Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I don't think it's ever occurred to Steven that I like chatting to him. Well, I use the word "chatting" loosely. He talks, I listen. And listen and listen.

I never mind the listening. One of the nicest things about Steven is that he treats me like I'm there. He almost doesn't notice that I never move - which might be something that would worry me on any other day. But I feel like I know Steven pretty well by now. I've got his number.

Steven always talks to me like we're having a full conversation. Somewhere in the past he realized I couldn't reply to him. Couldn't acknowledge him. I don't even nod, for God's sake. Occasionally I might squeeze in a bit of eye contact, if he leans the right way. But I've got to put my money first. Got to keep up the pretence of a living statue.

It's not great, the money. A few quid in the hat. Then there's the bottle tops, the fag butts. On a bad day some young kid will hoick up a great gob of saliva and drop that in there. Always a pleasure, then also a chore when it comes to sorting the wheat from the spit-soaked chaff.

But I'm getting off the point. I like it when Steven stops by. He does most days, to be fair. A man of routine, he is. On the days when he doesn't appear I do worry a bit - which makes me wonder if he worries when I'm not there? That's something I've never thought about. What he does on my day off. Knowing Steven he probably sits in the same place but talks to anyone else in the vicinity, even if that anyone else is one of those mangy pigeons with a toe or two missing.

God, I hate the pigeons. They're one of the biggest drawbacks about being a living statue - next to the spit, of course. You're probably wondering if they perch on my shoulder and shit down my back and the short answer is yes, they do. And no, I can't move when I feel them land. What living statue have you ever seen who reacts to things in his or her environment?

I could go on about the pros and cons of this career. It's a funny old thing, but a town doesn't feel like a town without a statue or two. People call us all sorts of unpublishable names these days - to our faces, which they know we can't move, the bastards - but they'd miss us if we weren't there. Picture Covent Garden without a living statue and there's your answer.

Yeah, yeah - I know that's not what you're here for. My choice to become a living statue isn't something you're begging to hear more about. 

But you might if you knew this choice was a deliberate one. 

There wasn't much else I could do, if I'm honest. Becoming the living statue and picking this spot on this London street was your basic foregone conclusion - or, at least, it was when I realized it was the only way I could keep an eye on Steven. 

You see, I know Steven. I know him better than even he knows. But he doesn't remember me, the poor old sod. He doesn't remember things he did when he bore a different name. I do, though. I know who he is, what he did. And if I'm honest with myself, I don't want him to remember. Steven's a sad old boy - I know you can see it for yourself. But he's happy too. He loves his museum. Loves his walks to work and back. Even chats to the pigeons like they're mates, and that's not something you'll see many Londoners do.

What I'm saying to you is, Steven's a diamond. He deserves better. So I like to be here, on the route I know he takes, so he can talk to me. That way I can keep tabs on him, what he's doing. I can find out what he's up to, what's worrying him. And I can keep my ear out for anything that sounds like his past might be coming back to bite him on the arse. Because that's the last thing he deserves.

Chapter Text

I expect you want to know how long I've been here. How long I've been keeping my eye on our mutual friend Steven Grant. The answer's easy. I've been here as long as he's worked at that museum.

Now, I know it might sound strange for me to have kept such a close watch on him. A total stranger - or at least someone who seems like it - knowing the exact date he was starting that job, and making my plans accordingly. I know, I know, it's the stuff you used to see on Crimewatch on the BBC. (Is Crimewatch still on? Can't say I've seen it for a while. I expect it's been rendered obsolete by the old world wide web. Aren't you all listening to crime podcasts all the time now? Consuming gory details of murder and high criminality while you're baking cakes and jogging 5Ks and painting your houses and whatnot?)

Anyway, I digress. I hold my hands up and admit that I like to chat. Who would've thought, when I spend all day saying nothing?

So, Steven starting his job at the museum. I knew when it was happening. I made sure I knew, so I could work out where he'd be and when. I'd already worked out that the living statue was going to be my best method of staying close to him. You see, I couldn't also get a job at the museum, or the coffee shop Steven sometimes uses, or the newsagent's where he occasionally stops for a can of pop or an ice lolly when the weather's warm. If I worked in any of those places, he'd recognize me. And that's something I don't want.

It's funny, isn't it, how unidentifiable you can become when you've slathered your visible bits in gold paint? Add the smart suit and Bob's your uncle. I look completely unlike the person Steven used to know me as, which is just how I want it.

You see, I knew Steven at a very difficult time in his life. And fortunately for the old fella, it's a time he doesn't seem to remember. I worry that he will, though. I worry that one day somebody will trigger his memories of what happened and it will all come rushing back. I don't want that. He's a good boy, Steven, and he deserves some peace and some happiness.

Which is why it breaks my heart when he talks about his mum. Pig sick, he is, about why she doesn't return his calls. Not that he'd admit it. Sometimes he tries calling her when he's sitting with me, and I know she won't pick up. And yet every time, a tiny part of me hopes she'll answer that phone and that I'll hear him call her name, that I'll see his face light up. When he talks to me about her he always thinks of some funny little excuse as to why he hasn't spoken to her for a while.

"Think she's started back at that book group she used to go to."

"Clocks have changed, haven't they, so I reckon she's off for a little toddle through the village before it gets dark."

"Probably left her phone on silent again, the silly goose. Always doing that, she is."

I can't react to any of this. And by Christ, sometimes it's hard not show how gutted I am for the poor boy. He has no idea his mum will never answer. And I know he worries, but still he calls her every day waiting for her to pick up. You know why that is, don't you? It's because Steven's a good person. Salt of the earth. He's got goodness in his bones, has Steven, and I will never hear otherwise. 

