by Robyn Elliot
Danny turned to her, Stephane still in his arms, and shook his head. “This beautiful man has just saved your life, you fucking cow, so don’t think you’re pissing off once the police arrive!”
“I can’t stay!”
“If you even try to leave, I swear I will fucking kill you myself!”
She stared at Danny, and saw the whiteness of him looming large in the darkness of the alley. She saw obsession there. She saw love there. And in his arms lay his entire world…
The rain started coming down hard. Danny closed his eyes, breathing warmth over Stephane’s chill features. Gingerly, he moved his fingers down Stephane’s torso, and he immediately felt the soaking knife wound below Stephane’s jacket. Gritting his teeth, suppressing the urge to howl like a wounded animal, Danny held Stephane to him, rocking him, soothing him.
“It’s okay, baby, it’s going to be okay, I promise. Stef, God, Stef, not long now, the ambulance is coming, it’s on its way and you’re going to be fine. Just hold onto me, Stef, because you know what? I’m never letting you go…you hear me? I’m never going to let you go, Stephane!”
The rain sheeted down, and Danny covered himself as much as he could over Stef's inert body. The woman leaned against the wall, staring soullessly at them, her haunted eyes darting upwards to the lights shifting at the top of the alleyway. Danny met her eyes for a moment, and he didn’t think it possible to have so much hatred in his heart and still be able to breath for it.
Time seemed to come to a grinding standstill, as Danny held onto Stephane, brushing his lips over the pulse at the base of Stephane’s neck.
“I’m going to kiss this every day,” he whispered, “I’m going to make you want to live till you’re a hundred, Frenchman…don’t you dare leave me. Just hold on, the ambulance is on its way.”
In the distance, Danny heard the sirens, getting closer, closer, until he felt himself being prised from Stephane by comforting but determined hands.
“Come on, son; we need to have a look at him…”
Danny nodded, got up, stood by helplessly, as the paramedics knelt over Stephane. One of them lifted a powerful, hand held light over the scene, and Danny clamped his hand over his mouth in horror.
They turned Stephane onto his side for a moment, until they could lift him onto the raised trolley. Danny watched them, shaking his head, murmuring Stephane’s name to himself over and over. Frantically, he thought of Guillaume and Annelise, and about the unknown Delphine. He fished for his phone again, then cursed himself, realizing he didn’t have their numbers.
Danny stepped forward, trying to touch Stephane again, but the other paramedic held him back.
“Best let us do our job, son, okay? What’s your name?”
“D-D-Danny” the stutter in full juddering flow. Danny turned and saw that the woman had sloped off into the depths of the alley, and he turned back to the paramedics.
“T-There w-was a w-woman here, a p-prostitute I think, a fight started and S-Stephane went running down here, p-pretending to be B-B, ah, fucking B-Batman…”
The paramedics glanced at each other. “We’re going to get him to hospital as soon as we can…Stephane you say?”
“He’s French!” Danny shouted hysterically, and the paramedic standing next to him held gently onto his elbow.
“Okay, Danny, it’s okay…”
“He’s been stabbed!” Danny stating the obvious, “by her punter, the fucking bastard…just help him, will you? Please, God, just help him…”
“We are, Danny. Just stand over there, that’s it, and we’ll get Stephen sorted, okay?”
“Stephane!” Danny exploded, but he let the paramedic usher him against the wall. “It’s Stephane, all right?”
He watched them attach Stef to a drip, and place electrodes over his chest. The stench of blood assailed Danny’s nostrils and even as he looked upon the unfolding horror, all he kept seeing was Stephane’s smile, the easy manner of him, the way he had teased and soothed Danny all night. Making Danny happy. For the first time in too long.
Now this. Bleeding out, in some grubby alleyway, and Danny wished it was him lying there.
The paramedics radioed to the hospital. The cold, clinical terms struck at Danny like blows. That was his man lying there…
“How old is he?”
