Title: Torn
Author: Red_TABUretka
Translator: LaSuen
Beta: It's-Teatime-Somewhere
Paring: Sherlock, Jim
Genre: drabble, dark
Disclaimer: We do not own anything.
Summary: He is abducted and held in an isolated place.
Warnings: Drugs, violence. Rated M for a reason.
# # #
His eyes are always shut. Well, not always, no. Otherwise it would be awfully dull. His eyes are shut when I enter. It doesn't matter if I enter inside the room or inside him. He seems to still believe he's going to turn invisible if only he closes his eyes.
He is funny, isn't he?
To be perfectly blunt, there is not much to look at. The room is a meagre ensemble of a table, a chair and a narrow bed. A blue door leads to the lavatory. Two tiny pendent bulbs hang loosely off the ceiling. The walls are good, though, unlike those in the cellar with the notorious trainers. Who would dare call this abject misery a flat?
I always bring food. Ten-to-one I see the other tray untouched. He doesn't eat. Or he eats a scanty bite of it. Somehow, this doesn't concern me. Might be that I just don't want him to break. Even more, that is.
Because he is already broken. Still a genius, still a unique, yet breathtakingly broken. Sometimes I feel an urge to talk for hours about how sorry I am. Had I possessed a time machine, I would've gone back to tell myself not to push so hard. I would've reminded past me that future me is going to come to regret the imperfection. Because he is defective now. The flaws spoil my mood.
However even like this, he is much more interesting than anybody else.
His eyes are shut. He waits for me to rustle through the paper packages carried from yet another low dive. He waits for the dessert to come. It's trite and hackneyed, but it's his own wording. It sent through me a tang of disappointment at the time, but he smiled at me, and I've reckoned to linger for a while, staying alive.
I step up, dragging the chair closer to him, and lay out the 'dessert'.
It's a Browning, a syringe, an ampoule, a tourniquet and a penknife. I could've brought a box of candy, but we both feel too indifferent to sweets.
I love to watch his eyes light up when, at length, he flutters them open. For a split second he almost becomes his old self. It's far better than chess. Next to that, chess is nothing. I can foretell future as I read his facial expressions, the compulsive tremour of his fingers. I see every combination and every sequence, and he knows that I see, and I know that he knows, and we both glide precipitously on the down spiral, and it's so… heart-stoppingly sweet.
I'm not afraid of the day when he chooses the Browning. We've both come to realise that a bullet is the only key. For him, at least. He doesn't have anything left. I haven't left him anything. It rendered the game not as good as it could've been. Have I already said I regret having done so?
He has nowhere to go. All he has is the syringe and me. I like it that he can have me. As soon as he manages to find the vein, he likes having me, too.
It would've been amazing, could he talk for hours, for days at a time, incessantly, forever. I think earlier he would've paid a high price to have someone who would listen to every last thought flashing through his unparalleled brains. Now he remains silent, almost always. Sometimes it upsets me so much I want to burst out in a sob.
He doesn't even scream.
Thing is, he doesn't have a watch here. He doesn't have windows either. I've selected a new calendar for him. He can look at it any time he feels like, just on his right arm, starting from his wrist up to his elbow.
One visit – one cut.
I have the same cuts, only on my upper arm to not let anyone notice. That's nauseatingly stupid, and I don't know what has overcome me. The ruby markings on his skin, scabbed, draw me like a drug. A shiver runs through him as the blade brushes along his arm. He presses his lips and averts his eyes, apparently unable to stand the sight of blood. He doesn't utter a single sound.
I like having the common syringe for both of us. It's the most intimate thing I've had in my life. I like knowing I can touch him. I like touching him. I want him so much. He is all mine. Mine. We have the same needle. The same room, the same Browning. We have the same world for both of us.
He has a scar under his left knee. A little, white crescent.
He twitches as I slide my fingertips down his spine.
He wheezes and writhes as I add another finger.
He never objects, and I don't want to think it's only because he chooses the syringe.
He stares at me in disbelief as I reach out to hand him the tourniquet. I can believe for both of us.
"I could strangle you."
"Yes. Then what?"
He doesn't say anything. He tightens the noose around my neck.
What else should I do? What else should I drive into his blood to fix him, or at least myself? How can I rid myself of the boredom, the pain, the fear, and the ridiculousness? I don't need air, can't we just merge into one sole creature? If he tightens it a little bit more, if I take him a little bit deeper, then maybe this gigantic fireball that crashed onto us will finally solder our bodies, our thoughts, and we will no longer be broken.
Every time I hope I'm not going to regain consciousness. Or that I'm going to regain something else. But every time it brings me back to the same room with the same table, the same chair, the same narrow bed and the same blue lavatory door.
His eyes are shut. Residues from the dessert are scattered nearby. Scarlet blots mar the bedsheets – traces of my calendar.
I know I'm coming here again, I'm coming here awaiting the day when the blade cuts the skin just a little too deep, or when the ampoules multiply just a little too fast, or when the tourniquet tightens just a little too strong.
I'm going to come to this room again, and I'm going to look at his closed eyes, and say:
"Hi, Jim."
FIN