[Sounds whumpy. Kinda is. It really isn't. Don't judge the first sentence.]
[Also, not responsible for my take on British hospital locations to Baker Street. I just sort of made it up.]
Hamish may have started crying somewhere between the pain of smashing into a magazine rack and careening into a wooden door with brass lettering. The snowstorm pretty much made it impossible to tell whether he was legitimately weeping or just reacting to the cold, and that was probably better for everyone.
He tried the door handle. It was, by some mercy somewhere, not even fully closed. He darted inside as if hell hounds were at his heels.
With the door closed, silence descended. Hamish was alone to wheeze in the hallway.
Soaking wet, he trundled his hurt and pathetic, self-loathing body upstairs. His head was currently divided. One camp wanted him to turn around and leave this place at that moment, before he lost every shred of dignity he had left. The other, the winning side, was whispering you'll die out there.
He always knew he was melodramatic, and dying was probably unrealistic, but at the moment he was too fucking scared at the prospect of ever leaving this complex again for the streets of London that he didn't even give a shit how much his eyes were blurred or his hand trembling as he raised it to knock at 221B.
The door cracked open within three seconds. Three long, agonizing seconds out on the steps. Hamish was still reasonably certain he was having a panic attack, or going into shock. He wasn't sure which he'd prefer. He thought maybe one sent you to the hospital, and the other required some hugging in front of a lit fireplace.
John opened the door, mug of tea in hand, which he promptly spilled all over himself when he saw the blooded, soaked teenager he'd thought had left them for good hours ago.
"Hamish!" he gasped, setting the mug on the floor and ushering the teen inside. Hamish bit his cheek to stop from moaning with relief when the Doctor locked the door. His eyes closed. He felt very, very safe behind that door.
John's hands were on his face, checking the scrape on his cheek. Hamish was so cold he didn't feel any of the probing fingers to his cuts, which were coming away red.
"Sherlock, get the kit, and some towels, and blankets, and maybe—"
"Got it, John."
All of this was said distantly and far over Hamish's head. An arm was leading him away from the soft living room and into one of the no-nonsense kitchen chairs. Hamish felt John start unzipping his jacket and shuffled back into half-consciousness.
"Sorry for leaving," Hamish slurred. His eyes closed again, partly out of the pain of John worrying his shoulder, and partly to avoid the look John was giving him. He didn't even want to start processing what other people might be feeling, now that he was on sensory overload.
"It's—fine, Hamish. I'm glad you came back; now tell me, what hurts?"
"Every…" Hamish struggled for a second to gain a breath. His throat was really beginning to bother him. "My shoulder. Right one. Took a fall."
"His throat, John," Sherlock's voice slipped into the make-shift examining room. A pile of towels and blankets tumbled to the floor, the medical kit going to John.
"Right," John stood and tipped up Hamish's chin. "I'll start with that. Sherlock, help him out of his shoes, would you?"
Hamish would've protested, but between the order to 'not move' from John, an incapacitated shoulder, and a bone-deep weariness, he hardly said a word as Sherlock crouched down to undo the wet, knotted laces.
"Swelling a bit, but nothing more than bruising," John muttered, carefully probing Hamish's neck. He put two fingers on his pulse and went silent. Hamish focused on trying to even out his breathing. "You'd do better if you stopped having a panic attack," John announced, cool as a cucumber. Hamish smirked at the thought, and coughed when he forgot to breathe. He took a long, even breath, counted it out to four, and then did it again. John picked up a towel and started to part his face free of water.
"If you feel like you're suffocating, say something." Hamish wanted to send him a questioning look, was that sarcasm…or? But a towel was quite in his face.
Hamish twisted uncomfortably, but the sensation was gone momentarily. John reached across for the alcohol swabs, some medical tape, and Neosporin. He crouched down a little to get a better look, setting about cleaning the large scrap across Hamish's face.
Sherlock had stripped him of his shoes and socks and had put a towel under his feet, folding the ends over to cover his toes. There came a long and semi-awkward silence, where Hamish was aware his heartbeat had slowed to almost normal levels, and he could see fairly clearly now, and there was nothing to distract him from being in the flat he had left so urgently earlier that afternoon.
His skin started to burn as John applied the alcohol. It hardly dented the pain everywhere else.
A minute later, tape applied, the Doctor stood back a little to observe his work.
