Rough Sleepers

by Nem Rowan

  "Well, I guess we could try and find a way to speak to her, but I dunno, don't think that's very wise." I licked at my cracked lips as I brought my mug to my face. After taking a tentative sip that almost burned my tongue off, I lowered it again. "We got a problem when the full moon comes, and she changes."

  "You are sure she is werewolf?"

  I nodded grimly. I smelled it on her, that doggy odour we all shared. Plus, there was no way a human would have jumped up like that and kept on running. Mecky sighed and glanced at Ceri.

  "You are taking him to doctor?" she whispered, gesturing towards him with her thumb.

  I shook my head. "He won't go. I already said I would take him, but he refused."

  "I am thinking he need hospital," she agreed, frowning slightly. "Maybe I take him on the morning. You are hearing, Ceri? You say yes to Mecky, do not say no."

  "I'm not going to see a bloody doctor, all right?" He grumbled with irritation, but he didn't lift his head to look at us.

  "You are going at nine o'clock in the morning," Mecky declared, her eyes switching to me as she made a mischievous smirk.

  "Ugh... Fine, whatever. I'll go, but I'm telling you now, I don't need to," he complained, tilting his head up just enough so that he could drink from his mug.

  "You are happy taking him?" Mecky whispered to me again and I nodded in acknowledgement.

  There was a moment of quiet, and I began to recognise how exhausted I was; we had been travelling and running about all night, and it was already nearly three o'clock. It used to be I could stay up to this hour whilst partying and drinking but driving around in the freezing cold and having traumatic experiences didn't quite fuel my energy. Ceri must have been even more tired than I was. I looked at him sat there, his threadbare grey jumper hanging off him and the collar of his shirt dishevelled around the neck from where he had pulled his coat off. What he really needed was a good rest, but a trip to the doctor would help, too.

  "Very sad, about girl..." Mecky commented, her half-closed eyes staring down at the table as she brushed her thumbs around the rim of her mug. "Very horrible, keeping in the dark by herself."

  "Yeah, it was pretty bad. Probably one of the worst things I've ever seen. On the plus side, at least we set her free." I tried to keep positive, but after what had happened, I wasn't sure where we were going to go from here.

  "We're gonna get that evil son of a bitch if it's the last thing I do," Ceri said.

  "We get him, we make him pay. I am knowing this." Mecky nodded before pursing her lips to her mug and drinking deep.

  "Trouble is, I've got nothing else to go on now. The information I've got leads to nowhere. Unless we can find Edith and figure out the connection, I don't know what to do," he continued, putting the ice pack down on the table and sighing as he picked up his tea instead.

  "You are contacting this quilting club?" Mecky suggested with a tilt of her head.

  "No, I don't think they'll give me her address, anyway..." he murmured in an undertone. He looked and sounded like he was rapidly losing hope, and this wasn't good; we were a team now, and we needed him to keep going.

  "You seemed to do pretty well getting information out of that tart at Bath Road. And you had old Sandra fooled into thinking we were coppers. Why can't you do that now?" I reasoned as I leaned my elbow on the table.

  "I can't keep doing that! I won't do that again!" He exclaimed suddenly, and Mecky and I nearly flinched back in our seats, both of us alarmed by his behaviour.

  "Hey, don't lose your temper with us, all right! I was just trying to help!" I protested, though in truth I knew he was probably acting this way because he was exhausted and in need of rest.

  "You don't get it. Just forget about it. I won't do it again." His voice dropped to a murmur.

  "Well there's no need to get your panties in a twist, is there. I think you need to go to bed, to be honest. Look at the state of you, you look like you're ready for the knacker's yard." I pouted at him over my mug of tea.

  Mecky gulped down the last mouthful of her tea and rose soundlessly from her chair, her slippers scuffling along the floor as she took her cup to the kitchen counter. She turned, and as she passed me she bent down to my level to speak against my ear.

  "You are sleeping in my bed, okay?" she said, before giving me a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

  "But—but we can sleep in the living room..." I turned in my seat to watch her as she went to the door, a big grin on her face.

  "No, no!" she waved me away as she escaped into the hallway. Her footfalls moved along to the stairs, and the steps began to creak as she ascended.

