Part I. Intestines and Tea Trays
Contrary to popular belief, John is not an easy man to live with.
People often thought Sherlock was the commanding and eccentric half of their team; that the consulting detective was the pickier of the pair. That was partly true, but not entirely. John figured people assumed this because Sherlock was just so damn extreme and unbending all the time that he paled in comparison. Standing beside the aristocratic intelligence of his vicious detective, John appeared quaint and harmless. The doctor was quieter about his preferences, but more demanding that they be met.
Sherlock was inexplicably particular about his routine, habits and hygiene. This was common knowledge and easy to observe, even for people not included in Sherlock's private life.
He kept his atrociously extravagant brand-name suits dry-cleaned and his hair elegantly tousled with expensive product. His nails were fastidiously trimmed and his face was always cleanly shaven. He clearly cherished his assortment of beakers and test tubes and microscopes but was careless with electronics. His mobile would often get stolen, confiscated or destroyed in the pursuit of criminals thrice a month.
Sherlock was a posh and petulant person, and he never needed to clean up after himself. This irritated John tremendously. Tidying was tedious and boring for the genius, therefore he didn't lower himself to it. Despite the fact that Sherlock's bedroom was always spotless he couldn't seem to be arsed to care about the common areas of 221b Baker Street. John sometimes wondered if it was in fact Ms. Hudson who cleaned his bedroom because he couldn't imagine Sherlock even making his own bed.
John thought Sherlock was unorganized and constantly griped about the chaos. Yet, to John's astonishment, Sherlock always knew where everything in the flat was and got very stroppy if John moved anything. Sherlock's eidetic brain memorized where he'd left each and every single thing in the flat, which was how he instinctively knew if anything was out of order.
The genius knew precisely where a set of old photos of himself and Mycroft were tucked away between pages of a certain book that John would never likely want to read let alone open, and therefore would remain hidden in plain sight (The Backyard Beekeeper, page 28, page 101, page 216). He knew where his notes were on a case from three months ago, the one about the butcher who'd been vivisecting teenagers (grey filing cabinet, second drawer, sixteen files in).
He even knew where the majority of John's possessions could be found, such as his illegal hand gun (lockbox tucked between left side of his mattress and wall, key in a seam of his lamp shade for easy retrieval) or his Victoria's Cross medal that he resented and never spoke of (brown shoebox, back top right side of closet, inside empty tin of cough drops).
The military molded John into not only a minimalist but also into a bit of a neat freak. He saw no point in crowding the sink full of dishes when it was always faster to do the washing up right away. John did his laundry far before he was down to his last pair of pants. He'd rather spend a half-hour cleaning once a week than a whole day cleaning once a month.
When he'd lived alone, in that empty and blank time before he'd met Sherlock, his quarters were meticulously kept. Bed made, carpet hoovered, bathroom spotless. He disliked knick-knacks and found clutter intolerable.
Moving into 221b took a lot of getting used to.
Sherlock was not a clean person when it came to his experiments or The Work. Within their first few weeks of acquaintance, he and Sherlock agreed to and penned ground rules for cohabitation. Sherlock's list included four items:
-The Work always comes first.
-Don't ask me idiotic & irrelevant questions.
-No sexual conquests in the flat during a case.
-Under no circumstance is Mycroft ever to be cheerfully invited or catered to under this roof.
John's list was straightforward and much longer:
-No idiotic & irrelevant questions about my service in the military.
-Put plastic wrap under all decomposing experiments (leaking fluids are Not Good).
-Label and date all human remains in the freezer.
-No absconding dishes used for food as containers for experiments.
-Sanitize the kitchen table and countertops after using toxic chemicals or solvents.
-Food is not to be thrown away to make room for human or animal remains.
-Always open the window when experiments are smelly or toxic.
-NO FLAMMABLE EXPERIMENTS or fire or blowtorches allowed.
-Medical kits are for medical purposes.
-No autopsies without express permission.
-All human and animal remains must be properly stored in the fridge, and if they start smelling I will bin them immediately.
-No smoking or drugs in the flat.
-No experiments on my body, possessions or room.
-Girlfriends are not to be deduced under any circumstances.
-Blood, pus and bile are NOT to be poured down the kitchen or bathtub drains (the bits of skin and hair always clog the pipes).
-Only enter my room while I'm in it or in case of extreme emergency. Never while I'm sleeping.
