Chapter 2:
This is all vaguely poetic. John feels a strange nostalgia from blood. This is the paradox of a physician's mind. He's tended Sherlock time and time again in the past. Now, he's got him sitting in their shower, dressed still in those pants. Blood trickles from the wound on his back.
John is using a scalpel to gently pry a piece of a broken dagger from the bone matter of Sherlock's right shoulder blade. Sherlock is holding the shower bar for dear life. His other hand cradles his forehead. Raven curls spell out icons and question marks over his hand as locks tumble to his wrist. John smiles. He looked up the definition of Sherlock once. Leave it to this dear man to be contrary even with his name. It meant "fair-haired" or "blonde" and he was the polar opposite of fair-haired. This served as a welcome distraction to his other hand that slipped and trembled in pain even as he gripped the shower bar with all his upper body strength.
"Hey, I've got it. It's a bit stuck. Got to be careful not to let it slip. It could cut-Easy! It could slice into your spine…" John reaches a hand to Sherlock's inkjet hair and quietly smooths it down. He means to calm Sherlock who is close to having a pain-induced seizure.
"I...Um…"Sherlock's teeth grit so tight that John hears the enamel crunch. He groans, sliding the dagger free. Sherlock lets out an animal groan. Any other man would have screamed. Sherlock's torment is too severe for it to register with any of pain's normal emotions. The groan is less than human. John hears the exact dehumanizing effect on Sherlock's person in that one terrible sound.
Sherlock bows forward, quaking. A gush of blood quietly bubbles over John's hands. He discreetly sets to suppressing it, using a package of clotting powder. It stings on a good day. Sherlock hisses and gurgles, hands shooting out reaching for anything. John gives him his arm. Sherlock digs into it with his fingernails. Helpless, lacking the air it would take to expel the scream normal circumstances would have afforded him, he is sobbing now himself. John realizes it belatedly, as he finally stops the bleeding. He begins to suture the wound.
"Hey…" John pauses the stitching and kisses Sherlock's face from the side, drawing his hair off his now sweat laced forehead. Sherlock is sobbing like a small child into his hand now. He shakes his head and laughs and quietly resumes crying like a confused baby. John feels his soul roll and thrash about in his gut. His heart flounders in its own blood. This is too horrible for words.
"Who did this to you?" John's voice is airy. Quiet like the desert after dark. Sherlock shudders.
"The alias was Sebastian Moran. You knew her as Mary Morstan…"Sherlock grins. John goes stiff. The arm Sherlock is clutching to goes limp.
"My...My former girlfriend...My former girlfriend tortured you?" John has not yet registered that Mary's alias was male and the name of James Moriarty's best friend rumored lover.
"Well...There are two Sebastian Morans. One of them, the male one, the gay lover of Moriarty,...Er, I shot him in the head. The other was Sebastian's little sister, Clarice. Clarice Moran pretended to be her brother for a long time while she was on the revenge mission. She assumed a civilian identity when she made it back to England after Mycroft bailed me out of her torture dungeon beneath a cartel in Eastern Europe. This civilian persona was Mary Morstan (a combination of the names Moran and Sebastian, the brother who became her manifesto )
Sherlock speaks slowly and almost inaudibly. He sucks air through his teeth. Little sobs escape him between his measured words. John feels like he is cherry-picking grenades. He swallows one, is blown apart inside, and then he swallows another. Sherlock was tortured by his former girlfriend?!
"John...I...I need to tell you the truth." Sherlock took John's hand, rendering the doctor mortally fearful immediately.
John came around to face Sherlock's ice blue and tears to wine stains eyes. The honesty in them.
"I...I never told you. Too eventful then. But...I faked my death, went away to protect you directly from the Moran siblings. See, Moriarty had three guns trained on my three closest loved ones if I didn't agree to his...to his suicide pact. The one trained to you was Sebastian Moran. Killing him...Taking down his assassin ring, was the darkest path of my absence. I...I want you to understand. I haven't told you until you found out on your own because...Because I haven't wanted you to know that I was mutilated to keep you safe." Sherlock bows his head as if this is something to be mortally ashamed of.
John blacks out.