a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf walk into a bar.
Thank you so much for all your kind words the other day, folks, when I was flagging a bit; am feeling fine-spirited again now (if rather dreading this month's sociology exam D:). I really don't deserve you lot. ♥ Anyway, today I bring fic! As some of you know, I'm working on a big epic Merlin fic with Maddie, but it was nice to produce something independent again (I mean independent of a big plot, of course, and not of Maddie, who is an utter joy), as well as in a different fandom. Basically: this was fun to write and I hope other people don't hate it! :D Although, it's a Tiny Fandom Crossover, so actually I think it's more likely that everyone will just be massively indifferent to it.
Title: Talk to Strangers
Fandom: Regeneration/Being Human
Summary: Blame this picture of Being Human’s new Mitchell. Come on, BBC! He was canonically vamped in WWI and you expected me NOT to write this? Pshawwwwwww.
A/N: Written for moogle62: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOVELY GIRL. :DDD Late present is late. (Also dedicated to m'colleague in fic, strangeumbrella, who’s having a shit time of it at the moment and deserves some cheering up. This is - probably not the fic to do that!)
Frankly, it's not even the fidgeting that’s putting Rivers on the edge of his seat; he saw his fair share of shuffling and finger-tapping and shrugging and head-ducking at Craiglockhart without it making him uncomfortable, but there's something about this man that just...sets Rivers' teeth on edge. There’s no other way of describing it.
Nobody's been able to induce Second Lieutenant Mitchell to remove the blood-stained uniform he was found wandering the streets in, so he just sits there, looking pale and staring at the floor, like some kind of apparition. "I'm sorry," he says, voice even and quiet, "But would you mind drawing the curtains."
Rivers is halfway across the floor and heading toward the window before he stops himself, realising what he had been about to do. Insane.
"I think not," he replies firmly, and Mitchell glances up. It is not Mitchell’s propensity to hide his eyes that has been unnerving him, Rivers knows this now - it is the inexplicable and yet equally inescapable fact that, when he lifts his head, his eyes look like an animal's. Even after all the terrible things, all the stories, all the young men changed forever by the things they have seen, something about those eyes will stay with Rivers until his dying day.
"Come now," says Mitchell. "Isn't it part of your job to put me at ease?"
"The more interesting question here, surely, is why you fear the sunlight."
"I don’t fear it. I just dislike it."
"Why," Rivers presses, patiently, "Do you dislike it?"
Mitchell's laugh is so unexpected that it sounds almost violent - it's sudden, and loud, like the braying of guns. And just as aggressive. Twisting in his seat like a cat, Mitchell throws his legs over the arm of the seat and reclines, arms snaking backwards to support himself, not like soldiers or patients are supposed to sit. He smirks.
"Now that really would be telling," he murmurs.
+
Stumbling home from the pub, on leave, a voice had called his name in the darkness. Just his surname; he'd been just his surname ever since he signed up.
"Mitchell," the voice said. "Mitchell."
If he'd known then that it would be the last time he'd ever see his breath fogging the air, chest rising and falling inside his greatcoat, perhaps he would have relished all those minutes that little bit more - instead, he’d just called back, "Who is it?"
And then it was cold hands, the shock of pain and the sound of the Smiling Man’s laughter.
+
"Are you aware of the reasons you were brought here, Mr. Mitchell?"
All the muscles and tendons in Mitchell’s shoulders, working together to produce his shrug, look like the cogs in a well-oiled machine cooperating. Does the shrug mean that he doesn't know, or that he doesn't care?
"Well, I hope you realise that your symptoms are nothing to be ashamed of. Shell-shock is--"
"Shell-shock?"
"What would you prefer me to call it?"
"That’s what they think is wrong with me."
"Your memory-loss, your unresponsiveness, your…" Eyes. "Demeanour." Your eyes. "A lot of men experience this condition; contrary to whatever your superiors might have told you, it really is nothing to be embarrassed about, and that goes doubly-so for when you are inside the walls of this room."
