The next day was something of a fluke in the road to recovery I had finally thought myself to be on since breaking out of that hellish fever. I hardly slept at all that night, save for perhaps two hours or so in the small hours of the morning. I clearly remember being alert, albeit exhausted and groggy, at three o'clock, and no further rest came after that. I partly blamed Trevor's visit for my inability to succumb, for my jovial reaction to his kooky sense of humor had stirred up quite an amount of adrenaline within me, but I berated myself, as well, not only for bringing on my present dilemma, but for openly putting on such a display, as well.
I still cannot believe someone actually needed to tell us to quiet down, like little children!
Mister Three-Sixty, indeed.
And so I lay there fuming for a while, stewing in my own juices as I chewed over the peculiar events of the evening in my mind. Truly, I was irritated at Trevor for a while. What an unusual personality he had! (When I say "unusual," it is not uncommon that I use it in a positive light.) Now he was a puzzle I could never solve.
This called to mind something he had said earlier on in the evening—"at least one of us is normal." I had wondered what the deuce he meant by that. I have already stated that I am not the ideal embodiment of normality, and it usually does not take the average fellow long to see that.
So what on earth is wrong with Victor Trevor that he thought he had somehow been alarming me? True, his choice of conversation had been unconventional, but it was anything but trite and boring, at least.
And he had become so solemn when he said it, yet insisted he was perfectly fine upon my inquiry and carried on as if nothing had happened. I know what that was—it was simply a mistake. He had let the facade slip, if only for a second, but it was a slip, nonetheless. The question is why he needs one in the first place? He has everything a man could need in the palm of his hand—money, clout, an education, and certainly plenty more "lady friends" than are good for him...
I did not break out of my hypnotic train of thought until a faint beam of yellow light snapped me back to attention. At least the place would start coming alive within the next few hours. As it happened, the doctor came at a quarter past seven to see me, which was highly unusual considering our normal schedule.
"You're awake," he greeted me with no mild surprise before stepping in.
"A stunning observation, Doctor," I retorted groggily and before I thought about what I was saying.
"Do you feel ill?"
"No," I replied, not as much surprised as I was grateful that he had completely missed my impertinence.
"Had a rough night, then?"
"It was not a restful one."
"I'm sorry to hear that. You should have asked the nurse for a soporific."
"I did not really think it was worth it."
By "worth it," I meant I would not risk receiving a sedative spiked with arsenic for the sake of a good night's sleep.
"Well, you really should get some sleep, but I don't know that it'll do much good to give you one now. You'll be out for the day and have another night like the last one."
"I don't need one, thank you."
"In any case, this will give me one less thing to do later on in the morning. I'm always by this early, you're just never awake."
"Yes, terribly inconvenient when one is trying to conduct an examination, I should imagine."
"On second thought, you probably wouldn't sass so much, but even then I'll bet it isn't a guarantee."
I folded my arms across my chest.
"You were saying, Doctor?"
"Oh, yes. Well, it looks like to-morrow's going to be the big day."
"Thank the Lord."
Especially considering you told me I'd be out of here yesterday.
"And you're to put no strain on this foot whatsoever. Absolutely none."
"What? But Doctor, I thought you told me I would be on crutches when I get out of here!"
"And you will be, but you're not to do anything stupid, Mister Holmes, like attempting to push your recovery, because I warn you, you will find yourself right back in here in a considerable amount of pain."
"Doctor, I assure you I would not risk it for the world."
"You'll also be glad to hear that I want you to get in some minimal exercise every day, but do not aggravate the injury if it is sore. Walking to and from your quarters and between classes should be sufficient. And for God's sake, Mister Holmes, you're to put on some weight."
"Does that last item go with your official treatment plan or is it just a personal sentiment?"
"I'm telling you as your doctor."
"Very well, then."
Like the devil I will.
"We'll have that foot of yours in a cast before the day's out. The plaster will take forty-eight hours to completely harden, but it will be solid enough by to-morrow. We'll also get you the crutches."
"Very good. Er, doctor... Is there any chance at all that I might possibly be able to walk today?"
He sighed.
"I doubt it."
"Even if it's just a few steps?" I half-pleaded.
"I wouldn't count on it, Mister Holmes, but we'll see what happens. You never know."
Now it was my turn to let out a rather heavy sigh of my own. Stevenson only laughed.
"I have faith in you, Mister Holmes. I'm sure you'll live to see another day. I could give you every pill in the world for pain, but alas, there is no injection against tedium."
"Yes, there is."
I could have kicked myself. Had I a knife, I'm sure I would have slashed my traitorous tongue.. I had done it again—spoken without thinking, and probably due to my lack of sleep. Only this time, it was potentially apt to get me into a great deal of trouble with the good doctor.
