I awoke to find the sun shining much too brightly in my face. Between the fever and the radiant heat from that formidable star (and the only reason I knew it was a star was because of a brief conversation I had had with a classmate some weeks ago, when I had referred to it as a planet. He looked at me like I had two heads before giving me a lengthy explanation of why I was incorrect. We never spoke again.) Regardless, it was rather too warm for me to continue lying comfortably as I had, so I sat upright and took great pleasure in stretching myself for the first time in four days.
Having done this, I turned my attention to my foot for the first time since arriving there. Cautiously, I just barely made an effort to flex my toes slowly, and found to my very great relief that it caused me no pain. I knew that I had to at least make an attempt to move my ankle to assess the damage for myself, but I was a great deal more apprehensive about aggravating the area that had taken the most damage. So, taking deep, slow breaths the whole time, I moved my ankle in such small increments it took me two whole minutes to just barely budge it a half an inch. After another minute's worth of coaxing, however, a sharp pain impeded any more movement and I immediately gave up putting stress on it.
"I hope you're not trying to move that," the voice of Dr. Stevenson came from out of nowhere, breaking my concentration and giving me a slight start.
"It doesn't feel as bad as it looks," I supplied somewhat hopefully.
"If it is to mend properly, you must let the cartilage set and not disturb it, so no moving it. Still running that fever, eh? Open," he said, brandishing the thermometer once again. As he held the thing under my tongue, the little nurse came in with a basin of water and a cloth, which she set on the table, and left without so much as looking at me. As it should be.
"Just under one-hundred. Hmm," he nodded.
"Well, you can breathe a little easier for now, because with your temperature this high, I'm not even going to think about pulling those stitches until you have your health back, if you ever had it in the first place. Mind you, you are going to eat something after I clean this—"
"Can't you just get it over with?" I pleaded softly.
"No. You're at ample risk for infection with that fever of yours. Now get out of my light. Lie back and relax. This will only take a few minutes." He grabbed a low wooden stool from the corner of the room and placed it at the end of the bed, sitting down. I watched with nagging concern biting at me as he gently unraveled the long bandage from my ankle, not knowing what to expect. As he got down to the last blood-stained layer, I finally got a glimpse at the wound for the first time. The skin around the jaw-shaped puncture marks was bruised a horrible purple-blue tinge, and the seven stitches were caked in dried blood.
"You expect me to eat after seeing this, Doctor?"
"You'll be right as rain as soon as I clean this up and get a new bandage on it. Now, this," he began, digging into his black medical bag and pulling out a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a wad of cotton, "will feel very cold, but it does not sting."
Holding the cotton to the mouth of the bottle, he tipped it and then gently dabbed the cotton onto my skin, which immediately sent an uncomfortable shiver through me. It was cold as liquid nitrogen, and, as far as I was concerned, Stevenson was doing everything within his power to prolong the process as much as he possibly could. My hands either balled into fists or twitched uncomfortably under my back as I tried to make it through the trying process.
Even as he did this, however, I realized something odd. As bright as my room usually was in the mornings, the sun was far too high in the sky...
"Doctor, what time is it?"
"Just going on a quarter past two."
"Good Lord! Why am I sleeping so much, Doctor?"
"It's just the fever taking its toll on your body. The more you rest, the faster it'll go."
I was about to reply when he dabbed the peroxide onto a particularly sensitive cut and winced in lieu of answering him.
"Almost done," he said, wrapping the limb tightly in a white, clean new bandage and securing it with a pin.
"Your suffering is nearly at an end, but I'm afraid I must plague you further," said he, getting up from the stool and walking over to the table where the basin of water was. He soaked the cloth, rung it out, and folded it neatly.
"Now, you are going to hate me for this, but-"
"Oh!"
I gave a startled cry as he unexpectedly placed the ice-cold linen on my forehead. I would not have reacted so badly had I not ceased to pay attention to his chatter, but he pushed me back down as I started to bolt upright from pure reflex of the shock.
"Now, now, you're okay."
