Command Me To Be Well
A Sherlock & Joan Story
By Brown Eyes Parker
Rated: T for strong adult themes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
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I was born sick, but I love it, command me to be well. . .
Sherlock stormed into the brownstone after another argument with his father.
"I'm never going to be good enough for him," he grumbled to himself, slamming the door behind him and pacing the hallway like a caged animal, unable to face Joan when he was this angry. He didn't want to take it out on her, he had been making her flinch too much lately, taking out his frustrations on her too often. It wasn't fair to her.
"I'll be up on the roof, Joan!" He called. "Please do not bother me!"
"Sherlock?" Joan asked, coming out of the kitchen. "Are you home?"
"I'm home," he answered as he retreated up the stairs.
"How did things go with your father?"
"I would rather not talk about it, thank you very much. Please just leave me alone."
"I am not afraid of you Sherlock," Joan informed him.
"Excuse me?" Sherlock asked, turning around to look at her.
"You come home from a meeting with your father or one of your sobriety meetings and you take all your frustrations out on me. But I am not afraid of you. You don't have to run away and be by yourself. I'm here for you."
"Don't lie to me," Sherlock said. "I know you get scared. I've seen you flinch. . ."
"You startle me sometimes but you don't scare me," Joan explained, she took to the stairs meeting him on his step and reached out hesitatingly to touch him on the face.
Sherlock looked at her in alarm, his heart slamming against his chest at the contact. It had been a good while since he felt like this and it was scaring him. "Joan, what are you doing?"
Joan shook her head, not looking away from him as she dropped her hand to her side. "Nothing."
He tried to turn to go but he was frozen in place, looking at her unblinkingly. There was a shift in the atmosphere, there was electricity between them and he was powerless to stop it. There wasn't anything stopping him from closing the distance between them and finding her mouth with his. There was nothing stopping him from bringing her up to his bedroom and completely marking her out as his.
Everything was stopping him.
His ghosts were still haunting him.
He could still hear Jamie's voice in his ear, the great love of his life. He could still hear Oliver's voice in ear, taunting him.
He had the ability to disappoint her. To destroy her.
They could just be friends with benefits, he told himself. He could tell her that he needed a little more therapy that only human contact could offer him. But he knew she wouldn't buy it, wouldn't easily be sold. Maybe she would suggest he call one of the girls in his little black book but they wouldn't do. They couldn't offer him the kind of comfort he was craving, the kind of solace he was desperately seeking.
He needed love.
She was still staring at him; the ball was in his court. In all their years of being friends, in all the years she had seen the worst side of him and hadn't really run away except when she had been searching for space, he had never imagined they would come to this.
"Sherlock," Joan whispered, breaking into his thoughts.
"Please just let me go," Sherlock requested weakly.
"Okay," Joan finally agreed, stepping away from him and watching as he ran fled from her for an entirely different reason than when he had first gotten home.
He didn't go to the roof like he had originally planned on. Instead he went to his bedroom and closed the door behind him, leaning against it and sliding to the floor. He realized that he wasn't breathing; he struggled to breathe in without much relief.
There was a knock on his door and he knew Joan had followed him. "Sherlock?" she asked. "Are you in there?"
"Yes Joan, I'm in here," Sherlock answered, sighing.
"Is everything okay?"
She knew it wasn't.
She tried the doorknob but with his weight against the door, it was impossible for her to get in. She was strong but not strong enough to force herself in on him. He knew that she would stay by the door until he let her in. She wasn't one for giving up on him easily even when he had asked her to.
"Tell me what happened today," Joan pleaded.
"The same thing as usual," Sherlock answered. "Father and I had another argument. I would rather not talk about it if you don't mind."
"You don't want to talk about what happened on the stairs either, do you?"
Sherlock stood and opened the door. "You're not going to like it."
"Try me."
Sherlock paused for a minute and then put his hand on her cheek, her breath hitched in her throat and she stiffened slightly because she wasn't the one in control of the situation this time. He wasn't one to whisper sweet nothings, to make a girl swoon with terms of endearment. He was an expert at many things, wooing wasn't one of them.
"Joan. . ." He trailed off, for a second he forgot his usual order of things, how he got a woman to bare her skin for him. She wasn't just anybody and these were special circumstances. Everything wasn't the way it was supposed to be.
"Yes Sherlock?" Joan asked.
He kissed her then. It was like he was a young boy in school again, kissing a girl for the very first time merely because he was sweet on her and he thought she was the prettiest person in the world. He realized he was starting to tremble and he pulled away apologetically, unable to speak to her.
"Sherlock. . ." Joan trailed off and stopped him, fear etched on her face and he knew that she feared he would retreat into himself again or do something worse than that. "Sherlock, stay with me. Please."
He swallowed. "Your wish is my command," he told her. "Please command me to be well."
It was like they both came uncorked then. They were a flurry of lips and limbs, skin and bone and plaid bedsheets. It was something that had been inevitable since the day they had first met and Sherlock knew the age old adage was very real. A man and a woman couldn't just be friends.