-Etc, etc, etc.
Sherlock griped incessantly about the list, whining that John was trying to change him and manipulate him with endless rules. John retorted that he was allowed to privacy, safety and a modicum of health in his own home since he did pay half the rent. Sherlock ribbed John that he was a germaphobe and high-maintenance. John pointed out that he would be astonished to find someone else as willing to put up with Sherlock's crap like he did. Sherlock sulked, John won the argument.
The ground rules were posted on the side of their fridge. Within the first year of living with the consulting maniac, John encountered so many different forms of filth he could probably produce a doctorial dissertation on the subject. In between the chemical stains and smoke burns stuck to the ceiling or the dripping people parts contaminating his left over curry in the fridge, John felt like nothing could shock him any more. Sherlock was one of a kind. A morbid person, indeed, but death was a curious puzzle for him and John was his friend.
That didn't mean Sherlock couldn't manage to shock him silly on a weekly basis or the fact that it still drove him round the bend and lit a fuse to his already notoriously short temper. Sometimes Sherlock managed to go too far, though.
It was the end of March, the weather still bitterly cold and spring nowhere in sight. John was working more hours at the clinic since one of the doctors was home on maternity leave. The winter had been unnecessarily brutal and frigid with a dramatic increase in broken ankles from slips on the ice and cases of flu and pneumonia. John, as a matter of course, enjoyed his work since it made him feel useful, but that didn't mean there weren't bad days. Today was a bad day.
He'd been vomited on within an hour of showing up. Within two he'd a patient who had to be told they possessed three months left from an advanced form of terminal cancer. The clinic was at maximum capacity by noon and by nine at night he wanted to either bash his head against his desk or lose his temper with his next patient. He missed the bus by three minutes. No cash for a cabbie, of course (not that he really trusted riding alone with cabbies anymore, but that wasn't the point). He walked home sixteen blocks with the wind biting his cheeks and his fingers burning until they were rendered numb.
And then he got home. Sherlock didn't have a case on, so he'd expected to find him sulking on the couch in his trademark perch, or perhaps strumming discordant notes from his violin. The first thing that caught his attention outside their door was the thick pungent odor of formaldehyde and bleach. John glared at the latch, trying to determine if he really wanted to go inside because he was already certain he wasn't like what he would find. Pushing the door open the next thing he observed was that all the furniture in their sitting room was shoved alongside the walls. Sherlock stood in the center, elegantly bent over their kitchen table and examining… John froze, feeling his stomach turn in disgust.
Sherlock was doing an autopsy on what looked to be a small blonde haired child, no older than five. The consulting detective wore latex gloves and a mask over his face, his long slender fingers slicing incisions in the child's pelvis with steady and practiced ease. Their overhead lamp flickered across the discolored and dead flesh. The small intestines had already been extracted and were spooled together like a sick chord of rope on their tea tray.
John was a soldier and a doctor. He'd seen death, smelled putrefaction, killed the enemy with efficient ease and now he chased serial killers around London with his mad flatmate. Bile, blood, scat, piss- those were bodily fluids and he'd learned to accept and deal with them in his early days of medical school.
But this… it felt wrong.
The small child's eyes must have been blue in life. They were filmed over with a strange membrane, staring blankly and unseeing towards John. A quarter section of skin and a thin layer of muscle was peeled back over a portion of the dead kid's forehead and hair line, revealing the pearly white of the temporal and frontal bone on their skull. A tiny hand, no larger than a cricket ball, was curled with finality and rigor mortis near Sherlock's mobile.
"Oh, John-" Sherlock started to say, glancing up from his analysis of this child's reproductive organs.
"What the fuck is this?" John bellowed, his heart thrumming behind his rib cage as he tried to will the disgusting scene to disappear. He dropped his bag in shock, his face twisted with undisguised contempt.
"New case, three diff-"
"Are you fucking serious?" John's voice went a pitch higher than normal. Sherlock appeared taken aback by the ferocity in the ex-soldiers tone.
The smell of decomposing body was trapped in John's lungs like glue, vicious and heavy. The bright hair of the child kept catching his eye, it was so blonde it was almost white. Black useless blood slowly dripped down the side of their dining table and pooled on their hardwood floor, each plop loud like a bullet in his ears. This was his fucking sitting room and his freak of a roommate was rifling through somebody's child's corpse.
