost uncertain. “Actually, there isn't anyone.”
John blinks. “What, no one at all?”
The man avoids his eyes. After a moment, he levers himself to his feet and heads into the flat's kitchen. “What are you doing?” John demands. “You shouldn't try to move around too much. Concussion, remember?”
With an exaggerated gesture the man switches on the electric kettle. “I'm making tea,” he says in the tone of one explaining something very simple to someone not too bright. “That is what a host does for a guest, isn't it? The whole hospitality … thing? It's a perfectly reasonable arrangement: you insist I be under observation, I have no one to come and do the observing, you'll be more comfortable here than sleeping rough which you've obviously been doing for at least a couple of nights, we both benefit. Have you got a charger for that phone? The next time you try to bluff someone with it, it might help to work with a battery that's not completely flat.”
John glares down at his lightless phone. He snatches the charge cord from his duffel, slaps it and the phone into the man's outstretched hand. “As simple as that?” he demands. “You don't know a thing about me and you're giving me the hospitality of your flat? I could be anything.”
“So you could,” the man says equably, plugging John's phone in next to the kettle. “But in fact you're an Army doctor, recently invalided home from Afghanistan. You've got a brother who's concerned about you, but your relationship with him is strained enough that you'd rather sleep on the street than accept his help. This may because of his alcoholism or because he recently walked out on his wife. I also know your limp is partly psychosomatic – but only partly,” the man says without a pause. “You did suffer some injury severe enough to call for extended treatment, which has impaired your physical stamina, although you're recovering well. That's enough to carry us through the next eight to twelve hours, don't you think?”
John is startled. And a little bit awestruck. And more than a little bit nettled. “Really?” he bites out. “Not bad at all. Impressive, considering all I know about you is that you're undernourished and borderline anemic, that you aren't in recovery from your drug addictions – they're in suspension and could recur any day – and that you're stupid enough to put your wallet into the hands of a perfect stranger you met in an alleyway.”
“A stranger who very nearly beat two muggers to death protecting me, and then hauled me out of that alley when he could have made his own escape.” The man sits down in his leather armchair, gestures John to the overstuffed seat opposite. “I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours. I know the … track marks are obvious, at least to a doctor's eye, but the rest?”
John sits down. He is phenomenally annoyed with this overgrown brat, and yet for some reason he has begun to enjoy himself. “I should make you go first. The anemia's obvious too, if you'd look at your own conjunctiva. Either take an iron supplement or start eating red meat again. Start eating – you're seriously undernourished.”
“Pfh.” The man dismisses this with a faint movement of his fingers. “Eating's boring.”
“Not nearly as boring as collapsing when your blood sugar bottoms out. As to the addictions – there's no one you can call and say 'I was mugged and I've got concussion, can you please come over'? No support system – you're trying to do it on your own. Making a good job of it, but that's not recovery.”
The man is silent for a moment. “You missed one: I don't smoke. Quit.”
“Oh? Well, people do get used to the aromas that surround them – you know how boys who spray on a whole bottle of Lynx don't realise they can be smelled from across the street. And smokers are always a bit hyposmic – ”
“Fine, I'll get my coat cleaned.” Sulkily, like the stroppy teenager John has just compared him to, the man folds his arms across his chest. “My turn now.”
John feels a bubble of amusement rising in him. “Fire away.”
The man leans back in his chair. He's enjoying himself too, John realises. “Your stance says military. So does your haircut – grown out a bit, but still obvious. You've dealt with American forces enough to pick up their idiom. Hands and face are tanned, but your arms are pale – you've been abroad, but not sunbathing. The limp comes and goes – it was very bad when you entered the alley, and again coming up my stairs, but coming out of the alley you were carrying your bag and all but carrying me, and I was carrying this.” He grabs the cane out of John's hands, makes as if to twist the handgrip off. “What's in this, anyway? Rolls of coin? Effective for self defense.”
John snatches it back. “Lead weights wrapped in gaffer tape, actually.” Had his bad leg really eased up that much in the alley?
“Ah. The point is that when you were helping me you forgot about the limp, so it's at least partly psychosomatic. This suggests original circumstances of the injury were probably traumatic. Wounded in action, then – Army doctor serving in either Afghanistan or Iraq.”
“What makes you think I'm a doctor?”
“You didn't just casually wash your hands – you scrubbed as if you were prepping for surgery. That says at least some medical training. Then you gave me a reasonably complete neurological check in three minutes, bandaged my ribs, checked my hand, tried to forbid me smoking, commanded that I be observed, and never once said, 'I can't handle this, you should see a doctor'.”