  I turned back to Ceri, my heart aching for him; I just wanted to grab him and squeeze him tightly. It was the first time I had really seen him look so deflated. Discarding the rest of my tea, I hauled myself to my feet and went to his side so that I could bend and put my arm around his shoulders. He yawned slightly before glancing up at me; his eye looked slightly better, I could see a sliver of bloodshot eyeball between his lashes, but it still wasn't great.

  "Come on. Let's get to bed before the sun rises. You look like you're gonna collapse in a minute." I spoke to him encouragingly, and he made another sigh, this one more hopeless than the last.

  "Leon..." he began hesitantly, his hand taking hold of mine as though he thought I might move away from him. "Leon, you did good tonight. I just wanted you to know that. I would have been too scared to go by there myself. I'm glad you were with me."

  I felt my heartache intensify at the sound of his words, and I noticed I had started to bite into my lip as I listened. Pulling a chair out, I perched beside him, leaning forward on my elbow so that I could nuzzle my face to his; his forehead was creased, and his brows were slanted, making him look like an aged, battle-scarred bear. I stroked his face gently, caressing his cheek and jaw as I closed the gap between us to kiss him, and the kisses he returned were feeble, weak with tiredness. His scent was starting to become intoxicating to me and I sniffed it deeply, restraining myself from turning his head so that I could sniff behind his ears the way Mecky did.

  "I was scared, too. In fact, I was shitting bricks the whole time. But you made me feel safe," I said to him softly.

  "Thanks."

  "Now, let's go to bed. Otherwise I'm gonna have to get the sticky tape out and tape your eyelids open." I giggled, and I was relieved when he managed a small chuckle. I could hear his joints creaking with lethargy. It made me want to scoop him up and wrap him in blankets.

  "Okay. I give in," he replied.

  I got up with him and waited until he had shuffled out of the room before I turned the light off. It was going to be strange sleeping downstairs after having slept in the loft the whole time, but if it meant Ceri was satisfied that Christine would be better supervised, I was willing to deal with it. I understood why he distrusted her, but I wished he wouldn't be so hard on her. She was just a kid.

  The bed smelled strongly of Mecky's scent, almost to the point where it made it difficult to settle down. The second Ceri's head hit the pillow, he went out like a light, and I lay there cuddled up against his back, listening to his steady, if slightly grumbly breathing while he dreamed. I kept thinking about what he had said in the kitchen earlier, how angry he had become, and for what? He didn't want to question some people again? But he had been so good at it. I didn't understand what his problem was. Maybe he was just fed up or something.

  When morning came, Mecky woke us up by knocking on the door; I really didn't want to get out of bed, but if I wanted Ceri to see a doctor then it was best to get this over and done with. The swelling seemed to have gotten worse over night, perhaps because he had slept on it, and over breakfast he complained when I poked and prodded at him. I went for a hot shower, figuring I should probably forego wearing the dress Mecky had given me. Leona might prove to be too much for the doctors and nurses to handle, and anyway, Ceri needed to be the centre of attention there, not me. Before we put our coats and shoes on, I fussed over him
with a comb, attempting to brush the knots out of his hair while he pulled his boots on. He made all the right noises to imply that my actions annoyed him, but I could tell he secretly enjoyed being mollycoddled by me.

  I couldn't help it, I just felt the need to do it when I started to care about people. I found myself doing it to Mecky and Christine, too. Slater used to complain when I would try to pluck loose eyelashes from his cheeks or point out he had food stuck in his teeth, but he knew I only did it because I cared. As we sat in the car, waiting in the morning traffic, I thought about Slater, how similar his personality had been to Ceri's, and how, if he hadn't been totally straight, we could have made a good couple. I had never really found him attractive, but then I hadn't found Ceri attractive at first. I figured that was where I had gone wrong all my life; I mean, just look at what had happened with Wallace? He had been dashingly handsome but had turned out to be a devil on the inside.

  We were heading to the walk-in clinic because Ceri wasn't registered to a doctor's surgery, which meant we would probably have to wait for an appointment, but I didn't much mind. He needed a little bit of a break from the werewolf hunting business. Okay, it wasn't much of a break really, but at least it might take his mind off things for now.

  "I still think you've got a fractured eye socket," I remarked as we watched the lights change colour and Ceri lurched the car forward through the junction.

