The woman in the booth, promising change, had posed a problem for Arthur. There were countless things he would change about himself — his impulsive personality, his inability to be alone, his struggles with focusing, the way his hands itched when he walked past the casino in Irvingly. What he settled on, though, was simple enough: his knee, which had been twinging off and on since he broke it in the pit.

On January 1st, he'd felt strangely numb all over — not as if his skin were tingling, but as if sensation were muted. He nicked his face while shaving and didn't notice. But that wasn't too unusual — sometimes he was distracted when he was shaving, and the cut was too small to catch in the moment. Right?

On January 2nd, he'd gone to practice and had not realized he'd been struck by a blunger until one of his teammates pointed it out.

Cleaning himself after practice, Art saw the ugly purple bruise forming on his shoulder — and that was enough to drive him to Bristol. He was not in the habit of showing up at Emrys' without warning — they were both fairly busy people, and he did not want to accidentally find Mrs. Angelica Selwyn there — but he couldn't talk himself out of it. He apparated from the pitch to the walkway in front of Emrys', knocked on the door, and if the staff were surprised to see him then they made a good show of not showing it.

He knew this looked strange. He didn't show up without warning. There was something nervous about his energy, more than usual — he was bouncing his leg, with the traitor knee, up and down while he sat on Emrys' couch. When Emrys entered his own parlor, Art was pressing his hand to the opposite shoulder, hoping to feel the bruise underneath.

At least Emrys did not seem irritated with Arthur's surprise appearance; he said Mr. Pettigrew so warmly that if he'd been in a better mood, Arthur would have preened. As it was, an actual smile was still able to slide its way onto his face. There was a mark of concern on Emrys' face, and Art's smile dimmed slightly — he bit his lip. (There was no accompanying feeling of his skin stretching from it, so he stopped, quickly.)

"Sure," he said, finally letting go of his own shoulder. "A drink is great."

Emrys never pried, which was one of the things that Arthur loved about him. If he wanted to, he could sit in silence here while they drank their cocktails, and then he could leave without having investigated this further at all. He contemplated that, sipped his cocktail, leaned slightly towards Emrys on the couch.

He hadn't come here to keep secrets; he'd come here to check whether or not he was imagining things. "There's something wrong with my skin," Art said quietly.

Emrys had not recoiled from him, which was a bit of a relief. Arthur's eyebrows knotted as he considered how best to articulate his symptoms — part of why he had come straight here, instead of to the hospital, was that he was worried a healer would dismiss him. So in some ways, trying to explain it to Emrys was a test.

"I got hit by a bludger, hard," Art said, testing out the way the words sounded, "And I — didn't feel it. I still don't feel it."

"Nothing," Art replied. Because this wasn't like taking a drug, this was — something else. He hadn't done drugs since a party potion in the summer. "At least nothing on purpose."

Arthur glanced at his shoulder, then back at Emrys. "I'll have to undress," he said, not because Emrys had never seen him naked — Emrys had actually taken him once on this couch — but because the staff were still here, and he was not sure what Emrys' policy was on nudity during a surprise drop-in.

Without a mirror, Art could only see the edges of the bruise, but they were purple and angry — he'd really taken a hit. Emrys' inhale was enough to tell him that the center of the bruise had not gotten any better in the time since he'd seen it in the locker room. "I don't feel it," Art said, fear leaking into his tone — because if he didn't feel this, something had to be desperately wrong with him.

Did he want a healer? He should see a healer. But honestly, Arthur wasn't that worried about the bruise itself — he had a cream for it at home, and he'd gotten worse bruises and gone without seeing a healer for longer. He considered Emrys, swallowed around the lump in his own throat. He had to articulate the fear.

"I want to — figure out how this happened," Art said. Emrys was smarter than he was. Emrys could help him figure out what, exactly, went wrong with him. "Before a healer." Because he really was worried that when a healer got to him they wouldn't believe him — about the feeling or about the lack of drugs in his system, or both.

Arthur settled in on the couch, making no move to put his shirt and jacket back on — he felt exposed, but almost in a pleasant way, because the exposure meant that he wasn't alone in this. He mulled over the sensations of the past few days. He balled up his hand, and then loosened his grip. There was the nick from shaving, but that was not the most damning thing. The most damning thing was — "My knee hasn't hurt."