A/N: Wow! Two weeks in a row! What is the world coming to? Lol! I am thinking maybe 3 more chapters, perhaps 4. We shall see. We will be moving on to The Great Game after this chapter peeps and you know what that means:D – of course this is AU so maybe it doesn't mean what you think it means:P
As usual I do not own. As usual that makes me sad. But it is fun:D
7. I Feel Better When I'm Numb
*sequence12b – the subject has been released back onto the street. The nanites have been reconfigured to alter his memories once more to those of John Watson. He is showing signs of confusion and deep distress. The subject is…*
Wilson paused in the recording, and rubbed a hand across his forehead. He was feeling nauseated and ill at ease. This was not what he had signed up for. That poor bastard.
He resumed the recording.
*The subject is making his way back to the shared flat. His respiration and heart rate are elevated and he is employing techniques learned from the army to scout the area. He is paranoid and appears frightened. He is aware that something has happened, just not precisely what that may be. We have no way of knowing what damage switching his memories around and suppressing his true personality once again will do to him. The client seems unconcerned.
Personal notes (to be destroyed after recording) – I have come to the conclusion we have done what we should not. We are destroying the mind of a good man and helping to destroy the mind of one who does not deserve our pity. He is truly evil. As is the man we both work for. It would be my wish that if one of them had to survive this endeavor it would be John Watson. Everything I have observed proves he is a good man. Everything thing I have learned of Sebastian Moran, he is not. Our client has made it clear that when this is over all memories of John Watson will be purged from the subject and he will be reinstated back to who he really is. I expressed my concerns once again that he may never be the same. I was, of course ignored.*
Wilson carefully erased all evidence of his personal notes. All of them. He was certain that he was being spied upon and he knew that he and Hughes' usefulness was coming to an end. He had made his peace with that. He rather felt he deserved what would happen to him.
He did have one more card up his sleeve, to use an old saying.
oOo
John's hand shook as he poured the hot water over the tea bag. Water splashed up and over the edge of the mug and trickled across the counter. He didn't notice, so lost in his own thoughts. He failed to immediately feel the flare of pain blooming along the fingers of his left hand, which was attempting to hold the mug steady, as water splashed across them. Another hand came from behind him and gently removed the kettle from his grasp.
A soft, deep voice quietly intoned, "Perhaps if you poured with your left hand you wouldn't burn yourself."
John was gently guided to the sink where Sherlock turned on the cold water and pushed the injured hand under the stream. He turned, leaving John standing there, staring at his hand as if it had betrayed him, his body still faintly vibrating with some undisclosed emotion. Sherlock wiped up the spill and finished making the tea. He shut the water off, placed a hand on John's elbow then led him to the couch where he pushed him down into a seated position and sat beside, their knees just touching. John continued to stare at his hands, as they both shook violently not just the familiar tremor of the left. Sherlock took both hands in his and John jolted with the contact. He finally raised his eyes and looked at Sherlock, briefly. In that quick glance Sherlock saw deep despair and anguish radiating out from John's eyes, before he looked back at the floor again.
"What happened? You've been gone for hours. Sarah said you never made it to her place."
John's eyes flickered up again, before he shuddered and then shook his head. "I…" he began, cleared his throat and tried again, "I…I don't know." The stammer was a whisper of anguish. Sherlock felt he would crack from the despair it held. John drew in a deep breath and shuddered again. "I can't remember anything after leaving the bank. I came around, I guess you could say, a block from the flat." Sherlock continued to watch John's face with complete focus. "I…," John started again but didn't seem to be able to move beyond that word.
Sherlock asked, the sound cautious and low, a measure of real concern permeated his voice, one that wouldn't be present for anyone else, "John, are you hurt?"
The shorter man blindly shook his head back and forth, his mouth working, "No…yes…I don't know." he finally gave up in defeat.
Sherlock removed one hand from John's and took both of his in the other. He lifted up his freed hand and brushed the fringe off of his friend's forehead, in an uncharacteristically tender manner. "John. Perhaps you need to go…"
Before he could finish the statement the other man's head shook back and forth violently, "No, no hospitals, Sherlock. No."
"John, something happened to you and someone needs to check you over."
His head whipped around to face Sherlock. He made an aborted head shake and turned it into a brief, tight nod in the other's direction. Sherlock's eyes widened at the almost giddy feeling coursing through him. John trusted him.
