ways_infirmary | (no subject)

Nicholas sighs, wishing he knew how his evening had ended up like this.

"Not to mention the investigation that would likely occur when Sergeant Clarke sees you like this," Nicholas says. "You cannot show up to the station looking like this."

Travis just ignores him.

Guppy watches, tense.

He reverts to his all-purpose contingency plan.

"Let's calm down and have a cup of tea. Decaf for Nicholas, Travis, how do you take it?"

Travis is still ignoring them, starting to feel rather ganged up on.

Nicholas tries to calm himself down. He can't believe that Travis would do something so apocalyptically stupid.

"I do apologise for this, and I hope he hasn't caused you too much trouble," Nicholas says. "Is it all right to ask how DCI Hunt is?"

Guppy sends Aesclepius for tea.

Interesting, Nick does know how to apologise.

"I can tell you that he was injured." he says (it would be impossible to deny, given Travis just saw him in here). "I can't give you details, but it probably won't be permanently disabling."

Providing Gene doesn't do anything particularly stupid with his knee. He'll have the scar on his face though.

"Judging by the punishment, it sounds like Travis started it today." he adds, not wanting Nick to go out and kick Gene's arse as well.

"Good," Nicholas says, hearing that Gene hasn't suffered anything permanent or life-threatening.

Even if Gene had started the fight, Nicholas wouldn't be stupid enough to rush out there and try to finish it. Hearing that Travis had started it, though, does seem to have disappointed Nicholas considerably.

"I worry that this may be partially my fault," Nicholas says. "After they had it out the last time, I told Travis that I wouldn't stop it. I'd rather hoped that he'd assume that to mean that I wouldn't stop DCI Hunt from putting him in hospital, but clearly, it didn't work."

Guppy looks at Travis, then wording carefully so as not to out him if Nicholas doesn't know.

"I believe there was some provocation." he says. "Of Travis by Gene. That wouldn't be appropriate in the modern force. Not that I'm advocating violence - my concern is that someone could get seriously hurt. Gene's... fought half the bar."

Beat. Glance at Nick.

"Mostly guys that look like you, oddly enough."

Nicholas does appreciate what Guppy's trying to do.

"I know," he says. "And I spoke with Hunt last time, and he assured me that it didn't even factor in, which was information I'd later passed on to Travis."

"WHATEVER," Travis mutters.

Nicholas ignores this. If Travis wants to get himself killed, then fine. Nicholas is done trying to stop him.

"Yeah, I think he actually calls everyone that." Guppy says to Travis. "Come on, don't be like that. We're only here looking out for you because we don't want you getting mashed into a pulp."

Nicholas, done arguing about this, puts the overnight bag on the end of Travis' bed.

"I should probably be going," he says. "But thank you."

Travis, meanwhile, reaches for the overnight bag. Inside, he finds a field shower (http://i726.photobucket.com/albums/ww269/bomevacon/johnsons-baby-wipes-large.jpg), a change of clean clothes, and a Gameboy Advance. Clearly, Nicholas had been back to the flat after being told what had happened.

"Um, Nicholas. Can we talk, please?" Guppy asks, timidly.

Nicholas isn't quite sure what there is to talk about, but he does stay.

"About what?" he asks.

Meanwhile, Travis starts trying to clean the blood out of his hair.

"In the office." Guppy says, then adding to Travis. "There's a bathroom through that door."

He goes into the office, hoping Nick will follow. This needs closure...

Nicholas does, rather confused, but not before making sure Travis doesn't fall on his face as he gets up. He's surprised Travis can even stand at all, actually.

It occurs to him that maybe this is something that whatever Guppy has to say might have something to do with Travis' condition, and hurries into the office.

"Is everything all right?" he asks.

Guppy shuts the door.

"It's fine." he says. "But I had to... I..." Come on, focus, spit it out.

"I want to apologise again for the last time we met. I was totally out of line. I saw you collapse and then Travis took you away and then he said you'd moved out and... I have to know if you're okay now."

Nicholas' posture gets rather stiff, and he starts breathing quite slowly.

"I'm fine," he says stiffly.

"Okay." Guppy says, edging away a bit. "Are we able to move on from this then? Just... put it behind us?"

It takes a moment for Nicholas to respond.

"I thought we already had," he says finally, reaching for the door.

"Ah, okay, um, good. Yeah. Didn't really get closure on that. Sorry."

Guppy stands well away, and keeps his hands behind him, just on the desk. Not getting in his way.

No. They haven't. Nicholas knows the sort of thing he's expected to say right now, but he doesn't exactly know how to string the right words together.

"Right," he says. "Are we done?"

Guppy watches him, not moving (not daring to). Not knowing what the right words are.
He'd like to stop waking up at night seeing the expression on Nick's face after he broke down staring accusingly at him in his sleep.
"You tell me." he says.

Nicholas, having often been accused of not knowing how to switch off, interprets Guppy's behaviour as being rather suspicious. As far as he can tell, there's no reason for the man to be acting like this, and yet, he is.

"You're sure everything's all right?" he asks.

Guppy blinks for a moment, unsure what part of it he's referring to. Does he mean their dispute, the fact that he's now nervous of Nick because he doesn't want to do anything wrong, or are they back to Travis?

"With what?" he asks, tentatively.

Nicholas moves to see if Guppy might be trying to conceal something on the desk behind him. He doubts it, but he's not sure why else Guppy might be behaving this way.

"With you," Nicholas responds simply. "You don't seem all right."

Guppy flinches and takes another step further away when Nicholas moves.

"I...I don't know if I'm doing this right. I can't read you."

He wonders whether this is how Alex feels all the time.

...

"What?"

He really wishes Travis would stop trying to explain 'things.' It just confuses everybody and makes things worse.