"This is going to stink," Belle warns, shrugging off her tweed jacket. "If we eat dinner first, there's a chance you won't be able to keep it down. I'm sorry, but it's going to smell that bad. On the other hand, it's possible you'll lose your appetite entirely after breathing in the fumes. It's your call, Nosty."
Her voice is low and quite serious, but Belle's blue eyes crinkle kindly around the corners.
His very survival depends on reading people's faces and bodies. Ever since he was a wee beastie, he's been able to swiftly determine who will hit, who will cower, who is posturing, who is pished, and who has fuck all to lose. It's easy enough to see that Belle is genuinely glad to be here with him at the hospital, discussing supper and options for nit removal. What he can't be certain of is why. Most likely, 'here' is a favorable alternative to being elsewhere. She seems a decent sort, but he doesn't trust her motives in the slightest.
"I brought soup," she says, "from the little Vietnamese cafe down the road. 'Asian Penicillin' is what my father used to call it. The ginger warms you right up and soothes the throat. Also, some medicinal chocolate ice cream." She smiles, displaying the food containers, and Nosty stares back at her, nonplussed.
"A bag of books? And now fucking soup and ice cream? Just what the actual fuck are you, some kind of sanctified social worker?" He rests his head against the back of the upright hospital bed and narrows his eyes, appraising her.
"A professor, actually. I teach at King's College." Belle reaches across his blanket-covered lap and presses the button that summons the nurse. "Film and theatre studies. Occasionally a literature course when someone is away on sabbatical."
Her manicured hand is resting near his injured wrist, and she stares for a spell at the stained gauze.
"No, I'm not a saint or a social worker or some kind of bleeding heart. What if we just say…I feel I owe you? If you hadn't taken up my side, I could have been cowed into saying goodbye to my brother before I was ready. So thank you, for that." Belle tentatively brushes her thumb over the back of his hand, and, fucking hell, her eyes have gone watery. Birds cry over the slightest little thing.
"You didn't seem cowed," Nosty says, hastily moving his hand out of reach.
Nurse Ratched reappears in the doorway, looking put out. "Yes, luv? You needed something?" She ignores Nosty, addressing a spot just above Belle's forehead.
"You forgot to undo the restraints, ma'am," Belle explains patiently, "and we need to take care of this in the bathroom with the fan on so as not to bother — " Without looking, she gestures to the silent patient behind the privacy curtain. Belle would rather not be reminded of the days she spent on the other side of this room.
"Yes, yes, I'll send an orderly in. You behave yourself, Nosty," the nurse instructs pertly, ignoring his breathy, insubordinate little laugh and the 'V' he flicks at her back with his free hand.
"So…food first, or the unsavory bit?" Belle inquires, looking on as a weary fellow arrives and unlocks Nosty's ankle and uninjured wrist. There are red marks from where the cuffs have rubbed him nearly raw. Her mind skitters off to the angry, red track marks that marred James's arms and feet.
Now, there's a third option that Nosty is silently considering: he could take his things and fucking go. All he wanted was a bit of a holiday, and what did he get for his troubles? A manky blood infection.
He isn't some sorry stray who needs to wag his tail for a charity meal. If he wants food, he takes food. Simple as that. He takes it from cafe tables, from carryout places that don't yet recognize him and his boys, and from trash cans, if the need arises. A warm bed is harder to come by in October, but he's slept rough on the streets of London since he was twelve, so flyovers and doorways suit him fine. The coppers recently moved his gang along from under Blackfriars Bridge, so he'll likely find his boys beneath Waterloo. They act like fucking knobs while he's away. Probably blown through all their cash on hand already.
Now, contrariwise, if ever there were someone he could tap for a tenner, this is the lass. With her silk-lined jacket and expensive leather boots, he could likely tap her for a great deal more than a tenner. It's useful to have acquaintances with steady paychecks and open pockets. Most likely, he's some kind of surrogate for her dead junkie brother. Nosty suspects that, at least while she's grieving, Belle will fetch him anything he's of a mind to name. Fuck, he could probably say he doesn't fancy chocolate ice cream, and she'd run out straightaway and fetch him a different flavor.
Also (and this is the deciding factor), his head really does fucking itch.
They settle on supper first, which Nosty consumes with messy, hurried gulps. Belle picks up her pace and offers him the pint of ice cream. It has little bits of gooey brownie mixed in. She accepts only one bite, letting him have the rest all to himself. He finishes the carton before she's gotten around to her last spoonful of soup.
In the lavvie, Nosty sits on the wee, plastic fold-down seat meant for invalids. Belle offers him a hand towel to press to his mouth and nose, then slowly tilts his head back so that it's resting on her splayed, outstretched hand. She carefully, meticulously pours rubbing alcohol over every section of his scalp, working it into the base of his locks with the pads of her fingers. Even with the towel held tightly to his face, the stench truly is awful.
After emptying the entire bottle, Belle wrings out the excess, and covers his hair with the shower cap, pulling it taut and creating a tight seal.