He didn't say or do anything for a moment, but John could feel his gaze travel over him. There was nothing to compare with that feeling and he knew he'd recognize Sherlock's gaze flicking over him anywhere. There was something almost physical about it.
Unexpectedly Sherlock leaned forward and sniffed John's hair and along his neck. If he hadn't been so on edge he might have found it intimate and arousing. But there was nothing personal in what Sherlock was doing. It was purely clinical.
"You've had a shower. And you've used different soap and shampoo. It's more expensive than your own brand." Sherlock rattled off these facts, but with out his usual detachment.
The shorter man's eyebrows went up. He had no memory of having a shower. Sherlock next looked carefully at both of John's hands nothing telling except how strong and capable they were. There was no evidence Sherlock could see with his naked eye that John had fired a weapon. Satisfied there was no evidence to connect John to the assassination of Shan, he was pleased to be correct in telling Mycroft he might not know he had done it.
Sherlock stood and without relinquishing the other's hand, tugged the former solider up and off the couch.
John looked up with a troubled, questioning face.
"Come," ordered Sherlock. "You're going to bed. You have had a shock and it appears you've lost your memory. It may be drugs, it may be something else, but you aren't capable of doing anything until you've slept. Perhaps afterwards you will remember something. Perhaps not."
He pulled John after him, but instead of up the stairs and to the bedroom that was John's, he steered him to his own room.
"Sherlock, what the hell are you doing?" John's voice sounded almost normal in his outrage at his flatmate's behaviour.
"I am putting you to bed in my room. I can keep a better eye on you there. I will need your clothes. I am going to check them for evidence. Perhaps there is something on them I can use. And I want to check you for injury."
"Injury?"
"Injury," Sherlock's tone brooked no argument. "Hmmm…wait here."
Sherlock jogged out of the room and John heard him run up the stairs in his customary two-steps-at-a-time way to the bedroom above. John could hear, overhead, drawers being opened and shut and then sounds on the stairs again. Sherlock appeared back in the room with a t-shirt and boxers in his hand. "You can change into these after you've taken off your clothes." He stated it matter of factly, as if John shedding his clothes in front of him meant nothing. John wasn't sure if that was true.
The detective stood the doctor by the side of the bed and moved very cautiously. He felt he was dealing with a frightened, wild animal. Sherlock reached toward John's jumper and the other man momentarily stopped his hands. The taller man stared into his eyes, projecting nothing but reassurance. He nodded, his face resigned. The detective noted John's heart rate had increased from nervousness. Sherlock kept his hands where John could see them and with quiet murmurs told him exactly what he was doing. He tugged on the hem of the jumper and made the other man jump again. John was acting like a victim of something other than memory loss. He slowed his movements, continued to speak in low tones and unbuttoned the shirt. Chest bare, silvery green eyes swept over it and there appeared to be no marks on the front. Sherlock skimmed a gentle hand down the clearly defined muscles on John's chest, checked for any signs of bruising, visible or not. The man held his jaw clamped shut, eyes forward. He barely blinked. Sherlock hesitated before he told John he was going to remove his shirt to check his back. John's nod was barely noticeable.
Sherlock pulled the shirt off and turned John around. He was expecting to see something, some mark of abuse of some sort on the surface of the skin. There was…
"Nothing. You do not have any marks, no signs of any injury or...anything else." Sherlock's voice sounded puzzled.
John looked up, relief evident on his face. "You were expecting something, weren't you?"
Sherlock, whose eyes continued to sweep across John's skin, only marred by the scar of the gunshot wound, "From the way you were acting I assumed the worst."
John barked a cold, bitter laugh. "Yeah, but just because you can't see anything. This is only the top half Sherlock." His face flushed with embarrassment and shame.
Sherlock placed a hand on either shoulder and gave John a gentle shake. "Let's assume the best John. Perhaps you are only feeling like you were assaulted because you were assaulted, but not in the manner we are both fearing." His hands swept back along John's shoulders and squeezed them briefly, then handed him the t-shirt and boxers. "I'll just step out of the room for a moment whilst you change." He turned to go but was stopped by John's hand on his arm.
"Please stay," a wistful appeal.
Sherlock looked back at John's face. What he saw there made him nod and he turned his back to give John some privacy.