He couldn't help it, you see. He couldn't help what happened, because it's something he would never have chosen to do. I know that, and me knowing the truth isn't a danger for him because I know who he really is.

But if anyone else finds out the truth? Well... Some nights I don't sleep, worrying about that.

And that's why I have to watch him. I have to keep him safe.

I promised her I'd keep him safe. 

Chapter Text

Well, I guess I'd better go back to the beginning, shouldn't I? You already know how I know Steven in the here and now, but you don't know how we met - and that's what you're really interested in, isn't it? Lord knows you're not interested in where I get my gold paint from.

I'd been working at the sleep clinic for about seven years. I took it as a stop-gap job, as one often does, and ended up staying. I've always been a bit of a night owl, so it was never a problem for me to stay up late, watching the clinic in-patients on the overnight monitors. Strangely enough, that wasn't the case for some of my other colleagues. They preferred coming in first thing to look at the charts and the read-outs and the data that had been recorded overnight as the in-patients slept their cares away (or, often as not, the complete opposite).

But old Crawley never minded the night shift. I've always liked spending time in the world at night. When the roads go quiet, shops close their shutters, and the view as far as your eye can see will only stretch as far as the light will hit it - meaning it's not bad if you're in a city or there's a bountiful full moon, but it's utter shit if you're in the countryside where the council don't bother with street lighting.

But I like that. Darkness is something I've never been afraid of, unlike a lot of people. When it's dark I feel enclosed, calmed, quiet. My senses can focus on the simpler things, rather than the constant bombardment of the modern world: lights, phones, music, moving adverts... people not watching where they're going, the ignorant twats. Not for me, that kind of life. 

So it fitted for me to become the night-shift assistant at the clinic. Now don't get me wrong, I was never given sole responsibility for the patients at night-time. There was always a doctor or a consultant loitering about somewhere, but a lot of them seemed to enjoy using the midnight hours to catch up on their emails or work on their papers. They checked in on the folks who were staying in clinic, of course - I mean, we are talking about medical professionals here. But the hundred and one monitors took care of all the data recording, and meanwhile there was reliable old me with the eagle-eye perspective on everyone.

And that's how I met Steven, bless him. He came to the sleep clinic a couple of years back, albeit a little bit reluctantly. He didn't think he had a sleep problem, you see - just that he was maybe too much of a deep sleeper. I remember how he worded it when he came in for his assessment - he said it was like he closed his eyes at night and fell into a pit of tar. Like all his senses and memories and awareness went completely black, thickened and dense, until the moment he woke up in the morning - often in a state of panic.

He just thought he had a brilliant ability to sleep well, did Steven. So well that his subconscious completely took over. But he wasn't rude about coming in to have the assessment, mind. He's not one of those folks who gets all hoity-toity about knowing that they don't have a problem, that they're not the ones we should be looking at, that they didn't know what all the fuss was about. No, Steven was self-deprecating, as always. Much more concerned about taking up a space in the clinic that someone else might need.

Oh yeah - and that's something I've missed, haven't I? You're probably sitting there thinking to yourself: Crawley, you confusing old bastard, if Steven didn't think he needed to be in the clinic then why was he there? And the answer is that Steven didn't submit his own application - his mum did.

Christ, I always get emotional when I think about Mrs Grant. Can't help it, can I? You'll understand why soon enough, but let me finish setting the store out for you first. I want you to understand Steven. I want you to care for him the way I do, to understand why I just can't leave him alone out there in the big wide world...

So, Mrs Grant had apparently had Steven to stay at hers this one particular Christmas - the one before we got his referral to the clinic. Stayed two nights, he did, after travelling down to see her from London on the train. And bless her, she was shocked by what she saw when he was there. I spoke to her myself about it several times (and the less said about the patient confidentiality clause the better - sometimes people just need a human ear). She witnessed him dropping into sleep mid-sentence a couple of times, like your classic narcoleptic. When he came to, he'd be fractious and distant before disappearing to the spare room for what she always called a "cat-nap". And at night-time, she'd hear thumps and bumps, heard him talking to himself in an angry voice, one that didn't match him in the slightest.

She was so scared, the old love. She told me she brought it up to Steven while he was there, but he brushed her off. Mums worry, don't they? It's a habit. And I suppose Steven thought she was fussing. But blimey, you should've heard the way her voice trembled when she described his symptoms. Scared for her little boy - that's the root of it. Her only child, mostly alone in the world except for his mum and his books.

Mrs Grant said she'd called the GP seventeen times the first day it opened after New Year. Her doctor said they couldn't help, seeing as Steven wasn't a registered patient with her local surgery. But she kept ringing and ringing, asking them to send a message to Steven's own doctor across whatever the private version of the NHS internet is, asking them to see him for a problem he seemed to be pretending wasn't there.

Anyway, it took her a good couple of months of basic busybody harassment of any medical person she could find, what with the NHS being under the strain that it is. (A blessing it is, this institution, but one that's crawling under the weight of a million bureaucrats and pencil-pushers with budgetary targets coming out of their arses. But let's leave politics aside for now, shall we? I know you don't want me going off on another tangent.)

And finally, after all her persistent hard work, Mrs Grant hit the jackpot. Both her own GP and Steven's got so sick of her constant phone calls and emails (always written in capital letters, if you can believe that!) that they had a Zoom call to put something in motion. Steven got called into his local surgery, not quite understanding what all the fuss was about, and - alakazam, open sesame, step right up! - Steven got submitted for assessment at our sleep clinic.

So that's where my journey with Steven started - the first step, anyway. As you can imagine, there's quite a bit more to come.

And I can't let myself think about where the journey will end. If I'm honest with myself, I'm scared to think about it.

Almost as scared as I am when I think about Steven remembering what happened.