Sacrifices - Chapter 3
Rating: R for badnaughty language and potentially triggering medical situations
Summary: Dan finds out that he is not allowed to had a good time. Everyone meets Doctor Clarendon. Hillarity ensues.
It had been almost a week since he’d last seen West, and Dan had just about given up on the scientist. He accepted John’s offer of a night out, as it was something better to do with his time than loitering on the sidewalk and accumulating change. They ended up in a dingy, unmarked-on-the-outside club for the evening. Whatever his expectations of John’s nightlife had been, they hadn’t been this.
“Dan, you don’t look too happy,” John called over the din, “not enjoying the music?”
Dan winced as his temples gave a hearty throb. “Sorry,” he shouted back, “maybe I’m just not as big of a fan of speed metal as you are.”
Dan took solace in the single beer John would allow him as onstage a group of young men in drag played with more enthusiasm than talent. While his head pulsed with the music and his cheap lager had a metallic tang to it, he was still relatively happy. Anything beat listening to the chorus of streetwalkers and junkies outside his window at one in the morning.
The band finished their set and bowed offstage.
Dan took advantage of the sudden silence to request they go outside, “for, um, fresh air.”
“Fresh, here?” John gave a little laugh, but followed Dan outside.
The bearded guitarist was fumbling against the chilly wind with a lighter and a clove cigarette in the lee of the building. Dan tried to find somewhere upwind of him and faltered suddenly, his right knee deciding to give up mid-stride. John seemingly teleported to his side to catch him.
“Whoa, big guy,” he said, “steady on.”
Dan felt the world spin for just a second. “I’m okay.”
“Surrrrre.”
Dan elbowed him playfully in the gut and John darted away, laughing. This was what he missed, this casual interaction with other people. No matters of life and death. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone for a relaxing evening; Herbert didn’t believe in them and Dan didn’t think leaving West on his own, even for a night, was a good idea.
After many abortive attempts, the guitarist flung the lighter into the gutter with a curse and went back inside. They were alone now.
Dan sighed and slid slowly down to the curb. John joined him.
“I wish I did this more often.” Dan tried to get comfortable on the cement.
John sighed. “Dan, if I had a life, I’d give you part of mine.”
“No, it’s more than that,” Dan protested, “it seems like my whole life, I’ve only been living for someone else’s benefit, never for mine. And I thought I wouldn’t ever want more than that. But it turns out what I was living for all these years doesn’t really need me, so I have to start learning to live for myself-”
“But you can’t really stop thinking about him, can you?”
Dan stopped.
John turned to him with a tired smile. “You don’t have to tell me, Dan, it’s written in every line in your face. Even when you talk to me, I know you’re thinking about him. You can’t help it when you feel so strongly about someone. It’s that mix of duty and co-dependency you can never quite shake off.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Dan, if I knew a way out of it, I’d tell you in a heartbeat. But I’m not the guy to ask about that.”
He slung an arm around Dan’s shoulders. Dan thought he had, without even coming close to seeing the true nature of their relationship, guessed pretty well about West.
“All I can tell you is that you have way more worth than you think you do. Trust me. No one’s better at selling us short than ourselves.”
“Ahh.” Dan hunched himself up, embarrassed.
“It’s true. Whatever he saw in you in the first place, it hasn’t gone anywhere.”
“Yeah,” Dan muttered, “but he has.”
John smiled mischievously. “Funny, you’d think he’d be around less, then.”
“If he’s been around, I haven’t seen him.”
“You can’t be awake all the time, Daniel. Usually the doc keeps him working pretty late.”
Dan gave a disbelieving snort, but something in his chest eased a little. He even offered to race John to the clinic, but collapsed coughing onto a bench after a block.
“Told you you weren’t ready,” John said, and practically carried him the rest of the way.
The other shift nurse gave them a blank look as they stumbled in the door giggling.
“Mr. Surama came by,” he said in harsh, clipped English, “you should talk to him.”
John sighed and relinquished Dan’s arm. “Probably wants another patient chart. I’ll be awhile, you should get some sleep.”
