Chapter Text
They didn’t know what to do when they saw the body, so they got Ted. Unfortunately, that left them on the beach, with a bloody body, empty nets, and even fewer ideas about what to do with either.
Jan had been the one to see it first. The Dutchman often ignored their chatter on the way back in favor of looking out over the waves and sand, only acknowledging the packed boats to lob a blunt and usually offensive observation the wind carried back to them. It was a humbling experience to be downwind of him when he opened his mouth, and Sam had long since taken to sitting as immediately behind Jan as he could–out of sight and, hopefully, out of mind.
When Jan had straightened up as they neared the beach, Sam thought someone, maybe Colin, had the audacity to fire back. It was one of the days where the gray sky sapped the habitual camaraderie from the group by noon, only to drizzle short tempers and bone-deep exhaustion down to replace it. They were close enough to the beach that Sam could probably wade to shore before anyone became too heated. Although some heat sounded good, right about then.
Instead of lunging for Colin, though, Jan reached over to hit Isaac’s shoulder. “Captain. What is that?”
“Ow!” Sam rolled his eyes. Isaac could cover his hands in fresh scars each day and let it pass with a grumble, but a hit from Jan was too much. “Fuckin’ log, or something. How should I know?”
Colin leaned forward from Isaac’s other side, squinting against the fine mist that had pestered them from above and below all day. “Doesn’t look like a log. Looks like a really sad dolphin.”
“Since when do dolphins live in Scotland?” Bumbercatch snorted.
“Since when do you know what a dolphin looks like?” Sam added, more curious than anything else. It had been enough for him to shift forward on the boat to join the careful shifting boys near the bow.
Colin spluttered. “I read, don’t I? And it could be lost!”
“Lost and dead.” Jan didn’t waste time leaping from the boat as they docked, the odd sight still not enough to stop him from tying the mooring lines before stepping onto the beach. Most of the rest followed him, but Sam stayed behind with Zoreaux to double check the knots. If the weather decided to truly storm, better not to lose a boat because of it than see a—something. A something.
He didn’t blame anyone for how long it took to identify it. In all fairness, it had been some time since any of them had needed to jump to such a conclusion, and never in Richmond. It was, unsurprisingly, Jan who realized first. What was surprising, however, was the shout that escaped him when he did.
Few things were startling enough to make Sam rush tying off the boats, even fewer to sway Zoreaux. A startled cry from Jan Maas would always be one of them.
Zoreaux was bigger than Sam, usually meaning Sam was faster, but over the short sprint from the dock to the beach, they remained neck and neck. The ring the others had formed stood rigidly at first, parting only with a few shoves from Zoreaux’s large hands, but soon enough, they stared down at Jan, kneeling over–
Over something bloody.
So they sent Dani to get Ted. And fast as Dani was, the journey to the center of town and back, with the much slower Ted Lasso in tow, left Sam with ample time to stare.
He understood why Isaac had mistook the naked corpse for a sun-bleached log, at first. Its skin was pale and covered in sea refuse, just like any other piece of driftwood. Jan batted the sea weed off, which only revealed the cuts and bruises covering the skin in its place. Sam scanned the maybe-corpse for the source of the blood staining the sand, but there were too many gashes littering the skin to blame any one.
In the end, Roy beat Ted, entirely by accident. As with most things in Richmond, he tried not to get involved until he literally tripped over the problem.
“The fuck did you lot do now?” The ring dissolved and reformed, those more scared of Roy than a dead body pushing closer to it, and those who decided to take their chances parting to make way for the gruff lighthouse keeper. Sam stayed near the body, but didn’t move back as Roy came forward. He wasn’t sure what that made him other than stupid enough to try to help Roy down to the sand. Roy threw his cane down on the sand, batting Sam’s hand away impatiently all he fell, far too quickly for his bad leg, onto his knees. Sam winced as he heard the snapping of cartilage and tissue, gingerly following Roy to kneel in the sand by the body in Jan’s place.
No one answered Roy’s question, knowing full well he hadn’t expected a response. Roy’s brow, always creased to some extent, furrowed in what a stranger might mislabel as concern. It was the same expression he wore if any of them came back injured or sick: incredulity and exasperation. Not particularly heart warming, but, at this moment, Sam was glad for Roy’s inclination towards begrudging examination rather than Colin or Zoreaux’s pacing up and down the beach slope. Though Sam saw some shaking in his bad leg, his hands were steady as he rolled the body over.
They were greeted with blood. A gash leaked out over the young man’s eye, instantly making Sam feel stupid for thinking the cuts possibly could have been the main source of red sand. Sand encrusted the wound and obscured nearly a quarter of his face in gold and crimson. Sam pulled away, but Roy didn’t react beyond a grunt. “Did any of you idiots take a pulse?”
The nervous silence shifted to a smattering of ashamed muttering, and Roy growled–which they deserved, Sam thought with a wince. In fairness, the body did look well and truly corpselike. Roy pressed two fingers against the pulse point of the young man’s neck, moving them around slightly as he searched for something they had all decided before he’d arrived wasn’t there.
Roy pulled his hand back with a curse.
It was.