He could hear John remove the remainder of his clothes and place them with the jumper and shirt. John tapped him on the shoulder when he was done. Sherlock turned and observed he still retained his humiliated and shamefaced expression. He moved into John's space and he took his chin in his hand and turned it up so John could look at him.
"You did nothing wrong, John." John noticed the emphasis on the word you, which he found strange and reassuring at the same time.
"Then why do I feel like I did something terrible, Sherlock?" John refused to meet his eyes.
Sherlock hesitated for a moment and then did something he wouldn't normally do. He felt John needed this and although neither was demonstrative, would instinctively crave reassurance and comfort. Sherlock felt on some level he needed it as well. Something, he suspected he knew what, had happened to John, or more likely to the body he was in, more than what Mycroft knew. He put his arms around him and pulled him into a hug. He would not normally do this, would not presume with John, but he had been attracted to him on every level since their first meeting and it was as easy as breathing to offer this to him, without hope for reciprocation, just to offer it to him.
John stiffened at first and then began to relax as Sherlock's hands moved back and forth across his back in a comforting motion. He leaned into Sherlock and placed his head on the other's chest, closed his eyes and was comforted by the rhythm of the detective's heart, thudding just below the surface of his skin. He took a deep breath and released all of the tension he had been feeling since 'waking up' on Baker Street. Sherlock, meanwhile, laid his chin on top of the shorter man's head. The two stood like that for a few moments until they both recognized it was perhaps too soon for this. Then with a final pat on the back and Sherlock said, "Let's get you into bed, then shall we?"
"If the Yarders could hear you say that," John chuckled in an almost normal tone of voice.
Sherlock's chest rumbled with an answering laugh as he continued to prod and push John into the bed and under the covers. He turned to pick up the clothes on the floor when he was stopped once again by a hand on his arm. He looked at the pleading in John's eyes and nodded. He left the pile of clothing where it was and climbed into bed beside the other man. He didn't ask and he didn't think it strange or odd but he automatically lay behind John and wrapped an arm over the other drew him close. John sighed and relaxed further until his breathing became more regular and he slipped into a light slumber.
Sherlock stayed there, listening to John breath a while longer, watched his face intently, whilst he slept and rubbed a hand up and down John's arm, thinking. When he was sure that moving wouldn't disturb John he climbed carefully out of bed and gathered the clothes on the floor to check for trace.
He knew, roughly, where John had been the past few hours but not exactly. He couldn't let John know he knew. That would be letting the people who were behind this know he was aware of what was going on and if the wanted to find them and stop them he had to seem ignorant. He was hoping for something, anything to give him more information. He had the feeling that it was going to be sooner rather than later that things were revealed as to the full extent of the game being played.
He was excited by all the possibilities, even as he was anxious for how John was being used in this.
He refused to think of the man as anything other than John. No matter what was said and what had happened, evidence to the contrary, no matter what Mycroft believed, he was and would always be John Watson.
He walked with the clothes to the kitchen and began to go through the list of things he needed to do to the clothes for processing. Before he got started he pulled out his 'phone and texted his brother.
This needs to end now. SH
Patience brother. It will be coming to an end in a few days time. MH
oOo
From behind the now blank monitors, dark whilst john Watson slept, Wilson watched the unholy glee consume the client's face.
"So close Sherly, baby, so close. Almost got into Johnny's pants, didn't you? How sad. No worries. I'm sure you two will get a chance to tangle in the sheets before too long. Lots of sexual tension, eh Wilson?" He clapped the other man on the back.
He turned to go, paused, pulled on his lip and then turned back. "Make sure you keep me informed. I want to watch that, big time, live action. Might get a few pointers!" he grinned a shark's grin and winked at the two men. "Oh and see what you can do about watching Sherly in other ways than through dear Johnny's head. He's up to something and I want to know what it is."
He turned to go once more and then stopped and spun very quickly, "Oh and Wilson. Come see me in a few hours. I have a little job on the side I need you to do."
Wilson cleared his throat nervously. "Sir? I mean yes, sir."
"Don't worry so much, Wilson. It's not healthy. You won't fail me. You are sooooo very necessary to help me get Sherlock to come and play a game. I have big plans, Wilson, Big Plans!" He winked again and left the room.
Wilson turned to Hughes, "Why does that not make me feel better?" he said.
A/N: Musical musings Numb by Holly McNarland – chapter title from lyrics of same song. New favourite song here peeps!