“33,” Danny muttered. 33 years of vitality and wonder. Fucking hell, let there be at least 33 more…
“Male, 33, stab wound to lower abdomen, heavy blood less, vital signs intact but blood pressure low at 98/45. Pulse bradycardic, no other visible wounds. Bringing him in with an eta of seven minutes…”
Danny followed them, the paramedics wheeling Stephane’s inert form on the stretcher. One of them walked close to it, holding aloft the drip like a beacon of hope. At Stephane’s other side, Danny reached down and took Stephane’s hand. As they approached the ambulance, a small crowd had gathered, but Danny barely noticed them. The police shooed them back, and one of them nodded at Danny, as the paramedics carried Stephane into the ambulance.
“Are you his friend?”
Danny nodded, barely listening, watching Stephane.
The officer persisted. “Are you going to the hospital?”
“Of course!” Danny snapped.
“We’ll get details there, then.”
“Okay!” Danny snapped again, and virtually leapt into the back of the ambulance. The paramedic who had been talking to him in the alleyway slammed the doors shut behind them. As the ambulance started to move, the wail of the siren striking up its dissonant chorus, Danny sat down opposite Stephane, clutching his hand again. In the light, he could see how white Stephane was, all his healthy glow and vigor drained from him. A wad of gauze and pads were pressed against Stephane’s abdomen, as the paramedic pressed down against them. Before the ambulance had set off, they’d pressed an oxygen mask over Stephane’s nose and mouth. The steaming against the transparent mask gave Danny hope.
His eyes filled with tears.
“Is he your boyfriend, son?”
Danny blinked rapidly, wiping his eyes. “Yes,” he answered, not caring if Stephane might disagree with that, he just wanted Stephane to be okay enough to disagree.
“Then talk to him…”
Danny hesitated, then leaned forward, squeezing Stephane’s hand. He didn’t care that the paramedic was watching. Besides, he was watching the heart monitor that Stef was attached to, not the unfolding of love. Danny raised Stephane’s hand to his lips, kissed tenderly each knuckle. He turned Stephane’s hand upwards, and Danny pressed soft kisses over his palm and the fleshy pad of his thumb. If I had done this an hour ago, he thought insanely, I’d have exploded like an adolescent.
“You’ve got beautiful hands, Stef,” Danny murmured, “such beautiful hands…”
He squeezed his eyes shut, the tears stinging them. He sobbed into Stephane’s palm, weeping quietly.
Danny imagined the sound, but he looked anyway; and for a flickering moment, Stephane opened his eyes, vague, bleary, darkened from pain and blood loss. Danny leaned over him, and kissed him gently on the brow.
“I love you,” Danny whispered, “so very much…”
Stephane closed his eyes again, as the siren stopped and the doors were flung open.
Chapter Four
Danny’s world had stopped at precisely three minutes after ten. Or so his watch told him. He tapped it again with his forefinger, then pressed it to his ear. Not a sound. He kept looking at the watch face, and it returned his scrutiny balefully. How the hell did that happen, he thought; the same time Stef had…
Stef. Stephane. Danny stopped obsessing over his watch, and shifted uncomfortably on the plastic chair. The emergency department was heaving tonight. Nurses and doctors breezed past him as he tried his best to get their attention. He loosened his scarf. Wiped the sweat from his brow. Kept looking down the clinical, fluorescent sheened corridor, leading to a door through which Stef had been rushed. The medical team had slammed it firml
y shut in Danny's face when they’d arrived.
He’d caused a scene. Well, a Danny kind of scene. Once they had got Stef out of the ambulance, he’d started bleeding again. A doctor had come rushing towards them, and Danny knew this wasn’t some junior job. The guy was heavy duty consultant material, and Danny knew then that Stef could be in trouble. These guys didn’t come out on weekends for anything less than a bleed that could drown a small country plus its archipelago.
Danny had clung to Stef, not wanting to let go of his hand – the hand he had kissed and caressed – and it had taken one of the paramedics and a nurse to prise him away. Leaving Danny following, sobbing, in their wake, all pretense at English stiff upper lip-dom dissolved in a flood of realizing the guy they were wheeling into the emergency room was his man. His man.
