The Last Romantics

Let The Doctor Decide

The next day, as promised, Mr. Trevor reappeared. How he appeared in the hospital was still up for interpretation, as they kept the front doors locked in the day to prevent any wandering visitors like himself. When he appeared it was in the surgery, standing in the doorway like a brutish onlooker as Musgrave sewed together a recently opened bullet wound, having scabbed over on the train ride from the battle field only to be promptly reopened for removal of the bullet itself. It was a relatively painless procedure, at least for the doctor, though the man had stayed silent for the whole operation. Whether this was related to the morphine they had offered him (though scarce, they did deem his surgery necessary) or the mouth guard provided was still up for interpretation, but for the most part Musgrave's ears were spared the usual pain of constant screaming from his patients. Oh for men of combat, men of war....they really did scream like little girls.
"You really are making a mess of things, aren't you doctor?" Mr. Trevor's voice wondered, announcing his presence for the first time. Musgrave nearly dropped the needle in his fright, as he had long grown accustomed to hearing only women's voices in this part of the hospital. It was not usual that there was a male nurse, nor any sort of supporting doctor, and so to hear such a deep voice nearly scolding him, well it was a shock to be sure. Molly Hooper was the nurse tending to the operation, and the poor woman nearly doubled over with shock upon seeing that long shadow of a man materialize before the table, his lean figure looming up and over the poor patient, whose wide eyes now stretched back and forth between his onlookers as if urging them to get on with it.
"I'm sorry, sir you're not allowed..."
"Mr. Trevor is a welcomed guest." Musgrave assured at once, interrupting Molly before she could throw around any proclamations that did not represent the doctor's firm viewpoint. Victor didn't seem to notice the fuss made on his behalf, in fact he seemed so utterly preoccupied with the man on the table that he didn't bother to thank Musgrave for his hospitality, or even to introduce himself to the nurse who was still looking at him with a very curious, almost threatened stare. Mr. Trevor looked as though he believed he belonged here, despite his uselessness in a medical situation.
"This man can feel the pain, Doctor. He can feel everything." Trevor determined at last, twisting his fingers tightly across his walking stick before giving the soldier a rather quick flick to the arm. To prove his theory correct the man's eyes blinked in surprise, demonstrating that the nerves in the infected areas were still alight, still aflame.
"Morphine is a luxury, sir, an expensive one." Musgrave admitted now. "We must maintain our supply."
"Prioritize, do you?" Trevor presumed with a small breath, turning his attention now on Musgrave, who attempted to continue his work. He fit the needle once more through the flesh, pulling the thread tightly and pulling together the two mangled sides of the opened wound. The patient winced, his fingers clutching along the sides of the laboratory table, all the while Molly Hooper worked to relieve his pain by setting a cold wash cloth onto his head.
"Did you give my Sherlock your drug? Or did you take his leg without alleviating the pain of it? Did you make that fragile flower scream?" Victor whispered, his voice dropping to an almost threatening octave, as if he was fully prepared to take the actions necessary to avenge his poor, suffering ward.
"We give morphine to the amputees, sir. It's procedure." Molly Hooper explained, as Musgrave had been too occupied with tying the knot to fully comprehend the question. Victor hummed, as if that answer really did not satisfy him that much. Musgrave set aside his surgical equipment, and Molly took it upon herself to pull the mouth guard from the soldier's teeth, at last allowing him to speak his mind, or to rather let loose his lungs in a full scream of agony. Musgrave winced, turning aside and stripping his hands of his bloodied gloves.
"Nurse, move him to the ward immediately. Oh, do what you must to quiet him!" Musgrave demanded, feeling the need to shield his ears from the high pitched screaming of the man turned child, whining upon his operating table.
"Quiet, man. Where is your dignity?" Victor scolded, looming upon the patient and fitting his fingers along the rather soft jawline, his hand encircling the bottom jaw and easing it slowly back to where it belonged. Perhaps the patient was too confused to remember his pain, and for a moment Victor's tactic worked quite well. The soldier's eyes remained wide and pained, though his mouth remained closed long after the strange man's hand had drifted away. "Pain is but a passing feeling, remember. Like any cold breeze that feels its way through your jacket, like any rain that soaked through your skin. Time passes it along, until you find yourself wondering why you ever fretted over such a fleeting feeling." Mr. Trevor's voice was soothing enough for even Musgrave to lose himself to such preaching; his words were quite like a roaring fire, something you wanted to move closer to, something which warmed you to the bone. He stood for a moment, forgotten his main task in as surgeon, and thinking for a moment on what Victor had just declared. Thankfully Molly Hooper was fully present, and even as Victor spoke she was going about her normal duties and rolling a stretcher up to be level with the table, ready for the injured man to be transferred onto the mobile bed.
