Chapter Text
Tim sat down heavily on his sofa and stared at the wall, trying to process everything which had just happened.
Okay, he’s processed it.
What the fuck is he supposed to do now.
He had just gone out on his evening stroll, as he often did, and came across Arthur lying underneath a tree, as he often did not. He couldn’t just leave him out there – what sort of a friend would he be if he let him just keep being homeless? Not a friend Tim wanted to be, certainly!
But now he had Arthur sleeping in his spare room, and he wasn’t sure where to go from here. He had said he had eaten, but Tim wasn’t sure he’d really eaten in the past year from the looks of him.
He decided to do what he knows best when he’s in hard situations. He picks up his phone.
“Hey, Tim. What do you want?” Sasha’s voice sounded tinny as it came through the phone.
“I may have kidnapped a man Sash, help me out.”
Sasha was silent for a second. “Do you need me to bring a body bag round?”
“What? No, Sasha- what?! Why would that be your first thought?”
“You said you’d kidnapped someone! I can never be too sure with you!”
“Okay first- wow, rude. Second, it’s Arthur. I found him in the park, just sleeping under a tree. I brought him home of course, but now he’s sleeping and I’m not sure what to do? I offered him food and water, but he refused both- do I just leave it out for him, or something?”
“Jeez Tim, he’s not a stray cat. He is proud though, and probably won’t accept help if you give him the option. Just make food for him, and then he’ll be more likely to accept it.”
“Okay, okay.” Tim took a breath, calming down slightly. He stood up, starting to pace the room. “I’ll cook up something in the morning before work. What do I make him, though? Maybe he’s a picky eater, or has allergies, or-”
“Tim.” Sasha interrupted. “Go make yourself a cup of tea and stop talking for a minute.”
Tim sighs, heading over to the kitchen and flicking on the kettle. He worries briefly that it might disturb Arthur, but he knows Sasha isn’t going to take no as an answer.
“Right, while you’re doing that, let’s try think this through. He needs food and water, but if he’s been working for a week with us without collapsing he must be eating something, so he isn’t at immediate risk of dying. Same with water. Going off of this, he probably has some money, but we don’t get paid until next week, so maybe he’s running a bit short. Just make sure everything he could need is stocked up in the house, and then maybe if you offer he will just take stuff when he needs it.”
Tim pours the hot water into his mug and stirs, taking it back to his sofa. He flopped on to it, stretching out. “I hope he doesn’t think I’m insane for bringing him here. What if he thinks I’m a serial killer or something, and I’m gonna lock him in here? I gave him my spare key, just in case, but he could think it’s a fake one!” Tim paused, considering. “Hey, what if he’s a serial killer? Then I just let him into my house, and gave him an easy way back in! Sash, if I don’t show up to work tomorrow morning, you know what’s happened. You better be writing my eulogy already.”
“Oh, I’ve already got that covered, just in case,” Sasha said lightly. “But seriously though, you’ll be fine. You’re overthinking this all. He doesn’t think you’re going to kill him, and he isn’t going to kill you. Do you know how obvious he would be as a killer? I mean, he knows you and I are close, and he can probably hear you talking to someone right now. Because of that, he can probably assume it’s me, and it would be weird if you didn’t mention he was now staying with you. So if you didn’t show up at work and your body was found dead in your flat, he would immediately be a prime suspect. If he wanted to kill you, he could have just followed you home from work. You have the same routine every day, you wouldn’t be that hard to murder.”
“You’re really comforting Sasha, thanks for calming my nerves,” Tim says sarcastically, taking a sip of his tea.
“No problem!” She responded, much too cheerfully for Tim’s liking. He knew who he was going to be removing from his will now. “Hey, if you need me to come round though, or if you want to come here for a few hours, I’m free for the evening. In case you need some company.”
“And leave him alone in my house? No way! I’d probably come back and have nothing left here and no Arthur to be seen.”
“Tim. Think this through very carefully. Before this evening, did you like Arthur?”
“Well yeah, he’s always been fun to talk to. Amazing at the cases, too.”
“Great. And, before this evening, would you have trusted Arthur with your bag and coat as you left the room?”
“I suppose.” Tim ran his finger slowly around the edge of his mug. He could always rely on Sasha to be the voice of reason when he needed her.
“So what’s changed, apart from the fact that you found out he’s homeless? Because if that makes a difference to you, maybe it’s not just Jon I need to speak to about judging people for their differences in the workplace.”
“Shit, we can’t let Jon know about this,” Tim realised suddenly. “He’d lose his mind.”
“You sure he hasn’t lost it already?” Sasha commented dryly. “I agree though, we can’t mention this. If Jon knew he was homeless he’d probably file a complaint to Elias about being unfit for the workplace or another stupid excuse like that.”
“Yeah,” Tim replied. “Love the guy, but wow does he have problems. Someone needs to get him a therapist or something.”
“I’ll add it to my list. You sure you don’t want me to come over?”
“I’ll manage, I think. I have a corkboard I need to attend to.”
Sasha laughs softly. “Well, I’ll let you get to it. I can’t be the one to stop you doing such important work. I’ll see you tomorrow, Tim.”
“Thanks for your help, Sash.” Tim placed down his mug and swung his legs off the sofa to the floor.
“Always happy to help. Bye!” The line went dead as Sasha ended the call.
Tim stood up and stretched before heading over to his bedroom, quietly closing the door behind him. He would need to make sure to keep this shut now that Arthur was here. Can’t have him finding the board, after all. He flicked his bedside lamp on, examining the board before taking a clean piece of paper. He picked up his pen before lightly scrawling ‘HOMELESS’ onto the paper, pinning it to the board.
Well, he was certainly getting somewhere. He hasn’t decided on his theories for what happened to Arthur quite yet; he has to work up more evidence first. So far, he’d discovered that he types with one hand, doesn’t seem to have a great understanding of technology, has awful taste in fashion, and now he’s found out he’s homeless too. Tim decides he’s making good progress. He’ll review it more in the morning. For now, he just needs to relax, and forget about the strange man sleeping in the room next door, possibly planning to murder him in his sleep.
Hm.
Maybe relaxing will be easier said than done.