  "I have not got a fractured eye socket," he grunted dismissively.

  *~*~*

  "It's a fractured eye socket," the doctor said as he slapped the semi-translucent sheet onto the lightbox. The three of us peered at Ceri's x-ray, and I felt very smug indeed.

  "See, what did I tell you?" I raised my eyebrows at Ceri as he sat back down in the chair beside the doctor's desk. I was unable to stop myself from smirking, although it might have seemed a little inappropriate to the doctor.

  "You should have gone to A&E," the doctor said as he sat down, too, flipping his tie over his shoulder and resting his elbows on the arms of his chair. He was quite young, perhaps in his late twenties, and was quite boyishly handsome with his neatly combed wavy hair and long, thin limbs.

  Ceri made a murmuring sound and found something interesting to look at on the other side of the room. He was so stubborn.

  "I did tell him, Doctor. So what do we do now, then?" I inquired as I joined them in a third chair next to the injured grouch.

  "Well, you're incredibly lucky that it's a very minor fracture. Most people who fall down the stairs don't get away with it as easily as you have. What I recommend is that you get plenty of rest, apply an ice pack to reduce swelling every three to four hours and sleep with your head propped up slightly. I'll write a prescription for some antibiotics and a decongestant, and if it's not looking good in ten to fourteen days, come back and see us." He smiled at us both, before turning and pulling his mouse and keyboard towards himself.

  "Listen to me next time, all right?" I leaned close to Ceri so that I could whisper to him.

  He mouthed 'screw you' at me, before making a wry, if not somewhat regretful smile.

  We left the clinic with the intention of heading to the pharmacy, and I hoped that this whole experience had taught Ceri a lesson, but I was sure it would probably be some time before he wasn't so stubborn as to take my advice.

  Part Four

  Twenty-One

  Mecky opened up the shop when we got home, and Christine was milling about behind the counter while she chatted to some of the customers. There was a feeling of unease; people who visited regularly were wondering where Mecky's new lodgers had come from and asking why the shop's opening times were proving to be erratic lately. There were lines of concern on Mecky's face when she came into the stock room to see us, her hands in the pocket of her apron as she asked about how Ceri's appointment had gone. She seemed to perk up when she found out that he had a prescription and instructions on how to look after himself, but I could see there was sadness behind her eyes. Ceri's hopelessness the night before seemed to have affected her, but she was trying her hardest to be strong.

  "You're gonna crash in the living room and put yer feet up, ya got that?" I told Ceri as I followed him up the stairs to the middle floor. "I'll fetch you an ice pack and something to eat, but you're not going anywhere or doing anything for today. You need to rest, old man."

  "Mm-hmm..." he hummed in response as we reached the landing.

  "I'm gonna go down and help the girls in the shop after. If I catch you going about, I'll give a you proper hiding, I will," I added as I escorted him to the living room. He had taken off his coat and shoes downstairs, which left him his turtleneck jumper and dark green corduroys, his toes visible through the holes in his worn-out socks as he sat down on the sofa and stretched his legs out.

  I stood beside him, my hand on my hip as I observed his moody face.

  "I know you're annoyed at me, but I don't care. What would you have done if you got an infection, eh?" I spoke to him, but secretly, I found his grumpiness endearing.

  "I'd be a bit more cooperative if you dressed up as a sexy nurse for me..." he murmured, his tone steady and serious though I saw the little quirk of a grin appearing on his mouth.

  "Don't be cheeky. If you weren't injured, I'd slap ya." I bent and ruffled the top of his head fondly. "Now stay where you are, and I'll get you a cuppa."

  I didn't just make tea for Ceri; I made tea for Mecky and Christine, too, and once I had him tucked up under a blanket watching television, I descended to the lower floor with a tray wobbling on my one hand, my teeth gritted as I worried I would drop the whole lot. They were grateful for a hot beverage, and for an extra pair of hands. Well, not exactly a pair as the saying goes. A poor choice of words, I guess. I had a few customers stare at my missing arm, but I was past caring about it. So what, I only had one? Big deal. I charmed the pants off of them with my good sense of humour and my attractive visage. Late in the afternoon, while Mecky prepared to wind down for the evening, Christine and I went out to the store room for another cup of tea and to have a little break, the two of us sitting on some crates of stock near the hatch to the basement. We didn't have long before it was time to shut up shop, but I was gagging for a fag so I went to stand by the back door, politely blowing my smoke out into the winter air as Christine sat behind me, her coat draped round her shoulders.

