RS/These streets are in your marrow

[thegentlemanthug]

After he pulls the man from the river, Ben feels uneasy in his mind, moreso than when he was first lucid after his beating. He had the opportunity to know his past, and he walked away. He is a coward as well as a friend to wretches.

He is returning from an errand in town for the dockmaster, his face apparently trustworthy despite his lack of memory, when he realises he has gone too far on the underground railway. He gets off at the wrong stop and means to return immediately to the right one, except that he knows this place. He knows it deeply and strongly, calling to him with a strong sense of who he is.

Either he can ignore it once more or he can follow it, step out from under this cowardice and learn something of who he is. And maybe he can find out the fate of that drowned man, learn something of him, know his pain and soothe it.

He lets his feet take him where they will, trying to follow his gut and not his better sense. He feels the familiarity in the streets, recognising a street sign there, a flower seller there, and his pace quickens as he draws towards somewhere he knows must be home.

The door calls to him and he runs to it, knocking hard on the wood before he can stop himself.

It opens on an older lady in an apron and, before she can speak, he tears his hat from his head and starts trying to explain himself.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, madam, but I had the strangest feeling I ought to come here today."

Comments

[thegentlemanthug]

As Matthew's hand touches his shoulder, Ben turns his body towards him - just in time to catch him as he flings himself at him.

He sinks to the small bed, clutching at his lover just as tightly. He smells exactly right, and that's how he knows this is real, that he hasn't just imagined this life out of nowhere.

He is going home.

[thirstforvice]

"We'll be taking him home now, then," Mrs Ramsay declares, throwing the doctor's earlier smugness back in his face as she watches her boys, reunited.

"He is in here for his own good," the man replies, determined to be difficult. "You have thrown all of my good work out of the window. I cannot let you take him out of here. Unless any of you happen to be an immediate relation?"

Mrs Ramsay looks defeated, but Reid's eyes light up. "I'll be back," he promises the room, and leaves them be without further explanation.

[thegentlemanthug]

Bennet pulls back a fraction, enough to look at his lover's face to see if he can knows more, remember.

But though he knows him, is sure of it, he cannot recall the details of it, nothing beyond the immediate sense of familiarity and care forthcoming.

"I am sorry," he says, "but I...I can't recall you."

[thirstforvice]

Matthew stiffens at once, pulling out of Bennet's embrace just as fast as he'd crashed into him a moment previously.

"What do you mean?" he frowns, looking to the rest of the room for help. He's sick, and doesn't understand things. He doesn't know what is real and what is his imagination. He has to ask for help.

[thegentlemanthug]

Pushing past the nurses, almost daring them to interfere, Mrs Ramsay comes to sit on the edge of the bed with her boys.

"Out Sergeant's having some problems with his memory," she tells the Captain. "He only just remembered his way home today."

[thirstforvice]

"Then... you don't know me at all?" he asks of Bennet, still not understanding. Why did his lover hold him as he had, if he were a stranger to him?

He looks instead to the nurse, beckoning for medication. It helps, when he gets too confused.

[thegentlemanthug]

Bennet glares at the nurse to stay away, knowing instinctively that whatever's in that bottle is no good for his doctor.

"I...I recognise you," he says, awkward at having to explain the vague sensations in his head. "You're familiar and I...I feel...there are many things I feel."

He's surprised to find his cheek is wet and he swipes at his eye.

[thirstforvice]

But Matthew persists, forcing the bottle from the nurse and into his hands, where he cradles it like a lifeline.

"Perhaps you could give us a minute?" Mrs Ramsay suggests to the staff, aware that the conversation her two boys need to have is not something that should be overheard by the doctor and his orderlies. Right or wrong, many would consider the love between the Sergeant and his Captain to be immoral and illegal. "You can see he's no danger."

The doctor seems unconvinced, but he knows when a battle is lost. Leaving Matthew with the laudanum, he vacates the room with his staff.

"But you don't know me," Matthew continues to look less than happy, fiddling absently with the top of the laudanum bottle. "You don't even know my name."