"Don't lean forward," she warns, "It's torture if it gets in your eyes. We'll give it a little time to work." The daft lass stands behind him, holding his head in both hands while the nits slowly suffocate.
His jugular is exposed, and he fucking hates it. Belle's eyes have strayed from his hair to his neck, and they linger on his ink. If she knew what that little swallow tat signified, Nosty doubts she would be so willing to cradle his head and rinse this shite out of his hair.
"You look pretty fucking young to be a professor." He figures it's better to select a topic of conversation before she does. From this awkward angle, he watches Belle's dimples appear. She really is fucking nice to look at, even if it's staring up her nostrils.
"I'm adjunct. No permanent job yet. But, yes, I finished my doctorate earlier than most. Doesn't it make you feel better, knowing you're in the hands of a doctor?" She grins at her own joke, and he unconsciously mirrors her, if only for a moment.
Remembering himself, Nosty decides it's time to take the piss out: "So you teach people how to watch movies."
"And plays. And sometimes how to read books." She's still smiling. It's clear she loves her job. "Let's rinse this out now."
The rinsing takes even longer than the application. Belle is very gentle and very thorough. The warm water and the way her fingers press and scratch against his skull is tranquilizing. If it weren't for his arched, exposed neck, he could pass out right here in the lavvie. Fuck, he's tired all of a sudden.
"You're not worried you're going to catch some kind of fucking disease doing this?" Nosty asks when she leans him forward and hands him a towel to pat his hair dry.
"Afraid of nits?" Her brow furrows. "I'll just wash my hands after. Is disease something you're worried about? They can run any sort of test you like here, Nosty."
Sorry he brought it up, he presses his lips together and concentrates on toweling off. Belle sees him to bed and promises to visit the following day. She says she'll bring him another pint of chocolate ice cream.
After that first night, the days begin to bleed into one another. He sleeps for long stretches, then Belle arrives with a pastry in the morning or takeout and a movie in the evening. During one visit, she's red-eyed and remote, and he gleans that she just saw her family off to the airport after her brother's sparsely attended memorial service. While they're both watching the hospital telly's grainy screen, he let's her rest her hand on his arm. From then on, Belle comes earlier and stays later, and he finds himself glad of it.
Nurse Ratched runs a full screen on him, likely at Belle's urging, and Nosty's fuckstruck to discover he doesn't have any of the dozens of types of nob rot he rightly ought to have. Makes him want to go out and get himself a gobble just to celebrate.
After a week, Belle returns to work, and Nosty takes particular delight in hearing about the homework she's dishing out. When she asks why he's interested in her pop quizzes and writing assignments, Nosty responds with a shrug: "Schadenfreude, sweetheart. 'Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.'" She laughs and stares at him longer than he's strictly comfortable with.
And then, early one evening, Belle exits the hospital elevator and hears the stern nurse spit out Nosty's name. Her voice is shrill, and she sounds as if she's at her wit's end.
"It's time for you to go, Nosty. I swear on my grandmum's life that I'll see your girlfriend gets her things. But you cannot, you cannot, spend all day and all night in my lobby waiting for her. It's time to go."
"Not causing anyone any trouble, am I?" Belle hears Nosty reply in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. Yet, when she rounds the corner, she can tell by the twitching of his fingers that his limited supply of self-control is nearly exhausted.
"You're causing me trouble, because I've had to watch your ugly mug pacing my halls for the past six hours. I swear, I'll give your posh miss her books back. Oh, thank God, here she is. Can you get him out of here? He was discharged this afternoon."
Nosty spins to face her, and it's strange to see him in his street clothes, the red kilt pulled tight around his narrow hips.
"They discharged me…" he begins.
"Six hours ago!" The nurse cuts in. He ignores her.
"I wanted to see you got your things back. Thanks for the food." He hands her the canvas book bag and turns to go.
"Nosty! Wait, I have something for you," Belle tugs a business card out of her wallet and scribbles furiously across the back of it. "If you ever need anything, anything at all, here's my cell number and home address. Please don't hesitate…" He takes the card from her outstretched hand, staring at it.
Now she's rummaging around in her jacket pocket. "There's something else…" She pulls out a bracelet, made of heavy, expensive, silver chain links. Nosty recognizes it from two weeks prior. Her brother died wearing it.
Belle holds out the bracelet, and he stares at it, grinding his teeth. Just what the actual fuck is she thinking? A bloke could get killed over an pricey piece of jewelry like that. He'd fall asleep on his pallet and wake to a crazed junkie hacking away at his arm.
He meets her blue eyes, so kind and hopeful, and realizes it's time to kill this, whatever this is between them.
"I know you loved him, Belle, but I am not…fucking…him."
Ignoring the offered gift, he rips her business card to emphasize each word, then lets the pieces scatter around their feet.
Nosty turns on the heel of his boot and strides down the hall, into the elevator, and then out of the fucking hospital, back into his world.