"And I'm sure you know all about my condition," says Mitchell, voice sounding on the edge of laughter again, as if he's constantly on the verge of some kind of hysteria and might just start laughing at any moment and not stop for days and days.
+
"They found him this morning, Doctor," said the Nurse. "Wandering about in the street a little before dawn, absolutely covered in blood. Like a ghoul. We thought maybe he was one of yours."
The calm-faced, bespectacled doctor tapped a pencil against his lips and looked at Mitchell - who was lying on one of the beds, above the covers - very intently. He said, "And you haven’t responded to any offers of a change of clothes, Mr. Mitchell?"
Being addressed directly took Mitchell by surprise: everybody else he’d met since being brought in here had talked about him as if he were incapable of understanding. And he’d begun to notice that something else was bothering him. After a pause, he said, "No, thank you, but could you please shut the curtains? The light’s...rather unpleasant."
"We tried to do it by force," the nurse put in. "But he's deceptively strong. He didn’t want to be touched."
A frown. "Mr. Mitchell, why don’t you want to change out of that uniform?"
"I must insist about the curtains."
"Do you remember how you came to be in the street?"
"Please. The curtains."
Huffing irritatedly, the nurse wrenched the curtains closed with a flick of her wrist, and Mitchell smiled. The doctor removed his glasses, dragging a hand across his eyes in a gesture of untold weariness.
"I think perhaps you're right, nurse. Mr. Mitchell should come with me."
+
Time to try a different tack.
"Of course, if there's nothing wrong," continues Rivers, "It's quite possible for you to be sent back to France - we know who you are from your uniform, from the cards you carry with you. I just thought--"
At this point, a lot of things happen very quickly: firstly, Mitchell swings himself to his feet in one smooth movement, limbs full of easy grace and, secondly, Rivers backs unconsciously away until he reaches the wall, and then feels very silly for having done so. In one fluid circle, Mitchell crosses the room, closes the curtains and moves back towards Rivers, bearing down on him like a dog, and why can't Rivers stop thinking of the poor man as some kind of beast? He's just a man. An ill man, a very ill man, but nonetheless a human being.
"Please sit down," says Rivers, voice quiet and controlled even though he feels - afraid. For reasons he cannot explain, he feels very afraid.
Odd how, in the lack of light, Mitchell’s teeth appear almost pearlescent. They draw the eye.
Abruptly, he puts a hand on Rivers' throat, face etched with lines of anger and despair in the shadow of the consulting room, and squeezes. Rivers tries to throw him off, but Mitchell really is far stronger than he looks, and all the while he’s started hissing, like a cat being manhandled, "What do you know about it? What do you know about any of it? About my 'condition'? About what I am? About what he did to me?"
Desperately, Rivers kicks him in the shin hard enough to throw him off balance, and has a few seconds to catch his breath before Mitchell’s up and on him again, pressing him back into the wall by his shoulders. "I will not sit down," he murmurs. "And I will not go back."
Then his face is moving towards Rivers' neck - he rips at the collar that covers it, tearing it away as if it were paper, and Rivers' breathless, gasping cry of shock turns into a cry of pain, as the soldier bites him, actually bites him.
The door swings open, and a familiar voice, edged with unfamiliar concern, cries, "Rivers, what’s happening?"
Mitchell springs suddenly away, backing into the centre of the room, and Rivers, released, slumps to the floor. The last thing he sees before he blacks out is the expression on Mitchell’s face, frozen with shock; Mitchell’s mouth, forming the word, "Prior?"
+
Out in the street, Mitchell hit the ground running and had put as much distance between himself and the doctor’s house as was possible before a firm pair of hands on his shoulders stopped him in his tracks. "Woah, woah, woah," said the Smiling Man. They were in a small, eerily quiet suburban street, the sound of London crowds suddenly distant and far away. They were cut-off. They were alone.
