Author: tigersilver
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: S/J
Warnings/Summary: Third in the series, after Delete and Reboot, we have John Watson, front stage, centre. Angst, the aftermath of rape, and so on. Not fluff, and far from it, as far as I can possibly go, peoples. (And no, I am not finished here, not yet. Never fear.)
BBCSH 'Mainframe'
[He has nothing…not a thing left to keep. All is fragmented; all must go—be rewritten.]
John stationed by the kettle, second time in an hour. Is it only an hour since he came?
Came, and then…came. And that's putting it so fucking politely, and John's head is fair spinning in anguish despite the utterly mad urge he has to giggle insanely—how, why? What for? Did he not believe John was faithful?
To do this?
This, and to him. His old…his familiar...his…his?
John's arse aches; it's not surprising. His rib cage, too, as his heart beats staccato. And there's a man asleep (maybe) in his bed, a bad man, a criminal.
A fraud. Drugged out, strung out. Unreliable. Fake.
If it hadn't been for the lone hand. Crawling round John's ankle when he came out of the shower, that long set of bones articulated under thin skin, articulated with desperate tendon and muscle because there was barely any flesh left to them. (So thin, Sherlock is. Paper thin, a construct of piano wire and rice paper, and so flimsy it's as if he'll blow away on the next breath.)
…If not for that, those base tremulous fingers latched onto John's ankle like a manacle, Sherlock Holmes would be seeing the inside of a cell tonight, serving gaol time—no, this morning. As it is technically morning and the inevitable dawn isn't far off.
Light will make no difference. All the light gathered from the world over will make no matter to what this night has brought John—no, not solely John. Them. Both of them.
Though it's John left with the aftermath as always. Witnessing the falling, as always. Bearing the brunt of it. John Watson.
Tea, then.
John takes stock as he stands waiting patiently for the whistle of the kettle.
He's been fortunate, in a way; 'physician, heal thineself'. Minor tears to the sphincter, a little blood and then some mild bruising to his hips, but nothing a man in good health won't recover from. His neck is tender where Sherlock had cranked his jaw round at an odd angle to kiss him; his lips are reddened and swollen. There's a lingering and peculiar sensation of having been invaded, his internal organs shoved rudely aside, his gut rearranged by a manic intruder—and his brain has gone buzzing, buzzing, all staticky. But the sluice of warm water, squeezing involuntary muscles frightfully hard and some soap carefully applied had emptied John of foreign spunk, had rid him of the flecks and streaks of his own blood and soothed the worst of the muscular aches and twinges. Worse has happened in the world, John Watson is aware; it happens every day and every where. And the antiseptic ointment daubed on carefully would heal the breaks to the skin of his anus. He would just be sure to sit carefully, the next few days…and maintain a bland diet.
(He will not think, just yet, this now, as to what diseases or drugs Sherlock Holmes has caught in his fragile, barely on-line physiological system, what dangers might be hidden in his sperm. John will not think, no. He will think about that later. Yes, later. Not now.)
And tea. Tea would help, as it must help, and John needs tea, nice and hot and bloody loaded brimful with sugar, to sort the words he'll say to the stranger in his bedroom.
This familiar stranger, this ghost, walking; this demon, Sherlock Holmes.
His teapot is in shards, the floor's littered with them. That remains to be dealt with; oh—he needs clothes. A damp towel won't do him, not in this chilly pre-dawn. The kettle whistles and clicks off automatically. He takes down another mug (he's just binned his favourite one for some unknown reason. No, he won't think of why that is, not just now. 'Why' is not an answer.)
Clothes, then, are the next order the day, and all John's clothes are in his bedroom closet and drawers. So, bedroom it is then, as there's no avoiding it. Seeing that man, he means when he thinks 'avoid'…the one in his bed. He knows, dreadfully so, he must go in there. 'Avoid' is yet another no-go. John is...sensible.
He's careful enough with the door (doesn't so much as slam it gently into the plaster of wall, denting it, as he'd very much like) but John flicks on the overhead lamp mercilessly. The lank black glossiness of the uncombed tumble of hair spilling across his pillow reminds him instantly of the plumage of a dead crow, pond-drowned and washed up on the scree. He's seen one once, a sad and sorry leavings. Crows and their kin are meant to be raucous; this is not.
The demon himself is all hunched and curled up upon himself, buried deep in the covers, his coat a dark lumpy mass discarded hastily by the side of the bed. And, in the stark light of a hundred burning watts, John sees Sherlock's skin is nearly as white in hue as John's many-times-washed old sheets. Even the barely visible half-bow of his lips is bloodless. The doctor yearns—oh, how he yearns.
He belts up with a huff, resists the impulse to check respiration and turns away staunchly, avoiding what's landed unwelcome in his bed.
He doesn't need that, not right now. What he needs is purely sensible; is pants and sturdy thick trousers, a singlet, corduroy, maybe; is a pullover, a cardigan, for buttoning neatly—the new navy one with the red piping—is warm woolen socks and his slippers. And tea. John needs tea.
He takes it away to his old familiar armchair, the one he'd carted off from 221B with Mrs Hudson's blessing, and sits gingerly, as he should, upon an extra cushion. The remains of the teapot and the sodden leaves have all been swept up; the boring lino on the floor is boringly safe once again, all pristine yellowed and gleaming, the canisters have been righted and the counter sponged clean.
And John breathes, only merely breathes, in and out, out and in, for some time, perhaps quite a long while. Long enough for the break of real dawn to illuminate the edges of the blinds. Blinding him, until he ducks his chin well down, thinking. Always thinking. Sherlock taught him that, and it's not as though he hadn't known it already—always think.
Think, John. Think. Think of the words, for they are needed.
Think of the words as a Morse code, feed into that demon; think of the response. Think!
Dawn comes, all at once, for real and blindingly enough till it passes, and…ah, well. In the warm comfortable light, and hearing the beginnings of traffic, John realizes:
There are no words, in the end. None at all. None to be rehearsed, none to be shouted nor whispered nor stated. Nothing comes to mind, ready-made and brilliant, nor even fumbling and ill-wrought, and nothing will force them out, either, those nonexistent words of John Watson's.
He's nothing to say, not yet. He wants to know what the fingers meant, 'round his ankle, clinging on to his skin. He needs to understand why it went this way, down this particular road.
What Sherlock Holmes has ingested.
What Sherlock Holmes—or the demon approximating his form—has to say to him, John Watson.
As to where he has gone, and come back again from, that it has come down to this. This.
[Tea, that ages old panacea. Sloshing down parched throats, and this is what Sherlock confronts first of all, emerging. Is John, drinking cold tea, tucked cosy in his old armchair. Is John, drinking tea…this is all (and everything) he would want to keep. Oh, god help him, it is.]
"...John?"