"You have a mind for poetry, Mr. Trevor." Musgrave announced at last, once Molly had minded to the patient and begun to roll him over towards a more permanent situation.
"And you do not, sir. Now tell me, how is Sherlock this morning?" Victor questioned, brushing over the compliment as if he had heard it a million times before.
"Sherlock...well I think he is doing well. I haven't attended to him personally, though I have not heard any disheartening reports." Musgrave admitted, figuring that was a promising sign.
"Has he spoken of me, since my last visit? Has he told you anything?" Trevor wondered, his brow creasing in some concern.
"Not a word." Musgrave admitted quite truthfully.
"Good...good." Victor muttered. "Wouldn't want him spreading his biased version of the truth."
"Would you like to visit him, sir?" Musgrave wondered. Trevor sighed heavily, thinking on the question for a moment and leaning heavily on his cane.
"Oh yes, better visit." He decided at last. "The poor boy doesn't much like my presence, though the sight of him warms a heart frozen over."
"That's good to hear, sir." The doctor muttered, the only reasonable response he could think of that would not degrade poor Trevor any more than he already attempted himself. A frozen heart, stagnant for how many years? Oh well at least Musgrave's hospital was providing some good, if not medically for the patients treated then at least emotionally for the rich fellows who wandered among the bedsides of their long lost companions. He followed the stranger to the bedside once more, though this time he felt like much more of an intruder than the previous visit. His purpose wasn't much defined; he was more of an onlooker prying his nose into matters that were not his business, though his curiosity was so strong that he hardly realized he was not all together welcome. Sherlock was still lying in his bed, too bored to do anything more than lay around. He had gone through all of the cross word puzzles the nurses had offered him, and the Sudoku, so that when he grew tired of scribbling in those notebooks he would often times rest his head down to dream of better places, to dream of freedom.
"Sherlock, I've come to see how you are this morning." Victor muttered, as if he felt his presence needed some sort of explanation. The man rolled over, looking for a moment at his visitor before sneering, shaking his head as if he couldn't be much bothered with Victor's claims of humanity. He said nothing, and forced Victor to continue on even though he hadn't much else to say but that.
"You should begin to learn to walk, Sherlock. If you're to come home you must be..."
"You keep using that word, Victor, but I'm not all together sure you know what it means." Sherlock debated at last, raising one of his pale hands in protest and silencing Victor's privileged tongue.
"Of course I know what it means, Sherlock. Home is the place you're accepted, where there are people there who care for you no matter what happens." Victor insisted, as if that was going to be a debate enough to get Sherlock to pack up his things and follow him to wherever his stately manor might reside. Musgrave watched hesitantly, with his arms folded over his stinking jacket, and tried to at least look as if he was of some importance to this conversation.
"I haven't had a home in nearly ten years, Victor. I'm not entirely interested in your version, or your accommodations." Sherlock scoffed, and turned his head to face the doctor instead. Musgrave's eyes perked up, unsure whether or not it was a good thing to be noticed at last.
"Doctor Musgrave, why do you keep letting this man bother me? It's not good for a patient to be under such stress, not when they're still attempting to heal from your saw." Sherlock wondered. The doctor hesitated, a little bit taken aback by what only seemed to be an attack on both his management and his surgical skills. While of course attacks might be justified, and while his policies on visitors and on amputations may not be entirely up to par, well it was considerably bold for a patient to call out their doctor as if they had the right to do so.
"I um, well I thought perhaps he might give you some motivation." Musgrave managed at last, figuring that was a reasonable enough excuse to go along with. Truth be told, he was merely curious. Mr. Trevor's visits weren't benefiting anyone except himself, feeding his insatiable curiosity like the rich nectar of the Gods. There was no purpose for Trevor's being here, nothing except for the selfishness of the doctor.
"Motivation? What, to get up so that I could slap him property about the face?" Sherlock laughed.
"Sherlock, he recognizes that I'm good for you, that I'm here to help." Victor protested, looking back towards his ward with a pleading sort of desperation, as if he couldn't stand to be pushed aside so carelessly by the one he seemed to love.
"Here to help yourself." Sherlock scowled.
"Doctor." Victor snarled, turning to Musgrave as well, as if expecting the man to be a mediator in all of this. Musgrave at last raised his hands up in the air, innocent to take sides and just about as confused as a man can be.
"I'm sorry to both of you, but I really cannot help without more background." Musgrave insisted, hoping perhaps that little statement would feed to their own desire to be proven right. Perhaps he could hear the story, then, the whole story. Perhaps he could use their egos to his own advantage, and manage to get out of them the backstory that might have landed Sherlock in this hospital and Victor on their doorstep.