"You," Mitchell half-shouted, incoherent; it was just one thing too many. "Do you realise what you - what you've - I didn’t want to believe it was true, but I knew in my heart all the time what you’d made me, and I--"
The Smiling Man hushed Mitchell with a hand on his face, on his hair, on his neck - on the bitemark he put there last night, a gift and a curse. Mitchell flinched. “I know you're frightened,” the man murmured.
"Frightened?" asked Mitchell, voice incredulous and dangerously low. "You've turned me into a monster. Filled me with this horrible anger, this, this rage, I’m frightened of myself."
The Smiling Man’s hand was on Mitchell’s jaw, now, and he was shaking his head."You’re scared of your potential," he corrected. “I'm not surprised: I’ve been watching you,” thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone, "You have so much of it. But you needn’t be. I'm going to help you."
In the wake of everything, Mitchell felt suddenly calm. There was a roaring in his ears, and he could smell the man two streets away who'd cut himself shaving, and this thought kept beating its way through his veins like a pulse, like an idea where his heartbeat used to be: I can do whatever I want.
"You must be hungry," the Smiling Man continued, licking away the blood he'd just wiped off Mitchell's cheek with his thumb. "Call me Herrick."
+
When Rivers comes to, somebody is talking, and he decides the safest thing is probably to stay very still until he works out what’s going on.
"For God's sake," Prior is saying, close-by. "He's not exactly got the strongest heart."
"I know, but…well, are you sure?" The other voice sounds like it belongs to his landlady; unfortunately, things start coming back to Rivers at about this point in the proceedings - his recent injury being one of these things - and he makes a noise at the back of his throat.
"He's in pain," continues Prior, who, as far as Rivers can work out, is sort of propping him up from behind, pressing a towel into the space between his neck and shoulder. "He was attacked by a patient, and now he’s bleeding and he's unconscious and he’s in pain, so I mean it when I say that the best thing you can do is to go and get a doctor. Quickly."
Rivers is thinking that the voice sounds odd when he realises that it belongs to the other Prior - not his fugue state, but simply the Prior who is a soldier of unquestionable competence and, yes, ruthlessness - the Prior he almost never sees. It makes him feel odd, and he isn't sure why. There’s a bustling noise in the doorway, a little harrumphing, followed, a few seconds later, by the sound of the front door slamming; obviously thinking them alone, Prior’s breathing roughens a little, as if he's allowing himself a moment of panic. Lying here silently feels suddenly too much like spying, so Rivers says, "Hello."
Probably not the most sensible thing he could possibly have said, but then he has lost rather a lot of blood.
"Hello," says Prior. "Another day at the office?"
Rivers laughs and attempts to sit up. "You could say that."
Together, the two of them manage to lean Rivers back against the armchair nearby, and Prior’s pale face comes bobbing into sight. He smiles, hand still pressing hard on the towel, and Rivers says, "Sorry, but I just - not that I’m not glad to see you, of course - but I was just wondering, why are you here?"
"You said to get here for about two."
"Oh. It's Thursday, isn't it? I suppose I did."
"I was a bit early, so I was waiting outside." With a wry smile, "Sorry I came in without knocking."
"No, i-i-it’s quite all right," Rivers stammers, smiling tightly. There is blood on Prior’s tunic; his blood, he supposes. "I must say, I'm rather glad you did."
"Ever been bitten by a patient before?" asks Prior, cheerfully.
"I can't say that I have been."
"A record, then. Finally, somebody more difficult than me."
Rivers almost says, I wouldn’t go that far, but stops himself, because you can never tell at the best of times what Prior will take as a joke and what he will take as an insult, and Rivers doesn't really trust his own judgement at the moment. Prior is taking Rivers' pulse, now, with an expression of the utmost concentration; sometimes, Rivers remembers just how good Prior had been at soldiering before it all went to hell for him. Poor creature, he thinks, but what he says is, "Where did he go?"