"The shoulder, too, yes?" John asked, rolling the bloodied swabs together and throwing them in the bin. Hamish nodded, trying his hardest to not be present in the building at the moment. "We'll have to take your shirt off, so I can look," the Doctor almost sounded apologetic. Hamish half-shrugged and sat up straighter. The shirt was pretty damp and cold, and honestly he was looking forward to getting it off. John helped him ease it off his bad shoulder. Hamish, now half-naked in the kitchen, shivered violently. Water dripped feely from his hair.
He turned to take a look at his shoulder, see what damage had been done, but a towel was suddenly and surprisingly covering his view. He stiffened as two hands started to rub his hair free of water.
"Careful with the bandages, Sherlock," Hamish heard John say. His heart skipped a little bit. Is Sherlock Holmes seriously drying off my hair? He would've spent a little more time thinking about that, but then a bar of iron-hot pain laced through his shoulder and he spat out the worst curse he could think of, squeezing his eyes shut.
A steady hand gripped his other shoulder, and then a gentler touch continued to probe the bad one. This time, slightly more prepared, the pain was less, but it still throbbed like a bitch. Hamish was temporarily in need of the towel to distract him. John dug through the medical kit for a moment, dragging something out of the bottom. Quick as a whip he was fastening a white cotton sling around Hamish's injured shoulder. He winced as John placed his arm in it, but the pain soon relaxed back into a dull throb.
"Right, your collar bone might be fractured," John stood up. The towel was whisked off of Hamish's head. "At worst. I don't think it's broken, but there's little to be said for caution. Is Molly working tonight?" This last was directed over Hamish's head.
"Yes, I believe she is," the sound of a mobile coming to life, "want me to check?"
"Yeah, we'll need an x-ray, but he…"
"Not to worry," Sherlock started tapping swiftly at his phone. "I'll warn her we're coming."
John walked over to the door and unhooked a heavy, fleece jacket. He walked back over to Hamish, "Here, I would give you a jumper or something, but the less we move your arm the better. Just slide this over your shoulders." Hamish nodded mutely, standing and letting John drape the jacket, which Hamish held with his good hand.
Leaving Hamish there, John went over to whisper to Sherlock. Hamish though about the prospect of going back outside and found he really wanted to sit back down. He almost wanted to ask John if he was going to bring a gun with him. He collapsed back in the chair, forcing himself to stay calm.
Fear was the decided factor on whether you lived or died, and Hamish had stayed alive from the age of thirteen on London streets. His fight or flight response was quick to surface, and the answer was almost always flight.
"How are you going to call a cab in this weather?" Hamish called out into the living room. It was the one restriction he could think of being a legitimate block from keeping them from the hospital. John quietly swore.
"He has a good point, Sherlock." John sent his flat mate a long, hard, you know what I'm thinking, look. The Detective, who was reading a reply to his message, caught John's facial expression and stepped back.
"No, John," Sherlock shook his head, once, firmly. "Absolutely not." The two glared at each other, and John backed down first, seemingly not wanting to start a fight.
John took out his own mobile, "Do you happen to know a cab company's number off the top of your head? We'll have to call one in, unless you want to stand out in that for half an hour."
Sherlock opened his mouth to snap out something probably sassy. Most unfortunately, his phone rang at that moment. He stared at the screen through the second ring, looking incredulous. Quickly, before it could go off again, he answered and into the receiver hissed a hostile, "No."
"Who is that?" John stepped closer to Sherlock, but the taller man waved him off and walked angrily towards the window. John followed him, "Is that Mycroft? Hello? Sherlock, no, tell him we need a car." Sherlock was deathly silent, his lips sealed together, ignoring John completely. The Doctor tried a different tactic, "Sherlock Holmes, if your brother is offering us a ride that I don't have to pay for and you turn him down, so help me—"
"John, if you do not stop interfering I will—"
"Sherlock, we need a car, stop being such a prat and let your brother lend us one!"
Sherlock glowered at John, his phone half-off his ear. "If ask for anything…" something from the phone distracted him, and he turned away, listening. Hamish watched, disinterested. The way his night was going, his father would be knocking on the door with a warrant in about three minutes, just in time to ruin everything.
Well, of course, you ruined things first by leaving, an evil voice hummed in his head.