"He killed John!" Sherlock exclaimed at last, his voice dripping in hatred and in blame.
"I did no such thing." Trevor growled back, slapping his stick so heavily against the floor that Musgrave almost jumped in surprise. Their tones of voice were beginning to waver far from professionalism, sounding like bickering school children rather than grown men. John, that name was familiar to him. John was the one Sherlock had been expecting when he first heard of a visitor, the one he was so anxious to meet. Had this man really been killed, or did Sherlock still have hope to his survival?
"Tell him, then, you tell him what you did. Let the doctor decide." Sherlock demanded, jabbing a finger at Musgrave as if to insist that he was the doctor in question. At last!
"I would be happy to listen to whatever it is you have to say." Musgrave assured with a polite nod of his head, as if he wasn't looking forward to this moment (and promptly setting it up) since the moment Sherlock wandered onto his operating table.
"It is not the Doctor's place to pry." Victor snarled at last, turning his almost disgusted gaze to Musgrave as if he saw him for exactly what he was. A nosey, curious thing. The doctor's heart dropped, though Sherlock could only smile in satisfaction, as if that reply was exactly the one he had been searching for.
"The words of a guilty man, Victor. Too afraid to confess." He chuckled, falling back into his pillows as if he had promptly won this argument. Victor seemed to want to respond, he opened his mouth in preparation for some sort of response, though he promptly lost it. Whatever he might have said was lost to a sharp inhale, and the man stood looking quite dissatisfied with the direction such a conversation had taken. Musgrave stood patiently by, though it would seem as though the two men had completed their share of quarreling for the moment. Victor looked too exasperated to say anything more, and Sherlock had decided that he got the last laugh. And so they mutually decided to part ways, and with a tip of his hat Victor was off again, though not reminding them all that he would return the next day, and the day after that. His promises got a little bit haunting, considering that was widely against policy. It was curious, how that man seemed to control even Musgrave like a puppet on strings. Taking into account how well Sherlock could handle such a strong personality only hinted furthermore at a strong connection between the two them, as if they had been interconnected for enough years for Sherlock to grow wary of bending and breaking to satisfy Mr. Trevor's every whim. When at last the clicking of the stranger's cane disappeared into the mere background, Musgrave turned his attention primarily onto Sherlock, wondering just how talkative the man might feel now that they had established at least a possible topic of conversation. He hesitated in his own departure, hoping perhaps that Sherlock would make up for the lack of Victor's retelling in an attempt to depict his own side of the story, perhaps giving the more truthful account of things.
"You look as if you're expecting something more." Sherlock commented, staring at the doctor with those enigmatic eyes, those beautiful things that seemed to occupy more and more of Musgrave's thoughts. They were captivating in a way that was almost bothersome, as if Musgrave was expecting something out of those eyes that he couldn't hope to receive. An emotion, or sorts...or perhaps merely an understanding.
"Oh no I'm just...well I suppose I have let curiosity catch up to me." he admitted at last, sighing in his own defeat. It was a bit too difficult to confine his feelings within himself, and when asked to plainly deny it he could not quite bring himself to do so. He was expecting something more, though something that Sherlock may not entirely be prepared to give.
"Curiosity, doctor? I should think a man of your profession had been taught all." Sherlock commented, perhaps in his own teasing manner.
"Nothing from the social spheres, I'm afraid." Musgrave muttered. "Nothing pertaining stories of interesting fellows, and grudges that seem to have lasted an age."
"A story, then. My story." Sherlock clarified.
"I admit my curiosity; though in no case do I demand you confess." Musgrave corrected at last, holding up his hands in his own defeat. He thought it quite terrifying to ask something of Sherlock that he would not willingly give, even though their power difference was wildly skewed in favor of the doctor, he still felt as though he was being controlled.
"No one has cared to ask my story before, Doctor. No one has ever seemed to care." Sherlock admitted after a moment of some thought. "Though I suppose you want to form your own opinion, pick a side?"
"If he's done what you claim, well that makes him a murderer. That is reason enough to not let him inside of my hospital any longer." Musgrave insisted at last, to which the poor man chuckled for a moment. He sat himself up further in his bed, as if he was suddenly rather interested in their conversation. From what Musgrave could remember, this was their first interaction that lasted more than a few words, their first full conversation in which both parties seemed interesting in conversing.
"There are many reasons not to let Victor Trevor in this hospital, though I'm afraid his criminal record is not one. He did not directly kill my friend, though his acts led to a death that was equally as distasteful. I blame him for what happened to John...though whether the man is dead or not is not entirely certain. His silence for all of these years, however, alludes to such a case. The hope in my heart died long ago, though it was a flame that I much enjoyed. It was my candle, on a winter's day...though to hold it too close was to burn. Nevertheless, I miss the heat." the man whispered at last, blinking for a moment as if hastening back tears. Perhaps he had not thought of John for a long while, and Mr. Trevor's reappearance brought back the memoires he was trying so hard to forget.