Yes, that’s my man in there, Danny thought for the hundredth time, looking with watering, pained eyes at that closed door, and wondering how the hell this had all happened. From gazing at each other in that bar, flirting with a vengeance, Danny surprising himself at how every blaze of emotion in him Stephane had managed to ignite...to this. Sitting next to a bloke with a serious personal hygiene problem, who had the most annoying and alarming twitch, causing Danny to jump with him every time he jerked and raised his left arm in a manic salute.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, thought Danny, trying to avoid the man’s stare. He had been staring at Danny for the past half hour, trying to catch his attention to strike up a conversation that, Danny suspected, wouldn’t give the Oxford debating society competition any time soon.
Be decisive, Daniel. Come on, you can do it, Mr. Hastings! Approach the bench.
So Danny got up, took a deep breath and approached the nurses’ station instead. For the fourth time. One, two and three had all ended in the politest 'fuck off' he’d ever heard. This time, Danny determined, he was going to find out just how Stephane was doing. Even if it meant him standing there lemon like for the rest of the night.
“They’re still assessing him,” one of the nurses headed him off at the pass. He was already turning yellow, then.
Danny, initially deflated, pumped himself back up again. “His family need to be contacted.”
“It’s done,” came the terse response.
Danny stared at her impassive face. She was busy writing something, so Danny hovered again.
“I’m family,” he attempted, vainly. She looked up, gave him ten out of ten for persistence.
“You said earlier you were his friend.”
“I am.”
“What is it then? Friend or family?”
For a second, Danny wondered if he was at checkpoint Charlie. “Both, I’m his friend…and his cousin.”
“Nice try, but you know we can’t tell you anything until his family arrive.”
“Have you contacted his brother, then?” Danny glanced down the corridor again, biting on his lower lip.
She took pity on him. “Listen, he’s stable but he’s lost a lot of blood; we have his family’s contact details from his wallet, okay? His brother is on his way, and his mother is...”
Danny turned back to the nurse, raising his brows, suddenly frantic again. “His mother?”
His voice was raised, flicked to the switch of panic. He was aware heads were turning to look.
His mother! Fuck, she was in France, wasn’t she! Didn’t that mean...I mean…
“Hold on a second. Danny, isn’t it? We’re not talking a trek over the Andes, you know. Channel tunnel and all that?”
He nodded, swallowing, feeling his face flood with heat. “I’m not going anywhere,” he finished defiantly, and slunk back to the chair, the personal hygiene compromised guy looking up at him, evidently glad he’d returned.
“They tell you nothing, the bastards. I’ve got leprosy, by the way, so you’d better not touch me; I’m a poet, I can recite you some of my work while you wait.”
Oh come on, thought Danny, thank you God, so much…that’s all I need. Nurse Ratchet, and now baa baa fucking black sheep.
Two hours since they’d brought Stef in. Danny kept glancing at the clock. The guy next to him was on his seventh stanza when, for a blurring moment, Danny had to do a double take as a tall, lean, saturnine man came in, striding towards the nurses’ station.
Danny got up, made his way towards a white faced Guillaume, Annelise standing behind him, her eyes red rimmed. She saw Danny approach, and let out a little cry, throwing herself into his surprised arms.
“How is he?” she gasped, and Guillaume turned, to give Danny a black, withering glare.
“They won’t tell me anything!” Danny gasped, holding onto Annelise as tightly as she was him.
“That’s because you’re not family,” Guillaume snapped, and turned his back on Danny to talk to one of the doctors. Danny stood there, dumbfounded, his barely held together control, ready to dissolve any time soon.
“Guillaume!” Annelise swiped at Guillaume's arm, but he shrugged her off.
“No, no, it’s all right,” Danny said, and Guillaume, muttering in French at him, started to follow the doctor down the corridor. He paused, then strode back, pulling Annelise from Danny's nefarious clutches. “They told me he was stabbed, messing around with you in some fucking alleyway! Some fucking influence you’ve proved!” Guillaume hissed at him.