Dan gave a sheepish grin to the shift nurse, who ignored him, and slumped off to his room. He hadn’t noticed until he’d been able to get up and walk, but no other patient at the clinic had a private room. He supposed it meant that either John or Herbert’s word carried a lot of weight around here, and he didn’t know whether to be grateful or ashamed of his privacy. A bony old man, crack peeking out the back of his gown, stood in the doorway of a room, drooling slightly as he watched Dan go by. His roommate thrashed in the uneasy throes of morphine-induced slumber, heavy gauze bandages over his eyes.
Dan made it to his bed and collapsed, barely bothering to kick off his shoes before he passed into oblivion.
He awoke what seemed like minutes later, jarred by someone shaking his shoulder.
It was the pregnant girl.
“Mr. Dan? Mr. Dan? Someone needs your help.”
Dan groaned and instinctively tried to crawl into his pillow. “Tell John he shouldn’t be consigning patients to do his job for him, and I’m sleepy.”
“Mr. John is not here.”
Dan sat bolt upright. “What?”
The girl steadied her belly with her hands and leaned forward. “He went with Mr. Surama last night,” she whispered significantly.
“And he’s not back yet? Lazy bastard.” Dan rubbed his eyes furiously. “Well, I’m sure we can wait a little longer for him-”
“No, no,” the girl gripped his arm with surprising strength, “Andy is pulling his nails out again. Mr. John says he shouldn’t do that.”
Dan stared at her for a moment.
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” he found himself saying.
As was sadly typical of a young man in Andy’s state, everything within his reach had been smashed, while the old man in the next bed cowered under a pillow. Andy was alternating between screaming guttural sounds and raking what fingernails he had left over his roommate’s skin when Dan met him in a flying tackle. Almost immediately, he was thrown off, but the ruckus attracted the attention of other patients. They managed to corral the young man under one of the flimsy vinyl mattresses while Dan dashed for the supply closet.
He rooted through the too few bottles, cursing, and finally found a single ampoule of Haldol. Snatching up a syringe, he capped it while running back to the room, praying to any god that would listen that he would not slip on the tile floor.
Andy struggled violently under his constraints, bellowing like a bull while Dan filled the syringe. He knelt on the young man’s arm to still it and jabbed the needle in.
Nothing happened for a few minutes. Then slowly, his thrashing eased. After ten minutes, Dan cautiously waved the other patients off him. Andy’s movements were still erratic, but slowing. Dan let out a breath he did not know he had been holding.
With the help of a few other patients, Dan levied the young man back into bed, securing him with makeshift restraints made from donated belts.
~`~`~
Dan sat at the front desk, recuperating after a long, exhausting cleanup of Andy’s self-inflicted wounds, when the pregnant girl waddled up.
“You did good job,” she said.
Dan sighed. “Thanks, I guess.”
“Mrs. Hong says her boil has burst.”
Dan stretched with a creak. “I’ll be right there.”
Over the course of the morning, Dan grew to accept the fact that he had been appointed “acting John” without his consent. He was glad to be back helping patients, doing what little he could helped break up the monotony of waiting for the real nurse to come back. It was hard sometimes, with the people he knew were beyond his power, who couldn’t afford real treatment. Those times, he felt like an imposter, a con man smiling to their faces and providing no real service. He was relieved when the next shift nurse came in, eyeing him with suspicion.
“John didn’t come in,” he explained.
The nurse eyed him. “Who?”
After a long circular argument about who John was and whether or not he actually existed, Dan found his way back to bed, totally and utterly incapable of falling back to sleep. He listened to the muted din of the city beyond his walls as the light faded orange. It was about time.
A tap-tapping of footsteps down the sidewalk near his window. Shiny, expensive shoes stopped near his room, waiting.
He wasn’t sure why the well-dressed gentleman kept coming back, why it was always Dan he came to. All he knew was that he was getting sick of this hide and seek crap. Next time, he promised himself as the footsteps faded down the sidewalk again, next time I’m opening the window and jabbing a scalpel into those fancy shoes.