"Mitchell?" Prior asks, without thinking. He winces in a way that would be almost imperceptible had Rivers’ job not been, for some considerable amount of time, watching for signs just like it, and instantly the memory resurfaces of Mitchell saying Prior’s name - Rivers can't recall seeing it, of course, but the thought returns as words. They knew each other. Rivers' eyes widen.
"One of your - accquaintances?" he asks and, in spite of the polite euphemism, his tone is uncharacteristically indelicate.
Prior doesn’t react. "I knew him once. I didn’t know he liked to bite, though."
"I suppose I asked for that."
Smiling his wintry smile, Prior leans forward and takes away the towel in order to peer at Rivers' neck.
"What’s the verdict, Doctor Prior? Will I live?"
Prior sucks his cheeks in, looking as if he's trying to disguise his utter delight at Rivers' joke (he's probably loving every second of this role-reversing madness, Rivers realises with an entirely unprofessional degree of fondness). "It’s very…neat," Prior notes, with quiet surprise. "Not at all like you'd expect. But, yes, you'll live." He waves the towel. "It's stopped bleeding."
After folding the towel and putting it to one side, he leans in to take another look, one hand on Rivers' jaw for balance, tongue caught between his teeth. Something about the look on his face, Rivers can’t explain it, but it makes him feel suddenly hot-cheeked and awkward; apparently, he can handle all the aggressive flirting without much difficulty, but having Prior be uncharacteristically serious and gentle at such close range is all a little bit much.
"Sorry," he says. "But...would you be so good as to go and open the curtains?"
+
The man was fair, with blue eyes and high cheekbones and an unreadable expression, and apparently he’d taken a shine to Mitchell, although Mitchell couldn’t think why. He wasn't awfully good at that kind of thing. Mitchell. That kind of meeting-strangers-in-pubs-and-then-going-about-with-them thing. But he felt like maybe he should learn.
"Do you want to go on somewhere?" said the man, and the quirk to his lips left Mitchell in no doubt as to what sort of somewhere he was talking about; God, if his mother could only see this - she must be spinning in her grave.
"I don't even know your name," Mitchell replied.
With a laugh, and holding out a hand, he conceded, "It's Prior. My name's Prior. So, do you want to go on somewhere, Mr…?"
"Mitchell," said Mitchell. "Er. Well, I suppose I - okay, then. Yes."
Prior grinned.
.
Title: Talk to Strangers
Fandom: Regeneration/Being Human
Summary: Blame this picture of Being Human’s new Mitchell. Come on, BBC! He was canonically vamped in WWI and you expected me NOT to write this? Pshawwwwwww.
A/N: Written for moogle62: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOVELY GIRL. :DDD Late present is late. (Also dedicated to m'colleague in fic, strangeumbrella, who’s having a shit time of it at the moment and deserves some cheering up. This is - probably not the fic to do that!)
Frankly, it's not even the fidgeting that’s putting Rivers on the edge of his seat; he saw his fair share of shuffling and finger-tapping and shrugging and head-ducking at Craiglockhart without it making him uncomfortable, but there's something about this man that just...sets Rivers' teeth on edge. There’s no other way of describing it.
Nobody's been able to induce Second Lieutenant Mitchell to remove the blood-stained uniform he was found wandering the streets in, so he just sits there, looking pale and staring at the floor, like some kind of apparition. "I'm sorry," he says, voice even and quiet, "But would you mind drawing the curtains."
Rivers is halfway across the floor and heading toward the window before he stops himself, realising what he had been about to do. Insane.
"I think not," he replies firmly, and Mitchell glances up. It is not Mitchell’s propensity to hide his eyes that has been unnerving him, Rivers knows this now - it is the inexplicable and yet equally inescapable fact that, when he lifts his head, his eyes look like an animal's. Even after all the terrible things, all the stories, all the young men changed forever by the things they have seen, something about those eyes will stay with Rivers until his dying day.
"Come now," says Mitchell. "Isn't it part of your job to put me at ease?"
"The more interesting question here, surely, is why you fear the sunlight."