The kettle's boiling; the man levers himself upright and goes to the kitchen. “Then there's your brother. Your phone – it's expensive, equipped with every available bell or whistle, but you're sleeping in the street. Phone was obviously a gift. But it's covered in scratches, even gouges – not one, many, some nearly worn smooth. It's been in the same pocket as keys and coins. Not the way the man across from me would treat his one luxury item – they're from a previous owner. The next bit's easy, you know it already – oh, God, I love my landlady. Pull that little table up, will you?”
As John does, the man emerges from the kitchen with a tray. On it are two mugs, sugar, milk, spoons, and a plate of iced biscuits covered in clingfilm. “She brings these. I think she's trying to feed me up. You'd like her. The inscription was the key – 'Harry Watson'. The zipper pull on your duffel, tag has the initials 'JW'. Phone charger, same initials on a piece of tape – recently applied, hardly worn at all. So JW is you, the current owner, and you haven't had it long.”
John blinks, spooning sugar into his tea. “How do you know it wasn't stolen?”
“When we walked in here, I was still half stunned – you could easily have dropped me in a chair and made off with the contents of my wallet. Why didn't you?”
John stares at him. “I – ”
“Exactly. You're not a man who would do that – not only did it not even occur to you, the slight frown and tightening of your lips say you're unhappy and slightly offended at the mere suggestion. Conclusion, you're JW – and Harry Watson, HW, must be a family member who's given you his old phone.” His speech is clear and incredibly rapid. “Technology level says it's someone of your own generation, not a parent's. Could be a cousin, but you're a returned veteran who's sleeping in alleys – unlikely you've got an extended family, clearly not one you're close to, so brother it is. 'Harry Watson, from Clara' – ooh, who's Clara? Triple X – three kisses, romantic attachment. Expensive toy, that says wife not girlfriend. She must have given it to him recently, this model's only six months old. Likely a peacemaking gift, shoring up a troubled marriage – didn't work, though, six months on and he's giving it away? Now, if she'd left him, he'd have kept it – people do. Sentiment. But no, he wanted rid of it – he left her. Gave it to the person he is concerned about – he thinks about you and hopes you'll stay in touch. Eat those.” He slides the plate of biscuits towards John, continues without a pause.
“You're sleeping rough, and in the depths of winter, but you'd sooner that than go to your brother for help. That says you've got serious problems with him. Maybe you liked the wife, but more likely you don't like the drinking. Or just don't want to be around it.”
John puts his spoon down with a sharp click. “How can you possibly know about the drinking?”
“Shot in the dark. Good one, though.” The man looks pleased with himself. “Phone again – there are scuff marks around the power connection. Every night he goes to plug it in, but his hands aren't steady. You never see those marks on a sober man's phone, never see a drunk's without them.”
“And you keep saying I'm sleeping rough. Where'd you get that idea?”
The man shrugs dismissively. “You left your bag open. Jeans, shirts, underwear, all neatly rolled – even the ones that aren't clean – couple of books, coffee mug. War hero carrying all his worldly goods into an alley at one o'clock in the morning, of course you're sleeping rough. But you don't perceive yourself as homeless, and don't want others to either.”
John limits himself to an inquiring look.
“My bathroom. You washed, shaved, ran water over your head, combed your hair, and emerged in a clean shirt and smelling of toothpaste and deodorant, all in less than ten minutes. Not the behavior of a man who cares to be seen as, quote, a homeless person, unquote. I strongly suspect more of your income goes to coin laundries than to food. As to the medical issues – a look at your arms reveals that you've lost a considerable amount of muscle tone recently, although you're regaining it. And you have a few needle scars of your own – in both arms although you're lefthanded, so obviously not self-administered, and a couple are obviously from long-term PICC lines.”
He sips tea. “So, how did I do?”
John searches for words. “That … was amazing.”
The man looks slightly taken aback at this. His eyes drift from John's. “You really think so?”
“Of course I do. It was – ” He spreads his hands. “Extraordinary. Quite extraordinary.”
“That's … not what people usually say.” A hint of color actually seems to be rising in the man's face.
“Oh? What do people usually say?”
The man speaks in the tone of a quotation, enunciating precisely: “ 'Piss off'.”
John is startled to feel a real grin tugging at his mouth. “If you're like this concussed, with a clear head you must be absolutely terrifying.”
The man returns a faint smile. “Did I get anything wrong?” he says after a moment.
John is silent for a moment. “I had a bedsit, courtesy of the Army, left it to move in with Harry. Our relationship has always been – ”
(“You're in no position to criticise, Johnny. I may be a drunk, but I'm not a lunatic.”)
“ – sporadic, put it that way. I left Harry's because – well, right now I don't need to be around someone whose standard response to stress involves a bottle.”
(“Have you ever stopped to think, maybe I need a couple of drinks to help me get back to sleep after you scream the house down in the middle of the night?” Then in a nasal whine, face twisted into a semblance of a crying child's, “Oh but Harry I had a bad dreeeeeam!”)