What an idiot!
I held my breath for what seemed like ten minutes during the short, in reality, pause in which Stevenson tried to unravel just what exactly I'd meant by that. When he finally did catch on, he snickered.
"Oh, you mean that. Sorry, Mister Holmes, but you are certainly not getting a syringe full of perfectly good morphine that could be spent on some poor soul going into surgery."
"I never asked for it!"
"No kidding. The first time you've deigned to crack a single joke and already you're offended."
I let out the breath.
Alright, alright. He thinks I was only joking.
"... Unless you were serious," he said in his normally chipper mood, but something about this was off. Even as he was saying it, he fixed me with an icy glare that certainly did not match his tone of voice, and went against everything I had yet seen of him. It was most startling, actually.
"I have already told you that I never asked for any drugs."
"I know," he chirped with a smile, and the rather hostile look he had been giving me just seconds beforehand died before I could blink.
"And somehow, I could not bring myself to believe that a such an intelligent and eager young man as yourself would do something so utterly idiotic as to go polluting his body and mind with that garbage. Am I right?"
When he did not continue talking, I figured he was going to pivot at any moment of his choosing to leave. It took me a few seconds to realize that his question was not, as I had presumed, rhetorical, and that he was awaiting an answer.
"I have never touched the stuff in my life," I responded mechanically, looking right into the man's face and searching for any signs of disbelief. For one of the few times in my life, I could actually hear my heart hammering away like a drum with my skyrocketing pulse among the thick silence that prevailed in the room. I half-expected him to lean forward and tell me what a seething liar I was.
"Well, I'm very glad to hear it, Mister Holmes. Don't ever start," he smiled, his voice bordering on a whisper.
"Of course," I said more awkwardly than I would have liked to as he made his way to the door.
"Because I'm telling you, that stuff latches onto you like a parasite and will never let you go. I've seen it happen... oh, listen to me. This is a bright conversation we're having, isn't it? But at least you'll come out of here a little bit wiser for your broken ankle, which I'll plaster myself later on this morning."
And with that, he left. I sat there in something akin to a state of shock for a moment, marveling at how close my own stupidity had just brought me to almost revealing my... less-than-healthy habit to the good doctor.
It seemed to disturb him a great deal more than he was willing to let on.
I looked guiltily down at the scarred pinpricks on my wrists. Four of them...
How many more?
To any other doctor, it would have been nothing more than just another item to add to my preliminary, no different than alcohol or tobacco smoke. Something about this particular doctor, however, made me wonder what exactly he'd seen the drug do to those evidently unfortunate patients.
Why was I so reluctant to admit it? We all have our vices, cocaine just happens to be one of mine. What makes it any worse than laziness or overeating or indulging in drink? I should think it to be less harsh on the body than any of those.
Perhaps he knew somebody...
I shook my head. It was not uncommon for this to happen to me. I had certainly had my periods of doubt about the drug, but I invariably shut them out of my mind and let them pass. This time would not be any different.
I have not the cocaine bottle; so I needn't worry about it now, need I?
Just as the good doctor had said, my foot was plastered in a cast by noontime that day. What a queer feeling that was—having that bulging, sticky, heavy thing smeared onto me piece by piece. It was the next step towards recovery, however, and if it would get me out of that bed, then so be it.
The thing had already been on me for a good four hours or so by the time Trevor arrived, and in lieu of greeting me, he stopped dead in his tracks at the foot of the bed, fixing me with a most puzzled expression.
"Aren't they supposed to wait until you die to start doing that?" He said, pointing to my foot. Not for the first time in his company, I snorted.
"A little more of that bandaging and they could sell you over to the British Museum for a few quid. I hear there is quite a demand for mummy forgeries nowadays."
"Yes, isn't it sad? There are already two of them in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan."
"How do you know?"
"Never mind. The doctor tells me I am to be released tomorrow morning."
"Really? Well, finally!" he grinned.
"My sentiments exactly."
"Wonderful news, Holmes. What's the prognosis?"
"Oh, nothing severe. There is the cast, of course, and the crutches, a bit of exercise daily, and mostly just keeping this thing elevated for around two weeks. It'll be over a month before I can fully recover."
"Over a month," Trevor sighed, shaking his head, "I would surely go mad before the month were up. Actually, if our places had been reversed, I'm sure I would have gone mad already."
"Assuming you are not already there?"
"Very funny, Holmes. Though for your sake, I hope not. And by the way, I believe you actually had the audacity to call me a rake before I departed last evening," he said melodramatically, feigning offense.
"You believe correctly."
"They say the friend is the man who knows all about you and still likes you," he shrugged easily, the keyword "friend" and its implications having gone completely over my head at the time.