Sherlock had the gall to roll his eyes as if John's behavior was overly dramatic.
"John, it's for-"
"No, Sherlock, you promised. You said you wouldn't bring corpses back to the flat without my express permission. Especially not..."
"Ah," Sherlock nodding as if he suddenly understood the reason for John's outburst. "It's the age of the body which upsets you."
"Not the goddamn point!" John snapped. He could feel his cheeks turning red with outrage. "I had a shite day and I have to come back to a place that smells like a fuckin' mortuary and you peering at a child's decomposing genitalia like it's the most fascinating thing you've ever seen? Are you fucking serious?"
Sherlock blinked, setting his scalpel down, his face morphing into condescending indifference, "Is this a surprise to you?"
"It's sick," John spat. "And what would happen if Ms. Hudson came up here, hmmm? Or heaven forbid Lestrade! This is so fucked up on so many levels I can't even..."
John noticed Sherlock's face, normally so pale, flush a little. His expression gave nothing away but John could tell Sherlock was about to lose his cool and spew vicious words. John pushed his hand through his hair, still cold from the freezing winter wind, and felt his stomach roil.
The ex-soldier counted back from ten in his head.
"Sick?" Sherlock repeated, his voice laced with venom. "I didn't kill her, John, I've never killed anyone. What hypocrisy coming from a man who has directly had a hand in killing four children and sixteen unarmed civilians during the line of duty, wouldn't you say?"
A wave of fury and guilt expelled the breath from his lungs. John straightened his shoulders, his eyes flashing and his whole countenance shifting. Sherlock disliked when John did that, because it was his unconscious body language that he was not just angry, but hurt. A regrettable combination. Sentiment.
"I suppose you are right." John agreed.
He sounded off, Sherlock thought, and that was so very very wrong.
John spun around on his heel and was up the stairs without another word. He closed his door behind him, locked it and flipped on the light. The doctor could still smell the formaldehyde, it burned the inside of his nostrils. His heart was beating a million times a minute, the sound thrumming in his ears.
Sherlock Holmes could be so incredibly, unbelievably cruel.
John never talked about his tours in Afghanistan. Of the unspeakable things he'd been ordered to do and the acts which tainted his sleep and memories which he could never allow himself to forget. PTSD was not the only thing haunting him from the war. And he hadn't even told Sherlock. The bastard most likely got his brother to send along all the confidential documents which pertained to his service. Sherlock's eerie eyes probably scanned the photos of what his bullet hole in his shoulder looked like, fresh, devastatingly painful. It was none of Sherlock's business yet he still used it against him. Just lovely.
He flopped face down on his bed. He was trying to repress the sob which threatened to escape from his lips, but the emotions were tugging barbwire around his whole body, muscles taunt and agonizingly tight. He whimpered, the noise escaping him before he bit down on his fist and stopped it. Sharp indents formed on his skin, red and irritated.
He couldn't live like this, he thought.
Sherlock was moving around downstairs. John was on his feet a moment later, flinging open his closet and pulling his duffle and several jumpers. Trousers, socks, shirts and pants followed. He grabbed his gun, his bank account book and his cell phone charger. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, his movements efficient and silent as if they'd been rehearsed. His toiletries were in the bathroom but he couldn't be arsed to care. He'd buy what he'd need along the way. He had to get out.
John felt like he truly hadn't asked for much from Sherlock. Previous girlfriends sometimes told him he was hard to live with, partly because of his busy schedule as a doctor but also because he expected to be treated in a certain way. He'd never lived with anyone besides Sherlock after his PTSD, but he hadn't changed his basic nature from prior to his enlistment. John always resented when people tried to walk all over him, even as a little kid. And Sherlock didn't merely walk, but plowed over him with the sheer force of his personality.
He didn't feel like it was much to ask that blood not be poured down their kitchen drain. Or that dead child corpses not be dismantled in the sitting room. Sherlock never yielded. He was manipulative and controlling. Sherlock demanded all his time, placed him into incredibly dangerous situations without ever giving him all the facts, forgot about him when it was convenient, and then treated him like… he was a murderer.
Four children. Sixteen civilians. Twenty-nine armed soldiers. He knew all of their names by heart. Fifty in total. He'd burned each and every one of them on the backs of his eyelids like a brand.
Zipping the duffle, John pulled on an extra coat and his warmest boots. His wool muffler followed along with his winter hat and thick gloves.