“Couldn't get back into the subsidized place, so I've been … making do until the first of the month. The drinking is what broke up Harry's marriage, by the way – Clara moved out three months ago, and they're getting a divorce.”
“And the medical condition?”
“Osteomyelitis. Debridement, bone grafts, two consecutive six-week courses of IV antibiotics.” He doesn't mention the operation to wire his scapula back together, or the interminable weeks of physical therapy.
The man nods. “Spot on. I didn't expect to get everything right.”
John almost hates to say it: “'Harry' is short for 'Harriet'.”
The man sits absolutely still for an instant. “Sister,” he growls. “Harry is your sister.” His lips draw back in a brief silent snarl. “There's always something. She is your only family, though? I was right about that at least?”
“Close enough. Only other relatives are my grandmother and some cousins on Outer Qwghlm. Haven't seen them since I was in my teens.”
“Ah. I've been to Inner – hardly the ideal climate for someone with a mobility problem. No family except for one sibling you don't get along with – really you have no more support system than I have. Finish those.” He nudges the plate of biscuits, now half empty, closer to John's side of the table.
“You eat some. So now you think I do have a limp?” John hears the edge in his own voice.
“I never said you didn't. Psychosomatic has two roots: your limp is both psychological and somatic, and I have no doubt at all that your pain is real, wherever it arises from. Are you going to eat those? You're obviously hungry, but trying to conceal it – you keep glancing at them and then looking away. When did you eat last?”
John sits very still for a moment, dizzy with sudden rage. Charity. (Oh, eating's boring, but he can spare a biscuit or so for the – )
His eyes close for an instant.
(poor helpless homeless man)
(pathetic useless half-mad cripple)
(not even crippled, only mad, even he spotted it in an instant, soon be limping down the street twitching and talking to voices no one can hear – you saw the goddamned x-rays, there's nothing wrong with the leg, it's completely healed you're not crippled it's all in your head you're just crazy crazy CRAZY – )
Pain lances up through his knee and into the thigh muscle as he hauls himself to his feet. He sets his teeth, hobbles to the kitchen. His hand shakes uncontrollably as he retrieves his phone and charger. “Thank you – for the tea,” he manages, cramming them all anyhow into his duffel and zipping it shut. “If you feel any dizziness or vertigo, or experience tremors, nausea, any changes in your vision or balance, call 999.” He shrugs into his jacket, persistent ache reminding him that it's been four days since he had a chance to do his mobility exercises, shoulders his duffel and turns towards the door.
The man is at his elbow: “Wait. Don't go. Doctor – listen to me, wait just – ” But John is already out on the landing, trying not to flinch too obviously when he puts weight to his right leg.
As he turns to the stairs, the man is already ahead of him, a step below. “Don't. I need to talk to you, will you stop – ” But John sidesteps to get around him. Quickly the man shifts position, still obstructing the stairs.
The weight on John's shoulder throws his balance off. His cane slips off the edge of the stair tread –
His leg gives way.
An instant of horror. He's going to fall, he's falling, going to send the man down the stairs under him. Without thinking he abandons his bag and stick, reaches and yanks the man towards him, wrapping protective arms around the dark head, turning to one side so he's coming down the stairs with the man atop him. There's a cascade of whirling movement, a protesting yelp, wrenching pain in his shoulder, his feet trying to find some purchase –
Impact.
He's gasping for breath. He's sprawled on the half-landing, on his back, with his arms around the man's head. The man's full weight is on John's chest and stomach. “Are you all right?” John demands, rolling to one side. “Are you all right? No, don't try to move yet. Did you hit your head at all, even the slightest bump?” He forces the man's shoulders down, laying him flat on his back, and tries to examine his head in the inadequate light. (Where the hell is his helmet? No – no, London. The man from the alley. Shit shit shit, second concussion less than two hours after the first could be bad – )
Somewhere below, a door opens. John turns, realizing he and the tall man are still sprawled alongside each other. Someone is standing at the foot of the stairs, an elderly lady in dressing gown and hair net.
She peers up at them. “Sherlock,” she says reproachfully. “Really. At this time of night? On the staircase?”
The man (Sherlock? What the hell kind of name is that?) levers himself up onto his elbows. “Ah, Mrs Hudson. May I present Doctor Watson. He and I were just on our way upstairs to discuss going halves on the rent.”
“Really?” She looks pleased. “That's nice, then, but can't you please keep quiet in the middle of the night? Or at least take it to your flat? Nice to meet you, Dr Watson. Good night.”
The door closes below them. “Hold absolutely still,” John murmurs between his teeth. “I want to examine your head. Did you hit it even slightly?”
The man is still propped on his elbows. “No.” He's looking at John in an odd way. “I could have, but I didn't at all.”
There's not enough light in here for a proper examination. “Here's what's going to happen,” John says. “You're going to get up, very slowly. You're going to lean on me as we go back up the stairs, one step at a time, and I'm going to check you over again. Understood?”