Fuck , indeed.
“Where’s Dani?” Roy struggled to lift the not-corpse into an upright position, one arm bracing him while the other pounded against its back. Someone–probably Isaac–was shouting at the other men, but with help already sent for and only so much room around the body, there wasn’t much to be said. It was, however, distracting–something Sam was oddly grateful for, his frantic attempts to maintain some control over the situation pulling some of the boys back and giving Roy more room to work.
“We sent him to get Ted.” Sam was overly aware of the sea air biting at his hands as they hovered. They moved to reach forward before pulling themselves back, wavelike and wholly out of his control. He stood, paralyzed and staring, waiting for his limbs and instinct to make a decision as Roy’s palm slammed into the stranger’s back, over and over and–
“What do you need?” he managed.
“For him to fucking,” again, Roy’s hand came down, and again– “cough up,”-- and again, the dull thuds working its way into Sam’s bones and overriding his pulse– “the water in his fucking,”-- his racing pulse– “lungs.” Roy’s response was as rough as ever despite the force of his hits, sharpened by something that in a lesser man, might be called panic. “Come on , you fucking–”
The stranger granted Roy’s wish by vomiting bile and sea water directly onto his chest and lap. Roy cursed loudly enough to cut through the excited shouts coming from the others on the beach, but Sam remained quiet, hands shaking, as Roy gave the strange man’s back a few more hits to expel whatever might still remain in his lungs. The tendons in the man’s neck strained with each cough, his sudden spasms taking him from a potential corpse to unmistakably alive before they ceased, and he dropped, limp again, into Roy’s now much wetter hold, shivering. Shivering, but breathing.
Sam stared, and felt his own breath start to return.
“Is that good, Roy?” Isaac asked.
Roy put a hand to the man’s forehead. “Fever, he grunted, “fuck knows how bad it actually is–rest of him is freezing my tits off.” He leant and pressed his ear to his chest, nodding in approval when he found whatever it was he’d been looking for. “He’s breathing by himself, but I’m not a fucking doctor. We need Crimm.” He reached for his discarded cane, but it was just barely out of his reach if he meant to keep one arm righting the stranger. “You lot are carrying him.” Roy’s voice dropped, each of the following words forced from his chest with military discipline. “My fucking knee.”
“What about the catch?” Isaac asked. Roy turned, scowling.
“What about the fucking catch? Were you planning on leaving him on the beach and hoping he doesn’t choke again while you took it to Beard? Fuck’s sake –”
Roy had apparently done a better job reviving the stranger than he thought, because he was awake.
He had also embedded his teeth firmly into Roy’s arm.
“The fuck–” Roy tried to tear his arm away. Sam moved to pull the man back, but he twisted away, freakishly strong, eyes gleaming with what has to be madness. Salt sickness? He’d heard of such things time and time again, but somehow the stories always left out the attempted cannibalism. That would just be their luck, Sam thought as he grabbed onto and was almost immediately thrown aside by the thrashing body, empty nets and a lunatic on the same day.
“What the fuck do we do?” Isaac shouted.
“Get him the fuck off of me!”
Someone else–Richard–waved his hands about out of the corner of Sam’s eye. “How?”
“Break his fucking jaw if you have to! Fuck!”
It was Colin that saved them. The skinny Welshman moved about as fast as Roy’s attacker, wrapping an arm around his neck and pressing it firmly into the bend of his elbow, securing the grip by grabbing his other wrist. Broken nails came up to scratch blindly behind, but Colin had managed to kneel just out of reach, no matter how hard the violent man tried to twist.
His flailing slowed. Sam watched in horror as his struggles faded from feral swings to pathetic twitches. Finally, he went still, Colin leaping back immediately.
Sam stared at him from his place in the sand, not knowing whether to be impressed or horrified. Isaac saved him from trying to find the words.
“What the fuck, bruv?”
Colin shrugged, though it looked more like a wince as the adrenaline high wore off. “Got three brothers, don’t I?”
It was a miracle they’d all survived to adulthood, in Sam’s opinion, but there’d be time to talk himself out of questioning that later. Roy had scrambled back, clutching his arm and cursing, so Sam took the pulse this time.
Faint, but present. He let out a sigh of relief.
It was at exactly this moment, with Sam’s fingers against an unconscious stranger’s throat, Roy cursing at Isaac for not having any bandages, and the rest of the crew retching and screeching, that Ted and Dani arrived.
When he’d woken up, Ted had promised himself a day of baking.
The general store had completely restocked, which meant he could appropriate some sugar for such frivolous pursuits as experimenting with a new biscuit recipe without a pang of guilt. Rebecca tried to reassure him that his biscuits were always a good use for sugar, short supply or not, but he’d seen that woman when she couldn’t find any for her tea. And he’d thought she’d been scary and British before.
He’d only just measured out the last amount of it when Dani burst through the door, which would have been an absolute delight, if the force of the door didn’t send Ted’s open flour bag–too close to the edge of his counter, that was on him–spilling to the floor. So as it stood, it was a delight, but with flour on the floor.
“Oh, dios– ” Dani immediately fell to the floor and started sweeping the spilled flour into his hand. “I am very sorry, Mr. Lasso!”
