Pain. That's the first thing Spencer becomes aware of as he regains consciousness. At first it's just an overwhelming, all encompassing ache, but after a few minutes he's able to start breaking it down to it's different components. His back is stiff and sore from the hard surface he's lying on. There's a sharp throb in his ankle, familiar enough from when he was fifteen and fell down a flight of stairs because he was too absorbed in his book to look up while he was walking. Sprained then? The worst of it is in his face. When he touches the bridge of his nose, where his glasses had been sitting, his fingers come away sticky with mostly dried blood. But that's nothing compared to the pain radiating from his right eye. The flesh there feels tender, swollen, and when he finally opens his eyes, he can only see a sliver of light with it.
He groans and rolls over, right over the edge of the bench he was laid out on. His arms break his fall enough that he doesn't do any more real damage to himself, but he stays on the filthy, stone floor for a few more minutes while he tries to swallow the nausea he can feel rising in his throat. It's only when he pushes up onto his hands, falters, and ends up leaning against a wall of cold iron bars that he finally starts to take in his surroundings. Through the bars, he can see the small, tidy portion of the jail that Morgan mockingly refers to as his office, which makes his blood run cold, because if the office is on that side of the bars, then that means he's on the wrong side. Worry turns to panic when he feebly tugs on the jail cell door and it doesn't move.
The bars scrape roughly at his smooth hands as he hauls himself to his feet. He hisses when he puts too much weight on his twisted ankle. Pain shoots up his leg and he sags to the side, leaning against the stone wall. His mouth is dry and sticky, and when he tries to speak it comes out sounding more like a toad croaking than actual words. Spencer bites down on his tongue hard enough that his mouth starts to water. He swallows and tries to say something again.
"Hello? Sheriff Morgan?" The words sound faint and scratchy, but they're audible and coherent, which are the important things. Even better, they cause a small flurry of activity behind Morgan's desk. There's a thud and muffled yelp as someone bumps their head against the underside of the heavy, wooden desk. Spencer's eyebrows shoot up when Reverend Hankel emerges, rubbing the top of his head with a grimace. "Reverend? What is going on?"
Hankel dust himself off, blinks owlishly at Spencer, and holds up an old, tarnished pocket watch. "I was fetching my watch from under the sheriff's desk. The chain's broken and I'm forever dropping the thing."
Spencer gives Hankel a bemused look and says, "Yes, but why am I lock in a cell? Why did Leroy Jenkins hit me? And where is the sheriff?"
"Oh!" Hankel flushes and fumbles in his pocket for a small bottle. He takes a small sip and smacks his lips nervously. "I suppose that those are more pressing matters. My apologies. I should have-" he cuts himself off and clears his throat. "Right, right. The Jenkins' little boy. What's his name? Roger? Robert?"
"Riley," Spencer cuts in impatiently. Where in tarnation did they find this man? "His name is Riley. What does that have to do with me?"
"Riley," Hankel says slowly, as if he's testing out the name. Rolling it around on his tongue to get the feel and weight of it right. "Yes, Riley. The poor boy was found in an alley earlier today. He was, um, no longer among the living." Hankel shifts and his discomfort is so obvious that Spencer briefly wonders how he'll ever manage to conduct a funeral before the meaning of what he's said hits him.
"He's dead?" Spencer asks. He hadn't known the boy well, but they'd talked a few times. Riley had been a bright, inquisitive child and Spencer had been fond enough of him to offer to teach him chess during their last conversation. "What happened?"
Hankel rocks up onto the balls of his feet, then back down on his heels as he takes another sip from his bottle. The contents seem to steady him a little and he frowns solemnly at Spencer. "He was stabbed, God rest his soul. Murdered in cold blood, from the looks of it. Mr. Jenkins seems to think you had something to do with the whole sad affair."
Spencer balks and grips the bars so tightly that his knuckles go white. "They think I killed him?"
"Well, Mr. Jenkins thinks so." Hankel fiddles with his pocket watch and leans back against Morgan's desk. "No one else seems to believe that you have the stomach to kill someone. Or at least not like that."
"If no one believes I'm the murderer, then why am I locked in a cell," Spencer asks, resisting the urge to grind his teeth. If he hadn't had a headache before, trying to get answers out of Hankel would have surely given him one. "And why are you here with me? Where's Sheriff Morgan?"
