There weren't enough towels in the bathroom.

Gordon spent a whole ten seconds pacing in a state of fury after this discovery, considering and casting away all ideas like calling the motel reception and asking for more, because of course it hadn't looked bad enough already checking in here with Oswald fucking Cobblepot lolling at his side looking like a teenage junkie with his sallow skin and battered face, scratch that, looking like a teenage junkie hooker, and didn't that just take the goddamn cake because there wasn't any way Gordon was coming out of this looking like anything other than another bent, dirty cop and this was all. Going. To Hell.

From the grimy bedroom floor, Oswald whimpered, and Jim tore the shower curtain down in a fit of enraged practicality, grabbed the roll of toilet paper from over the john and went back to him.

No hospital. If nothing else could have convinced Jim that Cobblepot was seriously lacking some common sense, it was that. As a cop, he was used to seeing beat, and if anyone was beat, it was this man. When he'd picked him up from the gutter, he'd been stone cold out. Much easier to handle and surprisingly lightweight, despite the spill of his gangling limbs. But he'd woken up moments later just as Jim was about to sling him into the car, and had gone into a terrified, scrabbling tantrum, like a puppy about to get drowned in a bucket.

"What - what are you doing?!"

"Getting you to a hospital."

"No! No no no no -"

And damn him, if he hadn't started getting up, struggling to get out of the car, kicking at Gordon's shins with his big feet (and Christ knows that must have hurt Oswald more than it hurt him, what with the damage to his legs).

In another world, in another place this could have been funny: the cartoonish figure of Oswald in his ruined fancy suit, struggling with Jim's implacable grip, resisting being pushed inside the car by bracing his thin limbs, until Jim got fed up with it and gave him an entirely ungentle jab in the back of each of his knees. Oswald tumbled into the back seat with a howl as his ribs were jarred, and lay panting with stress, his eyes glinting in the darkness of the car.

"Just - just stay there," ordered Gordon, with a sinking feeling plucking at his stomach. He felt like he was willingly getting into a bed of poisonous snakes with his trousers down and his dick out, and he fully expected to get bitten on the ass at the very least. He slammed the car door shut before Oswald could lash out at him again. The man was a cowardly little weasel, but cowardly little weasels could fight like hell when cornered.

Oswald was silent, lying on his back across Jim's upholstery, and after a moment drew his legs up with a hiss of pain. The car's driver door opened, the car lurching under Jim's weight in the driver's seat.

"Try not to get blood on my car."

"O-of course, James. Anything y-you say." There was that tone again, the one Jim had heard before at Fish Mooney's. Cringing deference, but beneath it, steel. It was uniquely unpleasant to a cop's ears, because it was like a dog barking unseen behind a door. You never knew for sure how big an amount of trouble you were in or how long a leash it was on until you opened the door. The steel under Oswald's default sycophancy showed itself for a moment, flared briefly.

"But no hospital."

"No," Jim agreed. Things had clearly gone beyond the simplicity of hospital. This was a grade-A problem, and not even what Harvey could generally pass off as an SEFP. Somebody Else's Fucking Problem. Cobblepot was definitely Jim's problem. Wasn't it some kinda ancient rule that if you saved a man's life, that life belonged to you?

He'd never wanted to own anything less. And if he'd ever entertained any idea of hauling Cobblepot's ass back to his place, that idea was long gone.

The motel was cheap, dirty and thankfully anonymous. Jim was pretty sure he'd seen a drug deal going on in the lobby when he'd checked in, bundling the now limp and compliant Oswald along with him. Normally he'd've felt spurred to try and intervene, but now all he wanted to do was get this over with and get gone.

He spread out the shower curtain on the bed - it wasn't particularly clean anyway and better the blood got on something easily portable - and gestured with a flick of his head. "Get on."

It was frustrating to watch, but he had to give Cobblepot points for tenacity. He was clearly hurting in a dozen places and it took a lot out of him to get over that collection of hurts and up onto the motel bed.

Jim wasn't going to help him.

Not even a little bit.

Nope.

Cobblepot didn't react as Gordon put a hand under him and pushed him the last couple of inches until he lay flat on the sheet. Gordon didn't look him in the eye.

"Did it not occur to you that when I said not to come back, there might have been a careful, reasoned line of thought behind what I was saying to you?"

Dab, dab, dab. The blood on the face first, just to see how Oswald was going to cope with the discomfort, before moving onto the more problematic knife wound. Oswald lay frozen in place, his quivering hands drawn up to his chest, and flinched, twitched and blinked rapidly every time Jim's hand approached wielding the wadded paper.

"Jesus. I'm not going to hit you." Dab, dab, dab. "I mean I'm pissed at you, but I'm not gonna hit you."

"Thank you. You w-won't regret it. I mean I -"

"Shut up."

And damn if Oswald didn't flinch again, the dog cringing at the hand holding the food because it had learnt through long association that behind every small kindness lies a slap. It was so classically text-book abuse victim that Jim almost felt he should be taking notes. Instead, he tore off another handful of paper and started in on the knife wound without so much as a warning. Oswald whined and arched off the bed.

But he didn't run. No matter how much he cringed and shuddered and cried out. He wasn't moving away. If anything, by the time Jim was done cleaning him up, Oswald had shifted closer, huddling under the crude ministrations as if taking shelter.

The burgeoning sensation that Oswald trusted him was possibly one of the most unsettling things about this whole business. And what was worse was the suspicion that Oswald could predict all this, predict the way it was making him feel. Predict him.

Oswald's eyes met his, then flicked away immediately. Nerves, perhaps. Perhaps not.

Christ, he needed to get out of here.

He finished up his first aid with brusque alacrity, trying to close himself off to Oswald's still creeping closer, close himself off to everything except the wounds and the rhythm of patching them. This was a job. He'd do the same with the cleanup of a particularly messy homicide. Get into the pattern, shut off the emotion until he had space and privacy to deal with it, though he couldn't even begin to think about just how much space and privacy he'd need for this whole mess. This was worse than homicide. This was personal.

He finished up and risked bringing himself back into focus. Oswald was a dark shape on the bed, huddled up so his knees brushed Gordon's legs. He radiated helpless, like the class dweeb who's just been rescued from a dumpster for the tenth time that week by his teacher. Probably with his books trashed and his lunch money long gone. Gordon had seen kids like Oswald all the time growing up. There was just something intrinsically pathetic and creepy about him, something which drove most people to victimise him, and the rest to -

- to what? Mother him? Protect him?

The hell with that. He was leaving right now. Cobblepot could go hang.

Jim Gordon got his hand on the exterior door handle before turning back with a bitten-off snarl of frustration.

Hadn't he been protecting Oswald Cobblepot the whole damn time? What was different?

This was worse than homicide. This was personal.

"Oswald?"

"Yes?"

Harmless, frightened: desperate to please. The dog behind the door was just that tiny, half-drowned puppy.

"When you're ready," Jim said, throwing in his hand, "come and see me. Take a cab to wherever you call home."

He never felt more like a clueless stooge than when he ripped a couple of twenties from his wallet and chucked them at the shape on the bed.