~`~`~
John did not come back. Dan got used to waking before dawn and making his rounds, it was easier to prevent seven small calamities than handle the fifty larger problems they spawned. Medication found its way into mouths, sutures were washed and dressings were changed. The other nurses simply accepted Dan as another presence in the clinic, none of them spoke of John or asked where he was. They were all immigrants, medical degrees back home had not translated into work when they traveled to America. Their English was limited to job-specific phrases and conversation with them left Dan feeling more alone than ever.
He was giving a blood test to the pregnant girl, Saeng, when Herbert came in. He was not alone.
The man who strode through the door of the clinic was blond and slim, and had the self-assured air of a master practitioner. Dan hated him on sight.
Alfred Clarendon peered through pince-nez glasses at Dan, his gaze was analytical and cold. West hovered behind him like a shadow, expression unreadable.
“And what do you think you’re doing?” Clarendon stated crisply.
Dan realized he was holding a hypodermic needle out defensively, and lowered it. “I’m filling in for John.”
Clarendon narrowed his eyes. “Who?”
“The other nurse. Usually had the day shift? Talked a lot?”
“Oh. Him.”
Herbert spoke. “Mr. Cain is an apt medical professional, for what he is. You could do worse, Doctor.”
Dan cocked his head to speak over Clarendon’s shoulder. “Gee, thanks Howard.”
West’s mouth twitched imperceptibly.
Clarendon had been looking Daniel up and down, not noticing their exchange. Finally, he shrugged and turned away.
“The filing system here is-uneven-but I believe I can point you in the right direction, Doctor Phillips.”
Herbert kept his gaze locked with Dan. “Thank you,” he replied, “I believe their content may be invaluable to our progress.”
Dan smiled grimly at him. Progress. Fuck. West had found a kindred soul at last.
Clarendon walked past Dan, stopping to frown at the next exam table. “What is that?”
Andy lay in restraints; face a bumpy mess of black and blue. A nasty gash on his forearm had been stuck with butterfly closures, but the wound bulged at the seams because Dan had not found enough to secure the wound properly.
Dan cleared his throat. “About that, you may want to re-stock some of your psychoactive drugs. Thorazine we’re particularly low on. Ditto antibiotics and anticoagulants. Practically the only thing we’re not low on is aspirin-and I don’t think that will last too long.”
Clarendon didn’t even look at him. “You will make do with what we have.”
“What?”
“Any and all funds not devoted to my research are being expended to lease and upkeep of this property, so I suggest you make do or buy them yourself like our absent friend.”
“John.”
“As Phillips informs me,” The Doctor continued, “neither of you are well off particularly high standing in the medical community, so feel free to complain to whoever cares to listen. I happen to set my research above the petty politics of everyday life, so if you feel it’s too much for you, you’re welcome to leave like the other nurse.”
He turned to leave, but was blocked by something big and dark.
“His name was John, you bastard.” Dan growled.
Clarendon looked up at this threatening figure, a smile twitching the corner of his lips. Dan glared down at him, and then past his shoulder at West, who shook his head ever so slightly. He looked over to Saeng, who pleaded urgently with her eyes. Dan felt the fight drain out of him.
“Fine, go.” He stepped aside. “I’ve got nothing else to say to you.”
Clarendon patted him lightly on the shoulder. “Good man.”
The two filed out of the room, West keeping his eyes on the other doctor’s back. Dan felt his legs wobble again and sat down heavily on the exam table.
“Fuck,” he sighed, furiously rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands.
Saeng petted the back of his head. “Poor, poor Mr. Dan,” she cooed.
“Yeah, poor, stupid, hopeless Mr. Dan,” he muttered.
Saeng giggled and kissed his temple. “At least you’re cute.”
Dan smiled, though it felt like an icepick had been lodged in his heart. That had been one of the first things John had told him.
“Cute,” he repeated, “cute and hopeless. Yeah, that’s me.”
~`~`~
A/N: Okay guys, feel free to poke me. The chapter dance didn’t work as fast as I thought it would, sorry. But don’t worry, it won’t go on hiatus. I’m not gonna give it up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around-
Sorry. In the next chapter we ramp up the action(fucking finally, am I right?) and perhaps more about the mysterious well-dressed man. Does he have some connection to the good Doctor? Will he reveal previously-unknown plot points? Is Dan being stalked by John Pertwee? Tune in next time to find out!!!