Hamish closed his eyes. Yeah, sometimes blame just always seems to tag itself to me, he thought, only a little sarcastically. He was so tired, but leaning his neck too far to any side caused hard, flashing pain to make him sit upright again. What if he did walk outside and his father was there, patrolling the area in his cop car, bleeding but alive? What if he saw his runaway son with two older men, getting into an unmarked car? Would he follow them to the hospital? Pull them over and demand his child back?
Hamish had thought he'd struck a decent deal in the note he'd left behind. Let him leave, don't seek him out, and he wouldn't take his evidence to the police and have them both arrested for child abuse and drug trafficking. The physical evidence had been saved to several websites and a flash-drive he'd buried in a box in a cemetery, but that was all useless to him if he got caught by his father and locked in his house until he died. It was all useless, really, because all he wanted was freedom from them. The threat was merely damage he would exact if they put an alert on him.
They never did.
He licked his lips, heart thrilling in his chest. Maybe I should tell them, he thought, just in case. Just in case we do get pulled over, so they won't be taken by surprise.
Sherlock was muttering tight-lipped into the phone, John staring at him with arms crossed but looking triumphant. Hamish tried to calm his breathing, which was currently inflaming his throat. He started to feel a little light-headed. Calm the fuck down, he commanded himself, closing his eyes. Just tell them the barest facts.
"There, it's done," Sherlock threw his phone at the couch. Hamish couldn't see their expressions but he thought, maybe, John was smiling.
"Thank you, Sherlock," he murmured patiently.
"They'll be here in fifteen minutes."
Panic socked him in the gut. Hamish stood immediately and was hit with a wave of exhaustion. His collar really did hurt. Going to the hospital and getting laden with drugs was starting to look like a good idea. He stumbled to stand against the dividing wall, ignoring John's admonition for him to sit down before he passed out.
"Listen," Hamish swallowed and fixed his eyes firmly on Sherlock's left leg, something that wasn't spinning. His knees were tired and weak. He really needed a rest. "Listen, there's something you need to know before we go out there." He trailed his eyes up, forcing himself to look both of the flat mates, turn-by-turn, in the eye.
John, surprisingly, jumped the gun. "Is the person who did this to you out there? Did they follow you?"
Hamish was taken aback, "Wha—well, yeah…maybe, I know they didn't see me come in." He swallowed and fixed his eyes on the floor, remembering the feeling of his father's crushing grip, the promise of a threat that was neither overdramatic nor empty. "Maybe…they might…be out there. When we leave." He shook his head.
The line crossing into truth was one he hadn't walked in a long, long time. It was terrifying, the thought of telling the truth. No one had ever believed him before, no one wanted to. It was so much easier to manipulate people by saying what they wanted to hear. Yes I'm eighteen. I'm on the way home, I just can't afford any cabs. He bared his teeth against the suffering of truth told before. "It's a police officer."
There. The truth.
He bent his head and stared down intently at the cracks in his floor. The sound of footsteps rapidly approaching him made him cock his head to the side and prepare for the catfight. Too much to hope for, he thought dully. No one ever believed. Not when he was living at home, not when he was homeless, had nothing to lose. Police officers were beyond reproach, after all.
John was holding on to him, at the elbow, the bad arm. Hamish prepared for a violent rattle, as was always accompanied this type of thing. He turned grim, black eyes on John, his mouth twisted into a gritty smirk. Of course, you too, it said. Hamish's eyes clouded. He thought about how peaceful it'd been before he'd seen the inside of this flat.
"Hamish, I will sooner shoot somebody than let the person who did this to you walk within thirty feet of us, officer or no." John held the boys gaze, stony and sharp with a soldier's intensity. A promise.
Hamish felt some of his resolve crumble. It was his dream, living. John was offering to protect him from this mysterious police officer. He believed him, unconditionally. Hamish, the street rat. Hamish, the juvenile criminal. Hamish, the liar.
"He's my father," Hamish breathed, to see what he would do, say; searching for a change in John's expression, a look of horror, disbelief, the fatal words no, that's impossible, he wouldn't do something like…
John's mouth thinned, a look very much like fury passed his eyes, but the grip and resolution remained the same. Hamish relaxed. He flicked his gaze over to Sherlock, but the long legged detective was facing away from them, throwing his phone into the air and catching it, over and over again.