"You speak so beautifully of something so painful." Musgrave commented quietly, not entirely knowing what else to offer Sherlock in exchange for something as meaningful as that small confession. The man chuckled, as if he had heard something of the sort before.
"We all have our artistic side...myself not excluded." He admitted.
"I haven't got an artistic bone in my body. I was born on hard facts, pure science...it landed me without a lens to look at this bleak world through. It landed me here." Musgrave explained mournfully.
"Here, in a hospital you seem to so neglect. Haven't you got other duties to attend to, Doctor, besides listening to the crooning of a dying man?" Sherlock wondered carefully, to which the Doctor's eyes narrowed.
"You are not dying." He commented quickly.
"Perhaps not directly. Though we are all dying, little by little. And without my leg I feel as though I have lost an ally in the fight against death...just another tool lost that might have helped me avoid him for a little while longer." Sherlock whispered, looking down towards where the blanket covered his leg, and where his foot should have disrupted the perfectly fallen blanket.
"I encourage you to try the crutches. They are not so perfectly mirrored to walking, though they are quite a good alternative." Musgrave offered earnestly, nodding towards where the crutches still sat undisturbed where the nurse had left them. Sherlock chuckled, not even bothering to look towards the things.
"I haven't anywhere to go, really." He admitted at last.
"You could go to your home." Musgrave offered. "Surely whatever manor Victor Trevor owns is preferable to my dingy little hospital. The food would be better, for sure."
"Yes Doctor, but the company of dying men is much preferable to being the sole entertainment for so vile a creature. Victor's home is not my own, it was a mere hiding place from the responsibilities I had been tasked with. Victor's home...well I have no intentions of returning there. So here I stay." Sherlock breathed. Musgrave finally stepped forward, sinking into the chair beside Sherlock's bedside, where he often sat unnoticed or undisturbed. This time, however, the man's eyes were on his own and his attention was wholly grasped. All Musgrave had to do now was ask...ask and he will receive.
"Sherlock I must know, what ever happened between you and Mr. Trevor?" Musgrave insisted, nearly doubling over to beg for the story to be told. The man's lips formed something of a knowing smile, as if he realized now just how desperate his audience was for a story worth their time. His eyes sparkled with realization, and Musgrave was beginning to wonder how smart it was to put such manipulating power into the hands of such a man. If Sherlock's company was any reflection of his character traits, well perhaps it was not a good idea to hand over a weakness such as desperation.
"What do I owe you, Musgrave? A tale so elaborate that you may spend weeks at my bedside, listening to the ravings of a creature supposed to be mad? Listening to the words which poetry once enveloped, when the world was still sweet and the sun came in the form of a smile?" Sherlock breathed. "What do I owe you, Doctor...such a thing as that?"
"If it's any exchange for my saving your life, I would say that I'm much obliged to listen..."
"Saving my life? Saving it by hacking off my leg? And for what, Doctor, for what? For an existence spent in a bedside, spitting out verses and lines, scrawling out the words which may never be read!" Sherlock exclaimed, suddenly shivering under his blankets with the effort of a sudden burst of rage. His fingers strained against the bars of the little bed, his remaining limbs convulsing and his face turning into an expression that was something of pure disgust. The man's reaction to Musgrave's entreaty only stood to show just where the doctor stood in relation to his poor patient, how much power this cripple had over the whims of this overly curious man. He didn't like to upset Sherlock; he didn't like to feel silly. Though there was nothing to be done to save his leg, oh why was he being bullied about making the only allowable decision?
"It was your leg or your life, and as a doctor of medicine I have been trained that all life is worth saving." Musgrave explained quietly. "Even if you do not think it so."
"I don't." Sherlock insisted. "Everything I once had was taken from me in one way or another. Everyone I've ever loved, everyone who's ever loved me. Victor tends to me because there is no one else to notice my absence, not a soul in this world besides that villain who remembers my name."
"Was there a time when everyone knew of you?" Musgrave wondered.
"Everyone in London, Musgrave. Everyone in England." Sherlock promised. "Though your own obliviousness goes to show how wasted fame is, just a breath of it before you are spit out!"
"Sir..."
"Doctor." Sherlock snarled, before Musgrave could even begin his plea once more for context. "I will speak of my past, Musgrave, if only to prove to you that I am deserving of your pity. I will share with you my story...just to prove that there are some lives which are not worth saving, in the end."