"I don’t fear it. I just dislike it."
"Why," Rivers presses, patiently, "Do you dislike it?"
Mitchell's laugh is so unexpected that it sounds almost violent - it's sudden, and loud, like the braying of guns. And just as aggressive. Twisting in his seat like a cat, Mitchell throws his legs over the arm of the seat and reclines, arms snaking backwards to support himself, not like soldiers or patients are supposed to sit. He smirks.
"Now that really would be telling," he murmurs.
+
Stumbling home from the pub, on leave, a voice had called his name in the darkness. Just his surname; he'd been just his surname ever since he signed up.
"Mitchell," the voice said. "Mitchell."
If he'd known then that it would be the last time he'd ever see his breath fogging the air, chest rising and falling inside his greatcoat, perhaps he would have relished all those minutes that little bit more - instead, he’d just called back, "Who is it?"
And then it was cold hands, the shock of pain and the sound of the Smiling Man’s laughter.
+
"Are you aware of the reasons you were brought here, Mr. Mitchell?"
All the muscles and tendons in Mitchell’s shoulders, working together to produce his shrug, look like the cogs in a well-oiled machine cooperating. Does the shrug mean that he doesn't know, or that he doesn't care?
"Well, I hope you realise that your symptoms are nothing to be ashamed of. Shell-shock is--"
"Shell-shock?"
"What would you prefer me to call it?"
"That’s what they think is wrong with me."
"Your memory-loss, your unresponsiveness, your…" Eyes. "Demeanour." Your eyes. "A lot of men experience this condition; contrary to whatever your superiors might have told you, it really is nothing to be embarrassed about, and that goes doubly-so for when you are inside the walls of this room."
"And I'm sure you know all about my condition," says Mitchell, voice sounding on the edge of laughter again, as if he's constantly on the verge of some kind of hysteria and might just start laughing at any moment and not stop for days and days.
+
"They found him this morning, Doctor," said the Nurse. "Wandering about in the street a little before dawn, absolutely covered in blood. Like a ghoul. We thought maybe he was one of yours."
The calm-faced, bespectacled doctor tapped a pencil against his lips and looked at Mitchell - who was lying on one of the beds, above the covers - very intently. He said, "And you haven’t responded to any offers of a change of clothes, Mr. Mitchell?"
Being addressed directly took Mitchell by surprise: everybody else he’d met since being brought in here had talked about him as if he were incapable of understanding. And he’d begun to notice that something else was bothering him. After a pause, he said, "No, thank you, but could you please shut the curtains? The light’s...rather unpleasant."
"We tried to do it by force," the nurse put in. "But he's deceptively strong. He didn’t want to be touched."
A frown. "Mr. Mitchell, why don’t you want to change out of that uniform?"
"I must insist about the curtains."
"Do you remember how you came to be in the street?"
"Please. The curtains."
Huffing irritatedly, the nurse wrenched the curtains closed with a flick of her wrist, and Mitchell smiled. The doctor removed his glasses, dragging a hand across his eyes in a gesture of untold weariness.
"I think perhaps you're right, nurse. Mr. Mitchell should come with me."
+
Time to try a different tack.
"Of course, if there's nothing wrong," continues Rivers, "It's quite possible for you to be sent back to France - we know who you are from your uniform, from the cards you carry with you. I just thought--"
At this point, a lot of things happen very quickly: firstly, Mitchell swings himself to his feet in one smooth movement, limbs full of easy grace and, secondly, Rivers backs unconsciously away until he reaches the wall, and then feels very silly for having done so. In one fluid circle, Mitchell crosses the room, closes the curtains and moves back towards Rivers, bearing down on him like a dog, and why can't Rivers stop thinking of the poor man as some kind of beast? He's just a man. An ill man, a very ill man, but nonetheless a human being.
"Please sit down," says Rivers, voice quiet and controlled even though he feels - afraid. For reasons he cannot explain, he feels very afraid.