Sherlock was walking up the stairs when John opened his bedroom door. His light illuminated those impossible cheekbones on Sherlock's face. He took in John's appearance and halted, cupid's bow open but unspeaking. They stood in silence for few seconds before Sherlock cleared his throat.
"Going somewhere?" He inquired softly.
John nodded abruptly and gave a quick, "Yes."
Sherlock waited for him to say more but when nothing was forthcoming he deflated slightly. "I… apologize for breaking our contract, it won't happen again."
"No," John agreed for the second time that night. "It won't."
Sherlock twitched, moving up a step as if he could physically halt the man, "John-"
"Sherlock." He intoned, even and calm and matter-of-fact. "You make it seem like everything I ask of you is some big concession."
"This is for The Work, and we agreed-"
"No- we bloody well did not agree-"
"Stop interrupting me!" Sherlock finally snarled, "We agreed that The Work came first. You knew that the very same day you met me, yet you're suddenly disgusted? We've been around hundreds of corpses together, many in worse shape than this one. I'm not some sick pervert opening up a child's ribcage for fun. I'm trying to figure out how she was raped to prevent this from occurring to another living human being. Lestrade knows the corpse is here and I have written clearance, Molly lent me the kit because the morgue was full. I've put plastic down and can easily mop up the floor. I've already apologized for not telling you about this autopsy in advance."
Sherlock paused, pursing his lips and crossing his arms, "Really, John, I don't know why you are so angry."
John flinched like Sherlock slapped him. The detective obviously expected John to fight back or to explain himself. Instead John felt achingly hollow inside. Four children. Sixteen civilians. Twenty-nine armed soldiers. Fifty in total.
He respected Sherlock so terribly much. He would've defended him to the ends of the earth, would've died to protect him from harm. John thought his mind was brilliant and his deductions were incredible and his looks were gorgeous. He thought Sherlock not only tolerated him, but tried to understand how he felt. That they were partners, equals. The genius wasn't really well-versed in sentiment, but John tried to pretend that Sherlock made an effort for him. Not through words, no, but sometimes John thought that Sherlock's actions betrayed how much he respected him. That what they felt was mutual, at least to some degree.
"You really don't, do you?" John whispered, voice cracking, his eyes betraying how deeply he was hurting.
Several emotions flashed across Sherlock's face. He was startled, aghast, and finally he just looked confused. Openly and unabashedly confused. The expression would be funny if the situation weren't so disparaging.
For just a moment, John thought about how he knew and memorized what all of Sherlock's genuine expressions were, and most of his shammed ones. He knew how the man took his tea and how to get him to eat without noticing and what his favorite composers were. What books he preferred and how isolated he felt most of the time and that his brain never turned off and it had always been that way. John understood from scraps of conversation that Sherlock's childhood was profoundly unpleasant and marked with people who resented, feared and mocked him for his intelligence. He honestly assumed that Sherlock appreciated him for his praise and unflinching acceptance and assistance on cases.
And, stupidly enough, he thought Sherlock cared about him enough not to throw his military career, that he didn't even have a right to know about, in his face. To throw his shame at him and then forget he would even find it offensive. John gave Sherlock the barest twitch of the most melancholy smile he could manage. Sherlock jerked away but otherwise remained still as John passed him on the way down the stairs.
Pausing by the front door John half-turned to mutter, "I'll let you know when I'll be around for the rest of my stuff."
And he walked out, he deposited his house keys on the chair in the front entry.
Thankfully Ms. Hudson was nowhere in sight. John rushed outside because she would immediately know something was wrong and would also try to stop him. It was snowing. Still bitterly cold. Shouldering his duffle, he resolutely marched down the sidewalk, away from the flat, knowing if he turned around Sherlock would be watching him from the sitting room window.
A little piece of something that John couldn't name snapped inside him like a chord that had been drawn too thin for too long. All the affection and fondness and whatever-the-fuck that he felt for Sherlock was whirling around his head, clear and piercing and it felt like he was screaming bloody murder on the inside. He forced his mind quiet and started reciting subway destinations in his head, a technique Sherlock used to concentrate.
Keeping his face purposefully blank and his body language relaxed, he stopped by Tesco to pick up a few toiletries and some snacks for the road. He rang his purchases and thought about how Sherlock always said he wasn't a good actor. Not an Oscar-winning talent obviously, but he was an army doctor and practiced bedside manners so often in so many extreme situations that he could sham a congenial mood if absolutely necessary.