Even if afterwards everything was going to change. In the warmth of her embrace, he told himself that he would face the consequences later.
"What happened with your father?" Joan asked again, breaking into his thoughts.
Sherlock released a deep breath, knowing it wasn't something a man should probably share with a woman right after they had been intimate. But she wanted to know and suddenly, he needed to tell her.
"He wants me to give up the brownstone and move back to London with him," Sherlock answered. "He says there's a nice girl there who's willing to marry me despite my spotty history. She doesn't care about the drugs or the women. She just wants to be married to somebody. Of course, once we are man and wife, then I have to give my old lifestyle up completely. Father thinks it'll be good for me. He thinks I lack stability and the love of a good woman and if I have it, it'll make all my problems disappear."
"And what did you say?" Joan asked, not the least bit perturbed by his news.
"I told him, Mycroft could marry her," Sherlock said. "I told him, I'd already tried leaving you and I couldn't do it again. I told him that I had stability and taking me to London was just going to ruin it. He wouldn't have it though; he's the one who pays for everything. Including your paycheck. With him holding the strings of the pocketbook, I don't see how I'll be able to go very long without giving into his demands."
Joan looked slightly pained as she slid her hand up his bare chest and rested it on his shoulder. "What are you going to do then?"
"I guess I should go to London and be the prodigal son," Sherlock replied. "But I confess just thinking about it already makes me miss you. It makes me miss what we share and I wish if I really have to go back that bringing you along with me was an option. But I can't seem to think of a way to smuggle you in my suitcase."
Joan's stomach constricted as she thought about what life without Sherlock would look like. But she already knew, she had already seen it once and she hadn't liked it as much as she thought she would.
She tried to imagine what Sherlock's life in London would look like. He'd have a good little wife, maybe a kid or two. His former life behind him, with her out of his life, she knew he would go crazy.
She tried to imagine what a life with the two of them as a couple would look together and she couldn't see them doing dinner parties and operas in party clothes with London's most elite. Sherlock wouldn't last a second without insulting somebody or unearthing people's skeletons. Nobody would want them around, not when he was revealing who was sleeping with whom or what underhanded business deal was being made over brandy and cigars. And he wouldn't be muzzled either, he couldn't be taught new tricks.
There was no meeting in the middle.
Maybe they would just have to enjoy what time they had left together and be thankful for the memories.
"If I asked you to come with me, would you?" Sherlock asked.
Joan sighed and propped herself up on her elbow. "There would be no place for me in your new life, Sherlock. And I wouldn't want to be the cause of conflict in your marriage. I wouldn't want your wife to hate me for being in your life. You saw how it was with Kitty. If I went with you, things wouldn't be the same way they are here. We wouldn't be running around London solving crimes. That would defeat the purpose of your going back and I would most definitely not want to be your mistress."
"You wouldn't be," Sherlock told her.
"Then why would I go to London with you? I'm not your sober companion anymore and you would have no need for a partner over there. What would my purpose there be? Tell me because I can't uproot my whole entire life for nothing."
Sherlock rolled on top of her and kissed her again. It had been so long since he had spoken any kind of words of affection after sex. But now, after everything that had happened over the course of a short hour, he found himself confessing to her.
"You're the person I love most in the world."
Joan's breath caught in his throat. She realized she had heard these words before, Mycroft had told her that he believed she was the person Sherlock loved most in the world. It hadn't stopped her from doing anything she had done afterwards.
From sleeping with Mycroft, from moving out and leaving him alone even after he had said he would change for her, even after he had asked her to stay.
Even know, with verbal confirmation of the way he really felt, she didn't feel like she could give him what he wanted.
Maybe she was just as 'sick' as he was.
"We'll figure something out," she promised as he distracted her with gentle kisses on her collarbone, on her ear, she closed her eyes as they started to make love again.
We have to.
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Mr. Holmes left them on a stormy day in late fall. He wasn't taking Sherlock to London with him quite yet. He had deemed them both fine for the time being but he warned them that he would be watching and if either of them stepped out of line, he would come straight back and Sherlock would have to abide by his wishes.
He would take him back kicking and screaming if he did drugs again.
But it seemed like he was doing well for the time being and he wanted to trust him, so he bid them goodbye and disappeared from their lives until the next time he thought they needed him.
Joan hoped they wouldn't need him ever again.
She hoped she would be able to keep Sherlock well.
The End
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Author's Note"
I don't even know what this is. I do know it feels all over the place and it still has to do with the darn finale and it was inspired by Take Me To Church by Hozier (a song I actually don't love). I just wrote whatever came to mind and hoped it would all turn out for the best.
I hope you'll tell me what you thought of this one-shot. I am trying to get out of my obsession with 3x24, but I am not making any promises to you or myself. More coming soon!
Until Next Time!
Love,
Holly, 6/20/2015_