Odd how, in the lack of light, Mitchell’s teeth appear almost pearlescent. They draw the eye.
Abruptly, he puts a hand on Rivers' throat, face etched with lines of anger and despair in the shadow of the consulting room, and squeezes. Rivers tries to throw him off, but Mitchell really is far stronger than he looks, and all the while he’s started hissing, like a cat being manhandled, "What do you know about it? What do you know about any of it? About my 'condition'? About what I am? About what he did to me?"
Desperately, Rivers kicks him in the shin hard enough to throw him off balance, and has a few seconds to catch his breath before Mitchell’s up and on him again, pressing him back into the wall by his shoulders. "I will not sit down," he murmurs. "And I will not go back."
Then his face is moving towards Rivers' neck - he rips at the collar that covers it, tearing it away as if it were paper, and Rivers' breathless, gasping cry of shock turns into a cry of pain, as the soldier bites him, actually bites him.
The door swings open, and a familiar voice, edged with unfamiliar concern, cries, "Rivers, what’s happening?"
Mitchell springs suddenly away, backing into the centre of the room, and Rivers, released, slumps to the floor. The last thing he sees before he blacks out is the expression on Mitchell’s face, frozen with shock; Mitchell’s mouth, forming the word, "Prior?"
+
Out in the street, Mitchell hit the ground running and had put as much distance between himself and the doctor’s house as was possible before a firm pair of hands on his shoulders stopped him in his tracks. "Woah, woah, woah," said the Smiling Man. They were in a small, eerily quiet suburban street, the sound of London crowds suddenly distant and far away. They were cut-off. They were alone.
"You," Mitchell half-shouted, incoherent; it was just one thing too many. "Do you realise what you - what you've - I didn’t want to believe it was true, but I knew in my heart all the time what you’d made me, and I--"
The Smiling Man hushed Mitchell with a hand on his face, on his hair, on his neck - on the bitemark he put there last night, a gift and a curse. Mitchell flinched. “I know you're frightened,” the man murmured.
"Frightened?" asked Mitchell, voice incredulous and dangerously low. "You've turned me into a monster. Filled me with this horrible anger, this, this rage, I’m frightened of myself."
The Smiling Man’s hand was on Mitchell’s jaw, now, and he was shaking his head."You’re scared of your potential," he corrected. “I'm not surprised: I’ve been watching you,” thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone, "You have so much of it. But you needn’t be. I'm going to help you."
In the wake of everything, Mitchell felt suddenly calm. There was a roaring in his ears, and he could smell the man two streets away who'd cut himself shaving, and this thought kept beating its way through his veins like a pulse, like an idea where his heartbeat used to be: I can do whatever I want.
"You must be hungry," the Smiling Man continued, licking away the blood he'd just wiped off Mitchell's cheek with his thumb. "Call me Herrick."
+
When Rivers comes to, somebody is talking, and he decides the safest thing is probably to stay very still until he works out what’s going on.
"For God's sake," Prior is saying, close-by. "He's not exactly got the strongest heart."
"I know, but…well, are you sure?" The other voice sounds like it belongs to his landlady; unfortunately, things start coming back to Rivers at about this point in the proceedings - his recent injury being one of these things - and he makes a noise at the back of his throat.
"He's in pain," continues Prior, who, as far as Rivers can work out, is sort of propping him up from behind, pressing a towel into the space between his neck and shoulder. "He was attacked by a patient, and now he’s bleeding and he's unconscious and he’s in pain, so I mean it when I say that the best thing you can do is to go and get a doctor. Quickly."
Rivers is thinking that the voice sounds odd when he realises that it belongs to the other Prior - not his fugue state, but simply the Prior who is a soldier of unquestionable competence and, yes, ruthlessness - the Prior he almost never sees. It makes him feel odd, and he isn't sure why. There’s a bustling noise in the doorway, a little harrumphing, followed, a few seconds later, by the sound of the front door slamming; obviously thinking them alone, Prior’s breathing roughens a little, as if he's allowing himself a moment of panic. Lying here silently feels suddenly too much like spying, so Rivers says, "Hello."
