Chapter 2: Change Times Two

Freak, weirdo, string bean, poof: Hurt a little boy long enough and eventually he'll grow accustomed to the pain. Hurt him bad enough and maybe he'll even learn to like it.

Freak, idiot, psychopath, mutant: Hurt a grown man long enough and you'll teach him with exacting precision how to turn around and hurt you.

Harry would tell you she hadn't meant anything by the comment—"Oh John's always been useless, really, I'm surprised he can boil water much less invade a country"—but of course that's a lie. Her brother stays away from her not because she's a drunk, but because she's a mean drunk. Even when she's sober.

Returning pain for pain is so automatic by now that Sherlock hardly hears the words as they come from his own mouth. Of course not, they're reflex, self-preservation. So some part of him didn't register his reply to Harry, while another part hurt for John: Don't let him hear her; he doesn't have the armor for this. For god's sake don't let her talk.

And a small part of him, a tiny part that's growing and doesn't want to, knew that he was over-reacting, giving her fuel for her fire, and that of all the things he is that are good, this…this driving need to hurt someone because he's been hurt is not one of them.

But that was then and this is now.

Sherlock looked up into John's eyes as he loomed across the table, so close, and for the first time in ten years Sherlock didn't spit because he'd been spit on, didn't kick or bite because someone else had kicked or bitten. No, his reflex now was to simply wrap his arms around his body, to curl up around the pain.

But John wasn't done yet.

He leaned across the kitchen table, even closer. "Come on, Sherlock, don't be shy. Say something cruel, vicious, true. Hurt me. You know you want to, you know that's the only way you'll feel better. Alive. Relevant."

Sherlock had wished he was dead many times. When he was ten and those two boys had beaten him up. When he was fifteen and Ben had touched him, got him hard, then laughed and called him queer. When he was twenty and could barely stand the god damned fire in his brain anymore. And now. Right now. Because John thought…John thinks that he…wants to hurt him.

Sherlock didn't even hear his own throaty moan—how do I make it stop John?—didn't realize he was doubled-over, forehead pressed to the table—make the pain stop? make my mouth stop?— that he was rocking like a wounded child—make the world stop stop stop doing what it does to me?—all that he knew was that he'd never hurt this bad before and that he would gladly go through the agony of growing up again, twice, three times, a hundred rather than be here, now, hated by the only human being he loved more than life.

Some animal part of his brain tried to move Sherlock away from the pain and so he jerked, leaned, fell gracelessly from the chair to the kitchen floor. He immediately scrabbled to his knees, doubled-over, desperate to be small, invisible, and to stop the pain.

A catalyst initiates or accelerates change. Anything can be a catalyst: One match. One word. One man's love.

On that less than sanitary floor Sherlock was at that moment being catalyzed, changed, accelerated. It might take him most of a lifetime, he might never fully succeed, but starting from right now, right here in an over-bright kitchen on an icy London evening, Sherlock Holmes would finally begin the journey that would take him from being simply a great man, to being a good one.

Here's the thing though: A catalyst itself is changing as it changes other things. While John Watson might already be what many consider good, he was just beginning to understand that by tying his life to this man's, he might one day, maybe, could, would…do something great. Or maybe he just had.

John went to his knees, draped his body over Sherlock's back, enfolded him, some part of his mind amazed at how small the man beneath him felt, how breakable, how thin.

I didn't know you could hear me through all that noise in your head. I didn't know you could hear any of us. I wouldn't have shouted so loudly, I wouldn't have hurt you so bad.

John doesn't say this because words like these never come when you need them, but it was okay, other words came, just as good.

"Oh god, why do you care Sherlock? Why do you care about me?"

Here's a small blessing: It's almost impossible to focus on your own pain when someone you love hurts even worse.

With a hiss Sherlock lifted his head, turned, gathered John in his arms and—clumsy still— rolled onto his back, dragging his good doctor with him.

And finally Sherlock used his words, oh yes he did.

"Because you make it stop raining, even when it's raining," he hitched a breath, two, then rubbed away cold tears in John's hair. "Because you make this house warm even when it's cold. Because you see me, you seeee me and when you look at me I can see you. I can see warmth and betterness and understanding and things I wish I were, things I wish I were for you." He held hard and tight. "I don't know how to…to do what you do…to be normal or right or kind…but I want to know how, so that I don't hurt you, so that you, that you don't—" He couldn't talk anymore, couldn't think past the one awful thought.

John turned his head so his lips were pressed against Sherlock's ear. At first he simply kissed the delicate ridges and the tickling hair, then he said so softly that even one of Mycroft's supposed bugs couldn't catch it: "I will never leave you, Sherlock. I will never, ever leave you."


There will be resolution. One more chapter. Maybe two. Must earn the adult-content rating. Please share any comments!