"That is freezing, Doctor! Why, that little—"
I halted just in time to prevent myself from hissing through my teeth the profanities that were coming to mind. Obviously that little... wench had done this on purpose.
"Did you have something to say about my niece, Mister Holmes?" He asked coolly.
I froze (no pun intended.)
"The nurse...? Of course not! How should I find reason to speak ill of her?" I sputtered quickly, actually thanking God for that ice-cold linen pressed against me, for he would think my shivering was from the cold. There was no doubt in my mind that this man would hurt me if I hadn't closed my mouth just milliseconds before it was too late...
"How, indeed. Poor Lisa is not to blame for your plight. I specifically instructed her to make sure the water was frigid. You might be hating me for it now, but it will lower your core temperature for the next few hours and make the sweltering of the fever a bit more bearable."
"Of course. Now can you please remove it?"
"Oh, hush up. I've had five year-olds that have taken this better than you."
"I'll bet you told them they'd shrivel up like prunes and die unless they let you cool them down, am I right?"
"One more word and I'm going to dump this entire basin on you."
And I had no reason not to believe he would do it, so I lay there and shut up while my head throbbed under the ice-cold cloth.
"...But yes," Stevenson said after a moment of silence. I don't know quite what was so amusing about this admittance, either the mental image of Stevenson scaring the living daylights out of some poor child or the very idea that someone even would do such a thing to treat a patient, but despite my best efforts and honest desire not to give him the satisfaction of laughing, I couldn't contain a smile.
"That is very bad medicine, Stevenson. I wouldn't tell that to people if I were you—"
"Alright, that's it!" He said, removing the cloth and picking up the basin.
"Don't you dare, Doctor!" I quite literally yelled as he held the bucket over me.
"What's going on here?"
A completely new voice entered the room. Both the doctor and I turned on the instant to see Victor Trevor standing right at the foot of the bed.
"Well, if that isn't Victor Trevor!" Stevenson said cordially, setting the basin back down on the table and walking over to Trevor.
"How do you do, lad? It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"Indeed it has, almost three years, I believe," Trevor replied, gripping the doctor's outstretched hand.
"Come to visit this featherhead, have you?" He grinned, motioning to me.
"Indeed, though what he's done to earn the wrath of Stevenson escapes me," he replied jokingly.
"Ah, no wrath this time, lad, all in good fun. Well, I suppose I'll leave you now, but it was good seeing you again, Victor. You have my permission to smack him if he doesn't behave."
"Alright," Trevor replied, trying to cease his snickering for my sake, "Nice to see you too, sir. Good day."
Stevenson left and Trevor succeeded in bringing the laughter under control, but an amused smile still lingered on his face.
"What just happened in here, Holmes?"
"I think you already know," I replied sourly, for my good humor that had lasted all of three seconds was thoroughly and utterly squashed.
"Well, yes. But... for the record, you know he wouldn't have actually done it."
"Oh, I'm inclined to think otherwise, Trevor."
"No, really, I know him far too well. He'd tip the bowl just enough to convince you he was going to dump the whole thing on you only to pull it back and taunt you for being so gull... for being so gullible—"
"I really do not find this funny at all, Trevor!"
Although it was easy to tell he though otherwise, despite that he was trying once again to halt his laughter.
"I can tell. I'm sorry," he said finally knocking it off.
"Are you feeling any better?"
"A bit, although the fever persists along with the good doctor's antics."
"Oh, pay him no mind. He's only trying to take your mind off things a bit."
"Trevor, I am not seven years old."
"Well, Holmes, if you'll pardon my saying so, it doesn't even take a monkey to tell that you're exceptionally bored."
"How did you guess?" I spat sarcastically, before realizing he had just dropped a potential outlet right into my lap...
"Well, since you brought it up, let us see what I can make of you, then. For starters, you've recently been around a woman wearing far too much perfume."
"That is correct," Trevor replied, smirking suggestively and quirking an eyebrow, which led me to my next conclusion.
"This woman is not a relative."
