this is not by far my usual quality, at least not in my eyes. I just had this idea and I had to get it out of my system. it's a scene I envision happening roght after the episode 3. anyway, Nick Cave was my inspiration for this one, and the title is from his song O Children. you should go check it out, it'a a haunting song by an amazing man. mujahideen are Muslims fighting in the Jihad.
as always, reviews are very much appreciated.
The door closes behind them, and things click into their rightful places. Home. Safe place. The danger has passed. (For now. But still. War teaches you to live in a heartbeat of peace between lifetimes of torn flesh and choking horror.)
John's shoulders sag for the first time in hours. He is drained to the point of actually stumbling towards their sofa and collapsing upon it like a lifeless puppet. His whole body hurts; exhaustion and sheer fear and fists of Moriarty's team had truly done an admirable job on him.
Silent steps stop in front of him and John raises his head. He cracks a tired smile. "You okay?"
Sherlock doesn't reply, staring at John with eyes that are a bit too big and a bit too bright. He hasn't taken his coat off yet and one hand is fiddling with the buttons. Long white fingers are trembling slightly and perhaps this is why John is suddenly sitting up straighter. "Sherlock ..."
Sherlock blinks and looks away. "Go take a bath, John."
John rises an eyebrow.
"You are cold and in pain. Half an hour in hot water and some painkillers should do the trick." Sherlock finally moves to take off his coat. "You are worried about falling asleep if you take a bath now. I'll check on you in half an hour." And he disappears into the kitchen.
As much as John hates to admit it, a mere mention of hot water makes his knotted and bruised muscles whimper pleadingly. He hauls himself off of the sofa and limps up the stairs. His leg is acting up again; clenching his teeth, he pulls his cardigan over his head without even unbuttoning it and throws it towards the door of his bedroom when he shuffles by.
As usual, Sherlock was right. John barely suppreses a groan when he gets into the tub. His ribs hurt, and his damn leg, and his bad shoulder got punched, and hot water enveloping him feels like an endless exhale. For a dizzy moment, he wants to submerge himself entirely in all that warmth and never come up for air again. (And it's Sherlock he needs to thank for that it's now only rare moments here and there when Death is unbearably tempting, and not an unending line of days anymore.)
There is nothing that he wants more than to relax his mind as well as his body, but apparently, it isn't going to happen. John leans his head on the edge of the bathtub and swallows thickly. He feels like two persons are squashed inside his exhausted body; one feels sick because of what could have happened to Sherlock and the other wants to wank himself raw, still drunk on all that adrenaline. His overtired nerves are trembling, strained and on the edge of snapping.
John closes his eyes and just breathes, slowly. There is absolutely no reason to break down now when everything is over.
(Except when's not, it isn't over by far, that sick bastard wants Sherlock, and God help us all because he isn't going to give up, remember those mujahideen ripped apart in the streets, remember how they wouldn't give up, remember how they would crawl in the dust with their legs torn off, remember how they bleed and died and how they wouldn't give up, remember remember remember
The bathroom door opens with a quiet sound and John's eyes fly open. "This isn't half an hour," he calls, voice raspy and all wrong.
But all the same, Sherlock is opening the door and walking in, eyes on the floor and sagging shoulders, and he drops on his knees beside the bathtub, hands clutching the edge. Pale skin on white plastic, and that's when John notices Sherlock is shaking and something is obviously very very wrong.
"What do you want me to do to him?" Sherlock's voice is deathly still, but his knuckles are bone white.
"Do we have to talk about this right now?" John scrambles about, drawing his knees up in order to preserve some shred of modesty, but it seems somewhat futile, since his friend appears far more interested in the white plastic than any embarrassing parts of John's anatomy.
Sherlock's eyes snap up and meet his, and John quietly hisses at the promise of blood that burns in them. "You gave me a life today, John."
"I gave you nothing. We saved ourselves. Joined efforts, I'd say. With a generous help from your brother and Lestrade." This is bizarre. It is hard to believe that Sherlock actually cares enough to be disraught.
"You wanted to die for me." Sherlock is so terrifyingly pale John's afraid he's going to faint."I'd give you a life in return, but I don't deal in lives, John."
John wants to protest, because there are hundreds of people out there who are alive only because of Sherlock, and this is getting out of hand. "Sherlock ..."
"Just tell me what do you want me to do to him," Sherlock interrupts him. "I'll do whatever you want."
"You are going to hunt Moriarty down because you can't bear to let him go," John snaps. "You are going to hunt him down and you are going to have the time of your life, because you are an idiot and because you can't live without a challenge. Are you saying you are going to let him go if I tell you to?"
"I will hunt him down for myself," Sherlock mutters. "But for what he's done to you, I will make him scream."
"But he hasn't done anything to me!" John wants to shake him, angry and starting to feel the sour taste of panic in the back of his throat, because when he's like this, brittle and sharp and fragile and dancing with Death, Sherlock scares him more than any psychopathic criminal mastermind. "So now you are going to go on some idiotic suicide mission just because I got some Semtex strapped to me? And what exactly you think it's going to happen to me when we go after Moriarty? Are you actually stupid enough to think I'll let you go off on your own? For God's sake, Sherlock-"
"I'll be the death of you." A desperate whisper, closed eyes, soot-dark eyelashes fluttering restlessly.