The man starts to scramble to his feet. John grabs his wrist in a deliberately bruising-hard grip: “Very … slowly,” he says again, enunciating with care. “One step at a time. Or I will break your arm just for an excuse to phone for an ambulance. Are we clear?”
The man blinks. “Perfectly, doctor.”
John gets up, leaning on his cane. The man seems steady enough as he rises, but John still keeps a firm grasp on his arm, controlling his movements as they mount the stairs and make their way through the flat, so it's several minutes before the man's again seated on the toilet lid. “You're absolutely certain you didn't strike your head at all?” John says again.
“Not even slightly. Isn't second-impact syndrome usually a phenomenon affecting persons under twenty?”
“Follow my finger with your eyes.” John doesn't answer the man's question. He repeats the examination in clipped commands, not bothering with an appearance of bedside manner: “Squeeze. Pull. Stand up. Walk heel to toe.” The man obeys silently, watching John the whole time as if fascinated.
No head injury. Nothing more than a few bruises to the man's shoulders and elbows. “That's all,” John says tonelessly.
He hobbles through the kitchen and into the living room. “There,” he says tightly, taking the last coins from his pocket and dropping them onto the tea table. “That should cover the tea and biscuits, and your hot water that I used as well. If you experience any further symptoms, phone 999.”
He shoulders his bag and turns to the door again.
And once again, the man is in front of him. “Charity? Is that what you thought? If you did, you're even a greater idiot than most people are. What should I do, offer you in return whatever sum of money the National Health would pay you for tending to a head injury and taping up a broken rib? Or should you just eat the bloody biscuits and we'll call it even? Or just eat them because you're my guest and that's what guests do? Here. Look.” He grabs a biscuit from the plate, crams it into his mouth whole. “There. Now will you sit back down, because I need to say something to you.”
John stands still for a moment, and then turns and moves to stand beside the overstuffed chair. He doesn't sit down, but stands facing the man. “I'm listening.”
The man closes the door behind them, not quite hard enough to call a slam. “First of all, I was not in any way offering you charity. That's not something I'm capable of.” He moves restlessly about the room. “It was a simple statement of fact: you've obviously missed meals unwillingly, therefore you have more need than I do for the biscuits of which I have practically an unlimited supply given Mrs Hudson's fondness for baking. Government benefit cheques, including military pensions, arrive on the first of the month, that's Monday – how do you feel about the violin?”
John blinks. “Sorry, what?”
“I'm told that a difficult man to get along with – I play the violin when I'm thinking and sometimes don't talk for days on end, would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other. I should also mention that I have no established circadian rhythm, so the violin is likely to be heard at any hour.”
John's head is spinning with confusion and fury. “Wait. Are you offering me – ”
“I am not offering you anything, I'm – ahh.” The man looks at John, seeming fascinated. “Inequity. You brought me back here from the alley and tended to my injuries. Was that an act of charity?”
“That? It was – ” John flounders. “That was different. You needed help.”
“Imbalance perceived as balance. Aid offered to you is charity, aid proffered by you to others is needed help. Very well, doctor – ”
The man stops, facing John. “I need your help.”
He gestures, indicating the cluttered room, stacked with moving boxes. “As should be fairly obvious, I've only been here a day. The landlady owes me a favour so she's giving me a deal on the rent, but the best she can manage is still more than I can afford. Particularly considering that my primary source of income at the moment is a trust fund which is … not under my control.” The full lips curl and a flush rises in the man's face. “One condition that's been placed on it is that I not live alone. It may comfort you to know that admitting that fact is as humiliating for me as asking spare change of a stranger would be for you. So if I'm offering anything, it's the couch until morning which is only a few hours away and then the upstairs bedroom the next night. After that I am asking, as I said to Mrs Hudson, if you would be willing to go halves on the rent.”
There's a silence. Slowly John sinks into the chair. Without warning, the absurdity of the situation strikes him, and he begins to laugh.
The man eyes him quizzically. “What?” There's an odd tentative quality to his answering smile, as if he's not quite sure how it's done, or whether it's right.
John tries to sober his expression. “Nothing. Just … go halves on the rent.”
The man's smile broadens into an unfeigned grin, and then into a soft chuckle. “All right, yes. But … if you'd at least discuss it? The possibility?” He settles into the chair opposite John.
Deliberately John reaches over to the half-empty plate of biscuits, takes one, bites it in half. “I don't know anything about you,” he says around it, as if the action had not been his answer. “And you … you seem to know everything there is to know about me.”
“No I don't,” the man says immediately. “I don't know what the J stands for.”
Knowing he should want to punch this man in the face, instead John has to choke back another bubble of laughter. “John. John Watson.”
The man extends his hand and shakes John's. “Sherlock Holmes.”