[thegentlemanthug]

"Matthew," Bennet says immediately, and removes the bottle from his hands. "And...and I know you mustn't have no more of that."

[thirstforvice]

Matthew chases the bottle with his hands, before pulling back. Still, he keeps half an eye on where it is, ready in case Bennet decides to do something rash like pour it all away. He is not ready for that, again.

He was - is - a doctor, and he knows he should understand this better than he is. But the drugs and his solitary confinement have made his mind slow, and he struggles to comprehend how his lover can know his name and his drug habits, but not recognise him in any way.

"You pulled me from the river," he points out. "You didn't know me then?"

[thegentlemanthug]

"No."

Bennet looks guiltily down at the hands in his lap.

"I was afraid of knowing you. Of finding out I was...bad."

[thirstforvice]

"You saved my life," Matthew frowns.

"How is that a bad thing?"

[thegentlemanthug]

Bennet took a deep breath.

"The woman what took me in - she thought I'd been beaten, over bad debts or the like. I didn't want to know what kind of man I'd been before."

[thirstforvice]

Matthew has had his fair share of debt-related beatings in his time, and he wonders what sort of man that makes him in Bennet's eyes, but he doesn't say anything. Whatever this is, now, between him and his lover, it is a fragile thing. He will not harm it intentionally.

"The train. You were... everyone said you'd died. But you were thrown. I knew it."

[thegentlemanthug]

Bennet frowns. "What train?"

He doesn't like to admit how much of his memory is missing, not with Matthew already so suspicious, but he needs to be honest. He knows that is important between them.

[thirstforvice]

Matthew supposes he shouldn't be surprised, considering how little Bennet knows of him, but it still hurts.

"We were... goin' away. On the train." He looks to Mrs Ramsay, who nods - she's used to the Captain checking his facts like this now. "But it crashed. You... disappeared."

[thegentlemanthug]

"To the seaside," Bennet says, not sure where that came from. "I left you because...something was happening. A disturbance."

[thirstforvice]

"A crook on the train," Matthew confirms, then frowns, realising there is no one else who can guarantee that that was the truth.

"I think."

[thegentlemanthug]

"Is your memory also affected?" Bennet asks, earnest in his concern.

"I don't...I don't want you to stay here, if it makes you unhappy, but if you are not well..."

[thirstforvice]

"It's this place that's made him unwell," Mrs Ramsay chips in bitterly. "And that's my own failing, and the Inspector. Now this place has made your Captain doubt his own eyes and ears when there was never anything wrong with them in the first place. He'll be better for coming home with us."

Matthew nods; he wants to go home with Bennet, more than anything, despite his confusion and his lover's lack of memories. Everything will be better at home.

[thegentlemanthug]

Bennet nods at her words.

"Where has the Inspector gone?" he asks Mrs Ramsay, as she seems to know most of all what is going on.

[thirstforvice]

With perfect timing, the door to Matthew's room opens once more, the doctor back and looking even surlier than before, if such a thing were possible.

"It appears your release has been secured, Captain Jackson, though I still must advise against it." Reid stands behind him, alongside...

Matthew jerks back against the wall, the same fear reaction he had on Bennet's first appearance. "Tell me she's not real..." he begs, eyes fixed on Susan.

[thegentlemanthug]

Bennet instantly leaps to his feet, standing protectively in front of his Matthew.

"Who are you?" he says to the strange woman who has caused such a reaction, before turning on Reid. "Who is she?"

[thirstforvice]

"This is, uh..." Reid stumbles, unsure how best to explain the very particular situation they find themselves in.

"By law, that man is my husband," Susan feels that she can speak for herself, thank you very much. "But don't worry, you're more than welcome to him."

[thegentlemanthug]

Bennet hasn't the first clue what to make of that, but then nothing about today has made sense so far.

Apart from Matthew, who has given him a feeling of security he hasn't felt since he woke up without his memory.

"Are you here to see him released?" he asks the woman who calls herself wife to his lover.