"You're just a fountain of proverbs, aren't you, Trevor?" I said somewhat flatly.
"I have a habit of acquitting words in which I have found a bit of wisdom to memory, I just have yet to acquit the names of a good three-quarters of their authors."
On that note, we both snickered for a moment before a silence set in.
"So... if you are going to need crutches for at least two weeks, I should imagine that lugging around textbooks will not be the easiest task," he said quietly, obviously trying to phrase the question with as much diplomacy as he could to spare my pride, but nothing he could have said would have lessened the blow any.
"I know," I said, letting out a heavy sigh.
"You don't have to."
"I should."
"No. It is really not necessary."
Even I knew that I was submerged up to my eyeballs in denial at this point, and the look on Trevor's face alone told me he would have none of it.
"I really think it is."
"Then I'll find somebody else! You are by no means obligated to... to..."
I trailed off. Trevor's ability to speak without uttering a word was always a trait of his which amazed me. As he fixed me with his hallmark only-just-visible one-sided smirk and his eyebrows raised as high as they could go, I could just hear with all too much clarity just exactly what he meant to say.
Oh, you will, will you? I'm sure you will. And just who exactly do plan on so pitifully convincing to drag your stuff around for two weeks while you hobble along behind, Mister Sherlock Holmes?
"Holmes, if there is anybody so obligated to assist you, it is certainly I," he said as if talking to a small child.
"Well, fine! Do as you please, then!"
"Oh, hang your ego, man. You know there is simply no way of getting around it."
"Of course, I know," I growled, folding my arms.
I sighed one last time just as the surrendering reality hit me. Trevor was right, there was no use trying to get out of it.
"If you really feel the womanish need to salve your guilty conscience..." I left the sentence open, having neither the desire nor motivation to even finish it.
"That was a low blow, Holmes, even for you. However, I will not take it as the personal jab I'm sure it was meant to be. And furthermore, yes, I do. You will remember that I am the one who got you into this mess in the first place. It is only fair that I should be helping you."
I gave him the courtesy of shutting up for a few moments after our little sparring match, but if he thought he was going to put me through a guilt trip...
"You know, if one of us is going to get funny looks Holmes, it'll be me," he said, and I looked back up at him.
"Yes, because everybody will be looking at you and they'll see what happened because of me."
"Surely that is not true."
"Trust me, it is. I have been getting a lot of those in the past week, believe it or not," he confided with an unenthusiastic smirk.
"I have already accepted your apology, have I not? It's in the past, Trevor. But... for what it's worth, you would do better by not endeavoring to treat me as a cripple," I said finally. I was met with a warm smile for my efforts, a relieving sight after having been most... well, difficult with him (and yes, I admit it.)
"I understand, Holmes. I shall instead endeavor to try my best to do as you ask," he said, straightening himself to a full attentive stance and clasping his hands behind his back. I did not recognize what exactly was going through my mind at that time, but I was somehow struck by the sincerity of his resolve.
"... Since you so obviously feel the womanish need to salve your wounded pride."
I do not understand what happened next, either. I suppose it would hardly make sense for me to try and explain the sensation, but I shall try, nonetheless. It was almost as though... some small part of me, if that makes any sense, despised him at that moment. I don't know. I suppose I sound like an absolute fool. How moronic am I for attempting the impossible task of trying to pull some nonexistent logic out of this emotional babbling?
The beginning of a tiny smirk that had unconsciously started to creep its way across my face was now turning into a most prominent scowl, and I very intentionally affixed him with an absolutely viperous glare.
"But can the gentleman take as good as he gives?" Trevor speculated, acknowledging my foul temper.
"You look like you want to kill me."
"That was a most off-color remark."
"And calling someone a rake isn't?"
Slowly, very slowly, the grimace dwindled along with the bitterness.
I nodded. No, I was not going to affirm that he had been right, but what he had said was only logical. I didn't really want to say much at all anymore. I did not trust myself, being so compromised by confounded emotion...
"I know you're frustrated, Holmes. I would be, too. But at least you'll be walking again. I know you'd take two weeks of crutches over one more being bedridden."
"I am not angry with you, Trevor."
"I know," he smiled shrewdly. It was my immediate reaction to want to practically yell 'no, you don't,' but Trevor looked as though he knew exactly what he was talking about, so I did not question him. And with nothing left to say, I sighed for the hundredth time. Truly, it was one of the most exasperating days in my memory.
"I think I'll leave you know," Trevor said quietly, tactfully.
"Y—"
I curbed my tongue. I was not going to speak without thinking this time or let Trevor get the better of me.
"Very well."
"Bye, Holmes."
"Trevor."