Author's Note: First, I owe all of you a very big apology for taking so much time with this update; I can't really say what happened as I don't have any one thing to pinpoint. I guess my life just got busy, and a lot of things changed in a short amount of time, but I'm still sorry for taking so long with this, especially as this chapter isn't a huge one and doesn't have anything really plot-vital in it. Still, it is an update, so I'm hoping anyone who's still reading this is okay with that.
Also, I just want to say that this chapter might seem sort of like an ending? But it's not - there are probably going to be three more chapters after this one, including an epilogue, and they should be updated fairly soon - certainly not with a wait like this one.
Thank you so much to anyone who is still reading this fic, you have no idea how much your reviews help me through the really crappy days and when I'm feeling down and out on the world.
June 15th; Sometime After Bedtime
Things change, marginally, after the beach. John grows an inch and Sherlock doesn't. Lestrade still smiles. Sherlock still does not speak. The days grow warmer. School is still horrible, the children don't speak to Sherlock at all now. But John - John speaks a lot more. Late at night, when they are huddled beneath blankets that are all the protection from the world two boys can give themselves, John opens his mouth and words come pouring out like they'd been poised there all along.
John knows, now - knows for sure - that Sherlock is not going to run away from him when he hears what's inside John's head, what's wrapped up in the days that led to him arriving on Greg's doorstep. He finds it hard, sometimes, to form words for the memories and the feelings that rush against his mind but Sherlock is patient and he listens, blue eyes fixed on John with an unflinching attention, and that helps. It really does.
The older boy cannot stand to look at Sherlock sometimes when he speaks; like the first time. He lies against the carpet and stares up at the blankets overhead and folds his fingers into his pyjama trousers and swallows hard again and again and again to try and force the words to come. But even though he's not looking at Sherlock, John knows he's listening, simply because John needs him to.
So he tells Sherlock about the first time he remembers his dad hitting him. Tells him about the smell he remembers, thick and heavy in the air, the smell that still chokes him to this day when he walks past someone who has been drinking. Alcohol. John knows what it is. He knows what it smells like. He knows what it looks like when it spills against kitchen tiles, and he knows how the blunt punch feels right after. He knows what it looks like when it poisons his father's eyes, and he knows what it looks like when it decorates his mother's face with dark bruises and she is still so beautiful.
He knows how it feels in the air when he comes home from school. Like any movement could snap the fragile atmosphere of the world; any word wrongly spoken, any step too far in the wrong direction. Even just a look the wrong way at the wrong time, his heart thumping slippery wet against his ribs in a thudthudthudthud because he's just waiting, always waiting, for the world to break apart and shower him in bruises all over again. He knows how it feels when his daddy starts yelling and it's like everything inside him shrinks down and down and down until there is nothing left but please don't Daddy please it's me, it's Johnny PLEASE DON'T DADDY PLEASE YOU'RE HURTING ME-
And he knows how it feels when his mummy shouts out. When she screams louder even than him, when her arms spread wide and her eyes are so, so scared but she's there and she's yelling, and Daddy's yelling and the whole world is yelling, out there and inside his head - screaming and shouting and crying and hurting and it never stops.
Days and days of it. John has them mapped out inside his head and he remembers them sometimes when he's sleeping or when he accidentally lets his focus slip. He used to remember a lot more; he's better now. He's getting better. He thinks he has Sherlock to thank for that. He never has nightmares when he's curled up in sheets that smell of familiar bubble bath and he can see blue hems of Sherlock's pyjama bottoms when he opens his eyes. He never lets his attention slip away to bad things when Sherlock is there, because his attention is wholly focused on the other boy instead.
John tells Sherlock about bottles smashing, about a crack in the air and something burning his back it's burning oh God please Mummy, Daddy someone please anyone help me it hurts it hurts. He tells Sherlock about the way his Daddy yelled at him, right in his face, so close John could have counted the eyelashes adorning his father's eyes if he'd been brave enough to open his own. He tells Sherlock that he still gets scared when boys fight at school. He still flinches when someone yells with the taste of anger in their mouths. He still feels sick when he smells alcohol or when he hears a bottle smashing or when the boys at school call him Johnny, like his daddy did.
And Sherlock says nothing. Sherlock listens and aches and wishes he could take all the words out of John's mouth so he'd never have to feel them on his lips. He wishes he could reach right inside John's head and pull the words out of there, too, so John doesn't have to remember them. He wishes he was big and tall like Lestrade, so he could go back in time and find John, pick him up and take him away from his daddy and tell him he loves him because John is perfect and he doesn't deserve to be hurt.
"Mummy tried to stop him," John whispers, pressing his fingers together and then pulling them apart, again and again just for something to do, something to watch and think about as the words spill out. "She really did. She was a good mum. She was..." He swallows. "She was the best. She gave me ice cream when...after. When Daddy was out. She tucked my blankets up around my ears. She read me stories and walked me to school. She helped me with reading. Showed me..." John presses his fingers to his mouth instead, curling over because his chest is aching so fiercely he's scared he's going to break apart right here in their sanctuary. "She taught me how to tie my shoelaces," he manages to say, squeezing his eyes closed and drawing in a ragged breath. "She said I was her big strong man. But I wasn't. I wasn't, Sherlock, I wasn't, I - I couldn't, didn't. He was mad, Daddy was so so mad, he was angry and yelling and I didn't stop him and I was meant to because I was Mummy's big strong man and and and-"
John's dizzy, clutching desperately at something he doesn't realise is Sherlock's wrist, closing his eyes and sucking in deep, sharp breaths that hurt as they whistle past his lips and down his throat and the world is spinning crazily inside his head, rolling around like a ball in a bowl and he's swimming, flying, falling-
But he's not falling. Sherlock has his arms wrapped around John, one circling his neck and the other grasping at his back, wishing, wishing, wishing he could say something, anything - say all the words John needs to hear but he can't, he still can't, even though John needs him. But it's okay; it's okay because Sherlock doesn't need to speak as long as he's there; John takes comfort from his presence, from those eyes that look at him with I care written in blue and a mouth set too serious for a six year old. He takes comfort in knowing that Sherlock listens and understands and cares; from the fact that if Sherlock could say something, he would. And John knows, somehow, that whatever Sherlock said, it would be all the right things.
Because they are two imperfect boys, and they didn't mean to be that way. It just happened. And now here they are, clinging together because that's all they've got left, and one of them has words that have scarred his insides for so long spilling past his lips, and the other can say nothing at all. And that is just fine, because it works. Because love doesn't need words; it is so, so much more than that. And these two boys, they are brothers, and their love is not written with words or spoken with tongues. It simply is. That is how they understand it, how they give it and take it.
And it's perfect.