Catching a taxi once outside he told the cabbie to take him to the nearest train station. He ignored the CCTV which moved towards him as he shut the door. John had no idea of where he was going to go or what he was going to do when he got there but somehow he just knew he'd have to get out of London. Sherlock's goddamn homeless network was probably tracking him and lord knows Mycroft would find him eventually but where he went and what he did was really none of their fucking business.
John used his credit card to buy the first train to Ilfracombe. Why there? Because he couldn't remember where that location was on a map, and because that was the last train that ran and the only one which bad weather hadn't delayed. John knew that using his card would mean Sherlock could easily track him, but what did that even matter? He wouldn't come after him, that wasn't in Sherlock's nature.
Sherlock was selfish and absorbed and callous and- lonely, his mind supplied.
Closing himself into the third class car he'd purchased, John locked the door and drew the curtains. His duffle was abandoned on the floor. The train started moving shortly after, slow at first out of the station then into the dark white abyss of winter. After pulling a blanket from the cubbies above, John flipped the car light off, made sure the door was locked again, and propped himself up by the window. Without the light on he couldn't see much of anything. The snow was white but also black and there was no moon hung up in the sky to light their way. If he focused for a moment, under the dew and frost of the window, he could see a few stars. Hateful things, stars, John mused. The solar system really was a useless thing to learn. Sherlock was right yet again.
John leaned forward and slowly pulled his gun out of his duffle, checked the ammo, and tucked the weapon under his winter coat and shirt. The metal was alarmingly chilly against the small of his back, giving him goosebumps.
He closed his eyes and thought about the corpse of the child who was likely still dismembered on the kitchen table of 221b Baker Street. He thought of why he helped Sherlock fight crime, if that made it okay or moral or even sane. He thought about killing that cabbie that first night, somehow knowing it was the right thing to do and not hesitating.
Four children. Sixteen civilians. Twenty-nine armed soldiers. One cabbie.
"I didn't kill her, John," Sherlock's solemn voice echoed. "I've never killed anyone."
He'd killed fifty people in his lifetime and he wasn't even fifty years old yet.
Then John thought of the children who died by his hands and the mission in Kunduz where his fellow soldiers were slaughtered like cattle and the smell of gunpowder and oil was overwhelmingly noxious and sand kept blowing into his eyes and making them water… John finally emitted the quiet whimper he'd held in all evening. His forehead pressed against the freezing window, his eyes squeezing shut.
The noise he made didn't sound human. His shoulders quaked as his breathing became unsteady, tears involuntarily rolling down his cheeks. In his head he could hear the arabic being spoken, his Commander telling them to move out, the look on the civilians faces when his platoon burst in their house. He remembered his hand being steady as he flung a grenade down the hallway, the sound of its detonation when he ducked around the corner, the wisps of smoke before a set of two burning young women in hajibs had rushed out, their screams of agony echoing across endless desert as they tried to thrash around on the sand to no avail.
"What hypocrisy coming from a man who has directly had a hand in killing four children and sixteen unarmed civilians during the line of duty, wouldn't you say?"
Sherlock's mocking taunt and-
"Really, John, I don't know why you are so angry."
John's hands covered his wet face and he sobbed like a broken soldier does. He'd thought Sherlock was his friend. He supposed, with a twisted smile splitting across his face, the salt tears leaking into his mouth, that he deserved it. He'd always been a difficult man to love.
His parents hadn't, Harry certainly didn't, and his string of lovers stretching across three continents were never serious affairs. Did he hope Sherlock would love him? Of course he did. It was always going to be his most shameful and silly secret.
Which is why he deserved this. Sherlock was never going to change who he was, not for someone else. That was always an aspect of the detective which John envied. Thoughts kept racing through his head, a kilometer a minute, his cheeks still wet and stained with tears. Sherlock didn't need him, he really didn't. He'd made a load of money off the most recent plane hijacking case, and since John often did their finances (Sherlock couldn't be arsed to) he knew that he could easily afford the flat alone now. And with John gone, there would be no one to make him feel guilty about finding the cause of death of a dead kid's corpse, which was his job, his life. The Work.
