2/?
The lab at Bart’s was a lot /cleaner/ than he remembered, for one thing. It smelled faintly of disinfectant rather than formalin, which seemed a huge improvement to John. As they entered the room a tall, thin man with piercing eyes and a ridiculous, dramatic coat brushed past them, holding up his cell phone in a familiar plea for just one bar of service. John stepped aside to let him pass before following Mike in. “Bit different from my day,” he commented, looking around and smiling politely. “Nicer microscopes, new paint job, modern technology…”
The last observation led his eyes to settle on a dark mess of hair peeking up from beneath the desk beside one of the computers in the room. He glanced at Mike but the other’s slightly smug expression didn’t help much. “Oh, sorry, are we interrupting?” he asked, shifting to see who was there.
He heard a muffled bang and an equally muffled, “/Shit!/” before the speaker peeked over the desk to reveal that the hair was in fact attached to a human being. “Sorry,” the man said with an awkward grin and raised eyebrows. “Thought I was alone. Computer’s buggered, so I–” He stopped when he saw Mike. “Mike, hi! What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to introduce you to an old friend. Jim Brook, John Watson. John, Jim. He’s from the IT department.” When John looked over at Mike, the pleased smile was back on the other man’s face.
“It’s nice to meet you,” the younger man—Jim—murmured, standing up to go shake hands with John. He didn’t flinch at the cane; in fact, he shook John’s right hand rather than his left.
“You, too,” John agreed. He could feel Jim sizing him up as they stood there and he couldn’t help doing the same to the dark haired IT specialist.
The other was just a couple of inches taller than John, but his manner and posture made him seem much shorter. He had a smile on his face that could be described as awkward and apologetic, but there was something sharper beneath it that made John straighten his spine a bit. Jim seemed to notice the shift and the smile became even toothier. If that was even possible.
“Well, I guess Mike told you about the flat, yeah?” The corners of Jim’s eyes crinkled a little. John blinked a couple of times before shaking his head, confused. “Odd. If he thought you’d be interested in being my flatmate he should have. I’ve told him enough about it that he should know at least a little bit.”
“Wait, flatmate? Who said anything about being flatmates?”
Jim raised his eyebrows before blushing a bit. “Oh, sorry. I thought Mike had told you. I’m looking for a flatmate. And I think you are too, actually.”
“You told him?” When Mike shook his head, John’s brow furrowed. “How did…”
“Well, Mike asked about my search for a flat—I just moved out of my brother’s, you see—so I started babbling on about the one I’d found. It’s pretty close, actually, if you want to come see it. Anyway, then he brought you here, so I guessed he’d found out you needed a place to stay.” Jim shrugged in a gesture that seemed like a mockery of humility. John blinked and pushed the thought away, confused about why he didn’t trust the puppy-ish man before him.
“Oh.” John smiled before nodding. “Sure, I’ll take a look.”
“Great! Here, let me just…” Jim grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen before jotting down some numbers as well as an address. “My phone number, and the address. Are you available to look at it tomorrow at about eleven? My work hours aren’t great, but that’ll work for me.”
“That works. Thank you.”
Jim nodded, grinning again. “See you tomorrow!” He left the room, waving at the two as he did.
“He’s a sweet kid, really,” Mike said. “I think you two will get along really well.”
John agreed before eventually making his excuses so he could go home and stare at the piece of paper, wondering what he was getting himself into.