Danny watched them, Annelise looking over her shoulder at him, mouthing “it’s okay”, before the medic opened the doors, leading them to Stef. He stood for an age, staring, willing the doors to open again, and the doctor come out and tell him Stef was going to be fine, and the world could start doing its rotating thing again. By the time he sat down again, even the leper poet had gone.
Danny glanced at the clock. The seconds turned to hours, and finally he nodded off.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stef felt soft hands stroking his cheek. He groaned, and opened his eyes. There was a weird taste in his mouth, and all he could smell was antiseptic. Danny didn’t smell like that. Danny smelt of sweetness, with tender little glances for garnish.
“Hey you.”
Stef turned his head, still groggy from the anesthesia. He looked into reassuring, kindly eyes.
“Hey back,” he whispered, his throat dry and swollen.
Annelise went on stroking his face. Guillaume sat on the other side of the bed. He looked haggard from relief. Seeing his kid frère looking so vulnerable, so fragile, had been a sobering experience for him.
“Guillaume's here.”
“Uh?” and Stef turned, as Guillaume leaned over the bed, and kissed Stef gently on each cheek.
“Trying to give me a heart attack?” he asked softly, and Stef managed a weak smile.
“So you’ve got one?” Stef offered.
Guillaume rolled his eyes, jerked his head at Annelise. “I was just saying, thank god they didn’t stab your cock, the docs would have had to switch life support off.”
Stef winced from the sensation of smiling. “Ouch.”
Annelise glanced at Guillaume. “Don’t be cross, Stef, but Guillaume called Elisabeth.”
Stef groaned again. “Why?”, as he shot his brother a dark look, his pupils shiny from anesthesia.
Guillaume blew out his cheeks. “Something to do with how her son, and my brother, is laid up in a hospital bed from a knife skewering him.”
“She will make a fuss, and cry all over me,” Stef muttered.
Guillaume shrugged. “Well, I know that. But I thought I’d rather risk your anger than hers; besides, you can’t do anything to me, seeing as a surgeon has just been rummaging in your bits.”
Stef pulled a face. “A guy? Was he good looking?”
“Who?” asked Annelise, starting to laugh. She’d cried for hours, and felt a tad hysterical.
“The surgeon? Think he’ll have been impressed with my equipment?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Guillaume bemoaned, sitting back in the chair, “he’s on the mend!”
“Dr Harriet Walker fixe
d you nicely, Stef; gonna start sleeping with the fairer sex again, then?” teased Annelise. Stef rubbed his cheek against her fingers.
“Christ, the anesthetic’s made me straight!” Stef winced again.
“That’ll teach you,” observed Guillaume.
Stef closed his eyes for a few moments. Then opened them abruptly, drawing in his breath sharply.
“Danny!”
Annelise and Guillaume exchanged glances. Stef saw them do so. “He’s all right, isn’t he? Guillaume!”
Stef started to shift on the bed, and Annelise clutched his hand. “Come on, lie still. You’ve just had surgery, babe. By the way, the knife missed your spleen by a fraction, it just cut muscle and tendons…”
“It just cut muscle?” Stef said coolly, “well pardon me for not being on death’s door, but I feel like I’m wearing my spleen round my neck!”
“Stop it, Dr Munchhausen; we’re not saying you’re not desperately ill and require intensive nursing round the clock, okay?” assured Guillaume, deciding massaging Stef’s ego was a part of the current treatment regime. For now.
But Stef wasn’t deterred.
“I asked where Danny is…”
“Do you think he’s still waiting?” Annelise asked Guillaume, biting her lip. They’d wheeled Stef down to theater last night, passed a sleeping, white faced Danny, sitting among the drunks and emergency room regulars. That had been hours ago.
Stef looked at his brother. “Waiting? I want to see him…see if he’s okay.”
“He’s okay, Stephane. I wasn’t going to mention the fact you were both down some seedy back alley doing God knows what.”
Stef tried to stay calm. Besides, getting annoyed meant that the dragging ache in his side worsened. Surely his pain relief was on its way. Only, there was another dragging ache. In his buttocks. Went by the name of Guillaume.
“Why do you always assume the worst about me, Guillaume?”