“That’s alright Dani, don’t you worry–” but his attempts at comforting were swept on by. Not unlike his flour.
“Isaac sent me to get you and get you back as fast as possible.” Dani looked frantically around before tossing the dirty flour through the window. “There is no time for flour!”
“Right, then, Dani, why don’t you leave the flour on the floor and tell me what has you hopping around like a grasshopper with its pants on fire.”
“There is a body!” Dani made no move to stop scooping the flour up and through the window. “We found it on the beach, and it is not moving!” Ted opened his mouth to get Dani to slow down–probably a moot point, anyway–but Dani threw the last handful of flour out the window and finally stared at Ted. “Mr. Lasso,” his voice cracked, “I fear he may be dead.”
Ted gave up on the biscuits.
He didn’t allow his hands to shake on the return to the beach, focusing on keeping pace with Dani to the best of his ability, focusing on making his way down the rocky shore to the sand, focusing on the boys, appearing first as small, dark colored spots on the beach that grew clearer and louder with each step.
Sam had been kneeling beside Roy, but stood and jogged over to them as soon as he saw them running down the beach. His dark skin had paled, and Ted watched his throat work as he tried to describe the man jumping back to life with literal taste for blood.
He started there. “Christ Roy, what’d you do to make him bite you at first glance?”
“I didn’t fucking make him bite me, the fucker’s fucking feral. Fuck!” Roy braced himself against his cane and pulled himself to his feet, while Ted tried not to wince at the sound of Roy’s knee snapping back into place. A cursing Roy, though, was probably a Roy that was going to be just fine. Sure enough, when Ted cajoled him into showing off his wound, the blood oozed slowly from a couple deeper puncture marks, almost stopped already. He’d have a hell of a bruise, if the red ring on the unbroken skin was anything to go by, but nothing that would need Trent’s attention beyond a bit of patching up and disinfecting.
Reassured that Roy wasn’t about to lose a limb, he turned to the unconscious body in the sand.
Ted registered his age before anything else. Covered as he was in sand and blood, he couldn’t have been that much older than Sam or Colin, only a few years beyond boyhood. Even more pitiful than his age was the gash over his eyebrow–an inch lower and he probably would have lost an eye, by Ted’s estimation. Head wounds were always tricky to assess—the amount of blood always made it worse than it really was—but if he had to guess, hitting his head hard enough to get that bit of business was probably how the kid had been knocked out the first time, if the water in his lungs hadn’t taken care of that first.
He turned his attention to the rest of his body, which Ted recognized all too well. Here was a boy unmistakably used to hard work and scarcity. His thighs and calves in particular looked strong, while his stomach caved slightly inward beneath his ribs, imprints of which Ted could see more clearly than he’d like. Scratches and bruises covered his exposed skin, but his injuries seemed to have spared him further blood loss, clotting the sand in place and slowing the bleeding.
“Colin managed to put him back down,” Isaac said. Ted felt his eyebrows shoot up as he looked over at Roy’s apparently underestimated savior.
“Well, I just love that we’re all learning new and intimidating things about one another.” Ted whistled and stood. “Never a bad day to discover a hidden talent.” He knew his voice was too high, same way he knew his hands were too shaky to be of much help, same way he knew he had to work fast if he wanted to work at all. “Isaac, do you have any empty nets?”
Isaac just nodded, and Ted grimaced sympathetically. It would have been bad news on any day, but today.
“Right–then I’m going to need you boys to help me out here.”
Ted found the trek from the sand up the rocky coast a strain on the best of days, and that was when he wasn’t holding a makeshift sling of fishing nets. The boys could leap over the coast nimble as you like, but Ted still preferred the longer, flatter, scenic route. There’d been no time for that. Their unfortunate stranger needed to get to Trent as soon as possible, and that meant taking the rocky road.
He’d sent Dani on ahead yet again to alert said doctor of their guest’s pending arrival, and he was waiting, winded, next to said doctor. Trent already had his glasses on, his eyes narrowed at the injured kid as if he’d personally challenged the doctor to a duel. It was a look Ted was well familiar with and would have teased if the situation had been–well, anything but what it was. Things being what they were, he merely stepped aside to let Dr. Crimm take over directing the boys to their small clinic. Trent didn’t spare him a glance as he directed the boys inside. Even in Ted’s optimism, he knew better than to bet on miracles, but an utterly focused Dr. Trent Crimm was probably the closest thing to miraculous on God’s green earth. The kid wouldn’t have better odds in Edinburgh itself. They flowed inside, and Ted stayed in place.
He was alone on the suddenly quiet street, a familiar buzz crescendoing in his ears his only company. He resigned himself to it. He watched his hands emerge, the shaking undeniable, from his coat pockets, observing through the molasses taking over his mind and senses. These slow attacks were worse, sometimes, than the fast ones, and he’d known this one would be waiting for him as soon as his men–no, his boys–were taken care of and out of sight. Known since he saw the boy bleeding on the beach it would end with one of his fits.
It knew the moment his focus wavered, and it seized him with all the savagery of a winter storm.