Probably not the most sensible thing he could possibly have said, but then he has lost rather a lot of blood.
"Hello," says Prior. "Another day at the office?"
Rivers laughs and attempts to sit up. "You could say that."
Together, the two of them manage to lean Rivers back against the armchair nearby, and Prior’s pale face comes bobbing into sight. He smiles, hand still pressing hard on the towel, and Rivers says, "Sorry, but I just - not that I’m not glad to see you, of course - but I was just wondering, why are you here?"
"You said to get here for about two."
"Oh. It's Thursday, isn't it? I suppose I did."
"I was a bit early, so I was waiting outside." With a wry smile, "Sorry I came in without knocking."
"No, i-i-it’s quite all right," Rivers stammers, smiling tightly. There is blood on Prior’s tunic; his blood, he supposes. "I must say, I'm rather glad you did."
"Ever been bitten by a patient before?" asks Prior, cheerfully.
"I can't say that I have been."
"A record, then. Finally, somebody more difficult than me."
Rivers almost says, I wouldn’t go that far, but stops himself, because you can never tell at the best of times what Prior will take as a joke and what he will take as an insult, and Rivers doesn't really trust his own judgement at the moment. Prior is taking Rivers' pulse, now, with an expression of the utmost concentration; sometimes, Rivers remembers just how good Prior had been at soldiering before it all went to hell for him. Poor creature, he thinks, but what he says is, "Where did he go?"
"Mitchell?" Prior asks, without thinking. He winces in a way that would be almost imperceptible had Rivers’ job not been, for some considerable amount of time, watching for signs just like it, and instantly the memory resurfaces of Mitchell saying Prior’s name - Rivers can't recall seeing it, of course, but the thought returns as words. They knew each other. Rivers' eyes widen.
"One of your - accquaintances?" he asks and, in spite of the polite euphemism, his tone is uncharacteristically indelicate.
Prior doesn’t react. "I knew him once. I didn’t know he liked to bite, though."
"I suppose I asked for that."
Smiling his wintry smile, Prior leans forward and takes away the towel in order to peer at Rivers' neck.
"What’s the verdict, Doctor Prior? Will I live?"
Prior sucks his cheeks in, looking as if he's trying to disguise his utter delight at Rivers' joke (he's probably loving every second of this role-reversing madness, Rivers realises with an entirely unprofessional degree of fondness). "It’s very…neat," Prior notes, with quiet surprise. "Not at all like you'd expect. But, yes, you'll live." He waves the towel. "It's stopped bleeding."
After folding the towel and putting it to one side, he leans in to take another look, one hand on Rivers' jaw for balance, tongue caught between his teeth. Something about the look on his face, Rivers can’t explain it, but it makes him feel suddenly hot-cheeked and awkward; apparently, he can handle all the aggressive flirting without much difficulty, but having Prior be uncharacteristically serious and gentle at such close range is all a little bit much.
"Sorry," he says. "But...would you be so good as to go and open the curtains?"
+
The man was fair, with blue eyes and high cheekbones and an unreadable expression, and apparently he’d taken a shine to Mitchell, although Mitchell couldn’t think why. He wasn't awfully good at that kind of thing. Mitchell. That kind of meeting-strangers-in-pubs-and-then-going-about-with-them thing. But he felt like maybe he should learn.
"Do you want to go on somewhere?" said the man, and the quirk to his lips left Mitchell in no doubt as to what sort of somewhere he was talking about; God, if his mother could only see this - she must be spinning in her grave.
"I don't even know your name," Mitchell replied.
With a laugh, and holding out a hand, he conceded, "It's Prior. My name's Prior. So, do you want to go on somewhere, Mr…?"
"Mitchell," said Mitchell. "Er. Well, I suppose I - okay, then. Yes."
Prior grinned.
.