By this point, to John's disgust, he knew that he'd hurt Sherlock with his words tonight, and felt bad about it. Which was stupid, John chided himself. But also really wasn't, because he never wanted to voluntarily hurt him. John leaned back against the chair, musing. A few moments later, a loud vibration echoed from his duffle. It was his mobile.
Pulling the device from his bag he flipped it open. Four missed messages.
9:58 PM
Body removed
and blood cleared away.
Not in the drain.
SH
10:04 PM
You left your keys downstairs.
SH
11:32 PM
I promise not to do anything
that we agreed about on the
list, ever again. I am not
apologizing for the autopsy,
since it was necessary to
collect DNA however I will
not bring them to the flat.
SH
11:39 AM
At the very least tell me
where you are staying tonight.
SH
John sighed, his head starting to pound. Pushing the power button on the side of his phone, he switched the device off and took the battery out. He then used his fingernail to slip the GPS device from his mobile, as Sherlock taught him. Locating his laptop he did the same to that device. Cracking the window in the train car was difficult since it was pretty frozen shut, but John managed to wedge the two chips out the window. They flew away into the snowy landscape. The train ride only lasted four hours, and John refused to sleep despite how exhausted he was.
Before he'd left the flat, he'd grabbed his envelope of cash that he always kept in case of emergency. This was one such an emergency. Dragging his duffle behind him, he headed out into a mostly empty train station. Checking his watch, it was almost three in the morning. Since his phone was shut off, he meandered along the small harbor of the city until he found an inn. Thankfully the town was small. He was glad he bundled up in extra layers, but the biting cold was equally and oddly comforting. The inn he found contained one sleepy teenager manning the front desk, absently playing Facebook games. Shocking red hair and thick glasses blinked up at John when he approached.
"You get lost?" She queried in an accent he'd never heard before.
John nodded in affirmation, feeling stiff from the cold, "Yes, I've been wandering for a while. Any rooms for rent? Unfortunately, I only have cash on me."
"Wandering? Oh dear, it's below freezing out there!" The teenager fretted, typing at the computer to check something before turning around. "We don't except cash. But, um, we're the only inn open in town at this hour."
Glancing out the window, it was beginning to snow again. The teenager pursed her lips. "Check out is at noon sharp, I'll still be working and, um-" she smiled sheepishly, John was slightly charmed, "I believe in this somewhat bullshit philosophy of paying it forward. From a stupid American film, but anyway- could you not tell my bosses about this? Could you just drop off the key to me? I clean the rooms anyway and there is no way I'm going to let you freeze to death."
John finally grinned, feeling as if some strange weight was taken off his shoulders, "That is an incredibly kind thing to do, Miss-?"
"I'm Tessa. You're in room 202." The teenager grinned with adorable dimples and handed over a keycard "Pay it forward."
His room was small, one single bed, an outdated telly and really bad wallpaper. Opening the curtains he stared at the snow falling and then at the digital clock on the bedside. It was 4:02 AM. Setting his duffle on the comforter, he pulled his mobile from his jacket pocket and switched the device back on. Five text messages awaited him.
11:45 PM
Really, John, as if you could
run away unnoticed.
You have never seen
my brother give chase.
MH
12:01 AM
I didn't intend to offend you
by bringing your military career
into question.
SH
12:05 AM
It was not my place to
intrude upon your privacy.
However, I did read those
documents before the list
was even considered.
SH
12:30 AM
I lied to you.
I may not have killed anyone
using my own hand
but I have brought 83 humans
to their end.
SH
1:02 AM
Why Ilfracombe?
SH
John sighed as he turned the mobile off. Of course Sherlock knew where he was, that probably took him five minutes to ascertain. Feeling too drained to really care, or to run any farther, he curled in the fetal position atop the comforter on the bed and let out a long sigh. His body was aching from the long walk in the snow. John hadn't slept in at least fifteen hours.
He possessed no desire to confront Sherlock, no desire to go back or explain himself. No desire to be Sherlock's only outlet of aggression or an easy target for his boredom. He didn't want to tell the man that he loved him so much it often hurt to breathe and that he can't stomach corpses of children in his sitting room. Was it love? He wondered. It felt like love. Like a twisted masochistic mockery of that emotion which poets lauded and playwrights exploited.
His eyes shut. He fell into a listless sleep minutes later. For once he didn't dream, he slept the sleep of the exceptionally exhausted.