Hankel starts to take another sip, then pauses and slips the bottle back into his coat pocket, patting it through the dusty fabric. "The sheriff said that even if he doesn't think you killed the boy, he still has to consider it as an option. Although he said that he'd let you out of the cell as soon as he came back from asking people if they'd seen anything. Right now you're mostly in there to keep Mr. Jenkins from trying to hurt you any more. It's really for your own protection. That's why I'm here as well. The sheriff reckoned that, even with as upset and out for blood as he is, Mr. Jenkins wouldn't hurt a man of the cloth to get to you."
"Right," Spencer says slowly. Clearly Morgan hasn't spent much time talking with Hankel. Even Spencer's a tiny bit tempted to throw something at the man, although he has absolutely nothing to gain from it. Hankel's still talking, but Spencer ignores him in favor of hobbling back over to the cell's single narrow bench. He slumps down on it and buries his face in his hands. Morgan will get him out of this. He has to. It's what he does.
Spencer's first day in Beayue had nearly been his last. He'd been lucky enough to find a cheap, clean room at the town's one boarding house, but after he'd gotten directions to the saloon from the man at the desk, things had started to go down hill. The men at the poker table had been happy enough to have him join their game, so long as they could poke fun at his fussy clothes and almost overly refined habits. Next to them with their sturdy, practical clothing and rough, manly mannerisms, he was an oddity. And a harmless, amusing one at that.
Or at least he had been until he'd won a round. After that, atmosphere at the table had become more tense, more serious. The mood had become increasingly hostile with each hand that Spencer won until one of the men couldn't seem to take it anymore. Jacob Dawes jumped to his feet, his gun drawn and steady on Spencer, and roared thunderously, "You've been cheating! I don't know how you're doing it, but it's the only way you could possibly have won every hand you've played. Not even the devil has that sort of luck, boy."
Spencer eyed the gun nervously. Statistically speaking, getting shot at usually wasn't too worrisome of a prospect. Guns were so inaccurate that the chances of actually getting hit were slim, but he wasn't about to tell Dawes that. Besides, at this close of a range, his chances of getting hit increased significantly. He swallowed and wondered if anyone would bother to notify his parents of what had happened to him when a large black man suddenly appeared, almost as if by magic, with a scowling, voluptuous saloon girl right on his heels.
He clapped a companionable hand on Dawes' shoulder and flashed a predatory smile with more teeth than was strictly necessary. "Miss Penelope said that you folks are having a spot of trouble over here. Now, Jacob, I know you pride yourself on your poker playing, but has it occurred to you that maybe the boy is just better?"
"This ain't any of your business, Morgan," Dawes growled. "Why don't you run along and leave us decent people to handle our own matters?"
Morgan's grin widened and went flinty. His fingers tighten on the other man's shoulder until Dawes was wincing. "Now, you've got to look at things from my perspective, Dawes. You're about to start disturbing the peace, which would make a mess that I'd have to clean up. All I'm trying to do is make sure that that mess doesn't get made in the first place. You understand?"
Dawes grumbled something incoherent, scraped up his meager pile of money off the table, and stalked to the far end of the bar. Morgan turned toward Spencer and his smile turned friendly. "You okay there, stranger?"
In the years since Gideon's indirect rejection, Spencer had built up his defenses. He was friendly enough with people, but rarely let them close. Never let them close enough to effect him. It's safer to keep a distance. Lonely, yes, but so much safer. But when Morgan smiled at him, Spencer felt a thrill go through his body, like a limb tingling and prickling back to life after it's fallen asleep. His cheeks warmed and he didn't quite know what to do with his hands and he was smiling wider than he had in longer than he could remember.
"Yeah," he said, even as he pressed his palms against his thighs to stop their trembling. "I'm fine."
Spencer's so lost in his memories that he doesn't realize that Hankel's left and Morgan's returned until the rough scrape of metal on metal rouses him from his thoughts. Morgan pockets the cell key as he moves to Spencer's side. His hand is comforting when it lands heavy and warm on Spencer's shoulder, but his face is drawn and his eyes lack their usual spark of laughter. "Dr. Reid," he says in a hushed tone. "I hate to do this, but I'm going to have to ask you some questions. We found something of yours on the boy."
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Oddest advice I've ever gotten from a voice teacher: If your throat gets dry while you're performing and you can't get a drink, bite your tongue because it will make you salivate and you can swallow that. It actually works. It's saved my butt a few times.