"Indeed," he grinned. Needless to say, I decided at that point to leave that particular subject alone...
"Ah, I have it. Today is a professional day; there are no classes. So you took the lady to the House of Red Leaves for breakfast. They're finally getting the place fixed up, I see."
Trevor's eyes widened just for a moment, for he narrowed them quickly and folded his arms across his chest.
"Alright, now how did you know that?"
"Ah! You had a poached egg. If you'll notice, you got some yolk on your sleeve when you rested your right forearm on the table."
Trevor looked down quickly.
"Eugh. So I do. And how did you know they're renovating the place?"
"To be more precise, they hired some inexpensive and very careless painters."
"Well... the place was painted... Wait a minute, Holmes! If I hadn't confirmed your hypothesis, how would you have even known we ate at the House of Red Leaves in the first place? Why not at any other restaurant in London?"
"Aside from the fact that it's the only place that serves a decent meal for at least eight blocks, there is also the question of the paint. Take off your hat, Trevor."
Trevor shot me a questioning glance before slowly reaching up to remove his top hat.
"Turn it over."
He did as I instructed. On either sides of the inner brim, there were two smudged lines of pale yellow paint.
"My hat! But how did you—? I've been walking around like this all day!?"
"You see? The painters had obviously not bothered to alert the owners that the paint was still wet. So when you hung your hat from one of the hooks on the wall, the paint transferred onto it. And that, as you well know, is the color of the place to begin with."
There was a brief pause during which Trevor looked at me as if I'd grown a second head before finally giving an amused snicker.
"Good Lord, Holmes, are you hiding a crystal ball underneath that bed?"
"Really, Trevor, you speak as though I'd just moved something without touching it. It is simply a matter of observing and drawing a logical conclusion. "
"Where did you learn to think like that?"
"My blushes, Trevor, I am self-taught. A mere hobby of mine, nothing more."
"Holmes. Hunting, drawing, fishing. Those are hobbies."
"And why is mine not legitimate? Because you've never heard of it?"
"Me and the rest of the planet."
"Nonsense. Have I missed anything of interest in the last few days?"
"Well," Trevor paused to think, slightly taken off-guard by my abrupt change of the subject.
"Nothing of note in Psychology. Er... You take anatomy, do you not? Well, in that case, nothing, unless you're interested in the structure of the lymph nodes. Chemistry... I'm sorry to say Professor Eddington gave a rather fascinating lecture on the properties of this new element gallium—"
"And I missed it!" I fairly wailed.
"You would have been in the front row answering every question, as usual," he mumbled.
"Anything else of note?"
"Not that I can think of, no."
"Not surprising."
"You look tired, Holmes."
"I don't know how I possibly could be. All I've been doing for the past four days is talking and sleeping."
"And eating, I hope."
"Ugh."
"I'll take that as a 'yes.' "
"Easy for you to smile, Trevor. You haven't been living on hospital food."
"I'll make it up to you, Holmes. We'll have lunch at the House of Red Leaves sometime after you're out of here. Assuming the paint is dry by then, of course."
"It's a deal," I groggily replied, realizing that I was in fact and very much against my will, tired.
"Would you like me to take that for you?"
I opened my eyes to find Trevor motioning to the letter that lay on top of the chemistry textbook next to my bed.
"Yes, if you please. That's to a Mister Mycroft Holmes, at the Diogenes Club in Pall Mall."
"Certainly. Er... if you'll forgive my curiosity, would that be your father?"
"Hm? Oh, no. Brother."
"Ah. Well, guess I'm off, then."
"Kind of you to come, Trevor. And thank you. Good day."
Trevor had reached the door and turned around to face me once more with a not entirely serious face.
"Good day, featherhead."
And with that, he fairly bolted from the door and down the hall. I could hear him laughing as he went out, and much to my own chagrin, I shortly followed the suit and indulged in his silliness.
…That is, until I realized something that slowly but steadily wiped the smile off my face.
Did I just agree to have lunch with Victor Trevor?
A/N: Reviews are appreciated, people.