  "How are you feeling after last night?" I asked her, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye as I blew more smoke through the doorway. "You doin' all right?"

  She nodded, licking the corner of her mouth as she rested her cup of tea on the knee of her jeans. "Yeah, I guess so... You're not mad at me, are you?"

  "Don't be silly, sweetness. I ain't mad at ya." I turned and leaned against the doorframe, my cigarette pinched between two fingers. "What makes you say that?"

  "Well...I guess if I had told you about Darnel, Ceri wouldn't have... You know..." she shrugged. She seemed very sorry indeed and I had no intention of making her feel even more guilty.

  "Oh don't worry about that old git. I know why you didn't tell us, and that's okay. We're not mad at you," I reassured her.

  "Thanks, Leon." She smiled meekly, her eyebrows slanted as she gazed at me.

  "That's all right. What happened down there anyway? You were freaking out like crazy," I inquired, unsure if it would be a good idea to make her relive what went on.

  She shrugged again, nervously. "I dunno. I saw Wallace and I just...I didn't want to be locked up in that room again...It wasn't because of Darnel. It was Wallace. I don't want to be his prisoner. I wanna go back to my family, be normal again."

  "Well, don't worry, you ain't gonna be locked up again. So, you said Darnel is your boyfriend? Little old for you, ain't he?"

  "He's only four years older than me. There's a bigger age gap between you and Ceri." She pouted. "Anyway, you don't know him like I do. He's sweet, and he's sensitive and so kind. He's never hurt me or been mean to me. He wants to become a fireman so he can rescue p
eople, and he's so smart and strong. He said he wants to wait until I'm old enough to... Ya know... Do it."

  "Oh, that's nice." I raised my eyebrows, surprised she was divulging this to me. "Believe me, sweetheart, men like that are few and far between."

  "Really? I don't think so. I think you should give everyone a chance. Not all men are, y'know, assholes or whatever." She shrugged one shoulder before bringing her teacup to her mouth. She sounded surprisingly adult when she spoke like that. Maybe she was right, and my previous experiences had made it difficult for me to trust people now, especially potential boyfriends. I was putting Ceri through the hoops, wasn't I? Maybe I should give him a break; he'd been kind to me and cared for me. Maybe I shouldn't let past hurts ruin my relationship with him.

  "Point taken... Is he your first boyfriend?" I asked out of curiosity.

  "No." She giggled, her eyes squinting as she laughed and looked down at the concrete ground. "I had a couple of boyfriends before, but they were stupid. They thought if they showed off by getting into fights that it'd impress me, but I just think that's so childish. My last boyfriend cheated on me as well, with one of my cousins."

  "Girl, don't I know how that feels? My last boyfriend was a monumental turd who cheated on me, too." I clicked my fingers in the air. "And the one before that. Actually, most of my boyfriends have cheated on me. Maybe I drive too hard a bargain."

  "Do you think Ceri will cheat on you?" She tilted her head interestedly. She wasn't mocking me, it was a genuine question.

  I paused, giving it a little thought before I answered. "...No. No, I don't think so."

  "Why is he different?"

  I chuckled, biting my lip as I tried to figure out how. She smiled at me, seeming entertained by throwing these thought-provoking questions at me.

  "I don't know. I—well, I guess it's because he's...kind of ugly, I guess. As mean as it sounds, he's just... Oh, I don't know." I sucked on the cigarette, holding it for a second before turning my head to blow it outside again. "All my past boyfriends were stereotypically handsome. Some of them were, like, metrosexual or whatever you call it. Some of them went to the gym all the time. I picked them because of their looks. They were attractive, so therefore I assumed they were pretty on the inside, and I was wrong. Even my last boyfriend... I started saying he was gross and disgusting after we broke up... But he was a male model, he did fashion shoots and everything. He wasn't ugly, not by society's standards, and yet he still cheated on me. Ceri is so different from any person I've ever dated. There's so many layers to him, he keeps me guessing all the time. I could be with him a hundred years and still not know all his secrets."