The flat was silent for awhile. Hamish shrugged John off after a minute and focused on leaning on the wall without falling asleep. John sat heavily on the couch, head resting back, up towards the ceiling. Sherlock stood by the window, tapping his phone to his mouth and staring through the snowstorm.
Within ten minutes, Hamish felt he had catnapped and remembered suddenly that he was without shoes or socks, and they would be leaving soon. He peeled away from the wall and padded over to where his patched old sneakers were still beneath the coat rack, slipping them on and wiggling his heel for a better fit.
"Your brother's sending a car, right?" Hamish asked lowly, bracing against the wall.
"Yes, the car should be here soon," Sherlock answered from across the flat. Hamish nodded and rested his head on the plaster. He felt he could sleep for a year, but by pressing his injured cheek against the wall, he felt the pain was sharp enough to keep him awake.
"Car's here," Sherlock announced, startling Hamish from his pain-hazed revere. John came around the couch and pulled his own shoes on. Sherlock went through his usual routine, coat, scarf, settling into the role of enigma, his eyes flashing and catching Hamish's. They were alive with questions and assumptions and deductions. Hamish ducked. How could you think him to ever be calm?
Hamish avoided his gaze as much as possible. He felt embarrassed and battered and under the scrutiny of one such as Mr. Holmes, it was like all his faults had been amplified. But John was ushering them out the door and the three were heading downstairs and out into the snow bank London had become. Hamish kept his head down, out of the wind, but couldn't resist looking carefully up and down the street as they walked. No patrol car. No officer with a baton. The cold bit harder with only a single layer to protect him, and he was grateful the car was directly before them.
They were safely wrapped up in a black car before Hamish knew it. Blinking snow off of his eyelids and sandwiched between the flat mates as he was, it took him a minute to take notice of the man sitting in the seats facing them, limousine style car that it was. Hamish blinked at the man, noting his waxen complexion, calculating eyes, strangely foreboding but not scary atmosphere. Much like a strict, posh English father-type Hamish used to mock with his school friends, years ago. Hamish risked a glance at Sherlock, and saw him staring resolutely out the window.
"Good evening Mycroft," John greeted brusquely, looking apologetically at the other, silent, man.
Mycroft's eyes were fixed, however, on the teenager stuck between them. "Good doesn't quite touch it, John," the man replied, tone courteous. His gaze was starting to unnerve Hamish. "Nice to finally meet you," he inclined his head in Hamish's direction. "I am Mycroft Holmes." Hamish frowned a little and tried not to be too nervous, ignoring how stiff Sherlock was beside him.
"I'm, uh, Hamish," he nodded vaguely, attempted a bit of a smile, "nice to meet you too." He rewarded himself for not squeaking by looking quickly at the floor. His shoulder hurt like hell. Eventually, staring at the floor got boring, so Hamish switched to looking out John's window. He felt like Sherlock might catch his eyes if he looked out his. Driving through London like this, with the blow of the storm, allowed them to have a decent view of what little unlucky foot traffic there was.
In ten minutes they passed what looked to be a developing crime scene, the glow of red and blue lights attracting Sherlock's attention as well. Hamish leaned in to John, curious. The car slowed as it went around the small police barricade, allowing them a nice, long look.
Hamish's stomach dropped. He couldn't help gulping. It was the little corner store he'd crashed through a magazine rack and injured his collar at. The hole in the window where his father had hit was fairly large, and there was a noticeable gap in the group of police cars, as if there had been an ambulance.
Hamish knew London well. Very well. There were countless hospitals and clinics and specialty surgeries, he walked past them all the time. On this side of London, there were only two hospitals that had emergency rooms and sent out ambulances.
One was St. Barts, the other the University Medical Hospital. Guess which one is closer to this store, a voice crowed in his head, guess which one they would've shipped your daddy into?
Hamish closed his eyes and leaned back against his seat, hoping against hope he was wrong, or his father hadn't been to the hospital, or that he would be long gone by the time Hamish got there.
A.N- I had to stop it before it got ridiculously long. This was going to be a kind of time-amorphous, disjuncted telling of Hamish, but uh, that didn't happen. Sorry. I don't understand why lots of you like it, there are at least 30 alerts here. I'm not a review whore. I rarely review what I love. Alerts mean just as much to me. Thanks so much for reading guys! I'll get on the next chapter soon. There will be slightly more fluff, dramatic fluff though.