"You gave me my life back," John shoots back desperately. "If it weren't for you, I'd put a bullet in my brain months ago. Don't pretend you didn't know it."
And just like that, it happens, Sherlock's head tipping down blindly and John raising his chin, fitting their lips together, Sherlock exhaling with a tremble and a tiny noise in his throat, the thin stripe of no-man's land between two storms and sudden violent flutter in John's stomach, dear sweet Jesus, and then Sherlock breaks away, eyes still closed.
John raises an uncertain hand and Sherlock takes it, trapping it between his own hands on the edge of bathtub and bowing his head to press his forehead to the back of John's palm. He's still shaking. Dazed beyond words, John closes his eyes, tasting chlorine on his lips, and buries his face into the damp curls, trying to calm his furious heart.
Merely a few moments later, Sherlock lets go of John's hand and stands up. He doesn't look at John, but he does open his mouth and then closes it again, for once wordless, and finally stalks out, quietly closing the door on the way.
John leans back in the cooling water and concentrates on fading warmth in his palm. It's going to be a long night.
When John returns to the living room, Sherlock is stretched out on their sofa, staring at the ceiling.
John coughs and flexes his fingers, trying to defeat the urge to yell and pull his hair out and kiss Sherlock until he cannot breathe, and then goes with his personal standard solution of more or less every problem known to mankind. "Tea?"
Sherlock doesn't even blink.
John swears under his breath and stomps to the kitchen. He's been beaten up, drugged, had a few pounds of Semtex strapped on him, used as a bait and almost blown apart; his army training is the only thing that is keeping him from collapsing into an unconscious heap of aching limbs on the floor, and apparently, a little mercy is still too much to expect.
(You like it, you love it, you love him because he's merciless and sharp like steel blades and cruel and bigger than life, just like the desert, bloody sand glowing under the midday sun, remember, and one single look at the stars in the night could make you weep, do you remember? Yes, you do.)
He finds a half-empty bottle of whisky that Sherlock keeps there for when they return from a successful chase in the middle of the night and are too strung up on adrenaline to sleep, and pours a generous amount into each mug. A little liquid courage can't hurt, he reasons with a sigh, not when you apparently need to discus some quite urgent private matters as well as a criminal organization whose boss has decided to make it really fucking personal.
When John walks back to the living room, Sherlock is still ignoring him. But now he has his violin laid over his chest like a sleeping cat with left palm supporting the neck, fingers dancing on the strings, playing without a breath of sound. He has stopped shaking, and that is something, John supposes.
He sets Sherlock's mug on the coffee table and moves to sit in his armchair, when Sherlock wordlessly folds his legs up. Smiling briefly despite himself, John sits and wraps his hands around the mug. He glances at his friend and opens his mouth, then decides to take a sip of tea instead.
A few minutes pass. Sherlock plays songs about silence and the slight sounds his fingers make are like tiny drops of rain. John's mug is half-empty already and he is finally starting to feel warm again.
Then, Sherlock suddenly sits up and puts his violin away, and John looks at him and Sherlock looks back. It's a strange moment, clear and sharp and a bit like those trembling heartbeats when John looks at Death and Death looks back at him, because Sherlock's eyes burn bright enough to remind him of the eyes of Death, and all of John surges forward, helpless, reason burned away. The sudden flare of arousal up his spine is violent enough to make his breath catch in his throat, shining hotly like a trail of a whip.
And like a man jumping off a cliff, Sherlock closes his eyes and tips forward into John's lap. He nuzzles his face against swiftly growing hardness and John feels like he's being shot at again, but this time no bullet can hit him, and it's glorious, bright and white and blazing hot. He gasps out a few torn words, drugged by lust, and drags Sherlock up by his hair to press their mouths together. For a few short moments, he sucks desperately on Sherlock's lower lip, and that's when Sherlocks gives an impatient moan and straddles him, pulling on his short hair and wrenching his own mouth away. And dear God, Sherlock's terrifying, wild-eyed and panting and grinning like a lunatic, holding John down like a black panther, complete with claws and eyes of sweet poison, and John wants him to the point of feeling like he's going to pass out from the sheer force of it.
In the end, they somehow manage to undo Sherlock's trousers and push John's boxers down, and Sherlock wraps a pale hand around their cocks, rocking and panting for air, and John sinks his teeth into his bared neck. "If you leave me, I'll kill you," he rasps against reddened skin and cannot really believe he's actually saying it.
"We'll hunt him down, we'll do it together, John, I promise," Sherlock is gasping with his head thrown back, sounding utterly out of his mind, "I'll hold him down and make him scream and you'll shoot him and it will be beautiful, fuck John God please-"
Afterwards, Sherlock dozes off, and John holds him, slowly running his fingertips through the tangled dark hair. He looks up at the ceiling and sees stars and grins, and his teeth glint in the darkness.
fin