Emblazoned
CHAPTER EIGHT
Assess situation:
Basis: physical contact on an intimate level.
Analysis: establish justifiable means for uncharacteristic behaviour
Possibility one: Trauma
Possibility two: Primal instinct/carnal desire
Possibility thr - Dear God John is so attractive and it feels so good to have his lips on mine and he tastes like mangos and oh my his tongue is so soft and his hands are in my hair and goodness he's so strong but he's so gentle and he smells so delicious and he's so warm and Christ I'm getting aroused but this feels so good oh John don't stop please I want you to -
"Ah - "
Sherlock broke the kiss and stared at John with wild eyes. They had somehow made it to the bed and John was on top of him, his lips wet and slightly swollen and his face flushed.
"S-Sorry," John stammered, his eyes bewildered. "I...um..."
Sherlock blinked, perhaps to regain focus. John was straddling him, the doctor's hands pressed against his pectorals. Sherlock's arms were flung above his head, his black buttoned shirt wrinkled and mangled, his dark hair messed, and his legs haphazardly entangled with the stout doctor's.
"Well," he said, trying to remain as stoic as possible. "This is...new."
John chuckled nervously. Neither of them moved. They simply stared into each other's eyes, astonished and curious. It was John who spoke first.
"We shouldn't be doing this."
Sherlock blinked. He licked his lips, a tingling sensation buzzing on his tongue as he swiped over hints a traces of John's saliva, and cleared his throat.
"We shouldn't," John said again, and this time he made an effort to get off of his flat mate, but Sherlock grasped his arm.
"Wait," he said, low and breathy. John looked back at him unsurely.
"Sherlock...this isn't...we're not..." John was frustrated that he couldn't find the words. The look in the detective's eyes was so forlornly stricken with desire that John came dangerously close to forgetting all moral standards and just proceeding with making love to the beautiful, absolutely gorgeous man pinned beneath him, but he refused. He sighed.
"We can't do this," he said decisively, and albeit rather regrettably.
"Why?" Sherlock asked, eyebrows arched. John was slightly surprised. "I don't know what's so...haltingly alarming about it."
"Sherlock...you don't have to be a genius to know that this will...things will end up...leading to..."
John shook his head. I'm bloody tongue-tied. Jesus...
Sherlock said nothing, and his grip loosened just slightly on John's arm. Still, John did not move.
"You don't want to do this," Sherlock announced. John wasn't sure if he could detect a form of sadness in his voice, but he glazed over the fact.
"Sherlock, I just don't think you're in your right mind," John said after what seemed like long deliberation. Sherlock propped himself up on his elbows, and John took this as a sign to dismount him. He sat on the side of the bed, not facing Sherlock.
"Look," John began, smoothing out his jeans. "Like we've been saying. You're not yourself, Sherlock. You've got to know that you wouldn't be doing this...that we wouldn't be doing this on any other basis." He heard Sherlock sit up, and after a beat, he continued.
"You said you feel cheated, and it's perfectly normal to feel that way. Really. And it's not that I don't want to be there for you, because you know I do, 'Lock. But doing this stuff...all this physical attention...Sherlock I think you're trying to...sort of...reclaim what you've lost, and since I'm the closest thing you've got to...well...I think you might be-"
"I'm not using you, John."
The remark was harsh, and Sherlock's voice dripped only slightly with hurt. John swallowed visibly.
"I know, 'Lock," he said quietly. "I'm just saying, you might not be...aware of what you're doing."
"I'm perfectly aware of what I'm doing."
John sighed.
"Are you though?" he asked, turning so that he faced Sherlock, who was sitting on the bed with his knees drawn up to his chest. He hung his head low, and his dark curls hid his eyes. He said nothing.
John sighed and rubbed his temples. Sherlock, he was convinced, was in fact not aware of what he was doing at all. Kissing John? And more than once? And not just kissing him, no, snogging with him. Repeatedly. Viciously. The hunger for the contact was unlike Sherlock entirely, and John was well aware. He knew, perhaps since the first time it happened, that Sherlock's confusion and lack of control over the situation was the only explanation. He was trying to gain control over his physical and mental state. He was trying to...reconduct the experiment. Sherlock was never, ever caught off guard. He'd had no experience in physical intimacy, and John knew that the minute those men grabbed him, Sherlock would be changed, maybe irreparably.
John figured that Sherlock was trying to use him as a way to go back and "study" the aspects of this physical contact his way. There was no force with John, no rush, no hurt. And by God, there never would be. If Sherlock was afraid, John would snog the fear right out of him, but John knew that this wasn't the way to go into this. He'd just proffessed his love to this man, for Christ's sake, without thinking of how it may only further his confusion and his loss. John closed his eyes and took a breath.
"Sherlock," he said after a long silence. "Say it."
Sherlock looked up at him inquisitively.
"What?"
"I think you should say it."
"John I don't - "
"Say that you were raped."
The words cut sharply through the air and Sherlock swallowed hard, unmoving, staring at John with a blank expression. His eyes, however, were alight with sharp horrification. John nodded.
"Just say it," he said quietly. "Trust me."
Sherlock opened his mouth to protest, but John gave him a tense look.
"No, Sherlock," he said sternly. He turned to face him full on, sitting cross-legged on the bed. "This will help, I promise. Say it."
Sherlock looked down, eyes searching and calculating with practiced precision. John put a hand on his leg, ever so gently.
"Take your time," he said. His voice was soft, comforting, and he tried very hard not to tremble. It had taken a lot for him to say it; he could only imagine what it would take for Sherlock to -
"I was raped."
Sherlock's voice was brittle, small, hardly a very Sherlock voice at all. There was no confidence, no harshness, no depth. It was almost frightening. John stood his ground, knowing that this needed to be done.
"Good," he said quietly, stroking gently up and down his leg. "Keep telling me. Tell me what you felt like."
Christ, he sounded like his therapist. But Sherlock was worth an identity crisis every now and then. Sherlock was worth everything.
There was a long, cold silence, and John remembered in the back of his mind that they had left the balcony door open, the cold winter air flowing into the hotel room shamelessly. He shuddered lightly, but did not move, did not falter from his friend's side.
"It..." Sherlock began, his voice coarse and quiet. He was hiding his head in his knees, unable to lift it to face John's careful, tender eyes.
"It was...frightening...terrifying..."
John swallowed and gripped his friend's leg.
"Can you tell me why, Sherlock?"
"Because...I've never...I've never even thought about...well I'd thought about doing...things like that...but I wasn't...I wasn't ready. God, I wasn't ready. I didn't know what was going on. I was so afraid. I was terrified. I couldn't think. I couldn't think at all. I can always think. I couldn't...nothing was clear. Everything was happening so fast and I couldn't move and I couldn't breathe and then they kept touching me and hurting me and my mind wasn't working at all and I couldn't protect myself and I kept trying to make it stop...God, just to make it stop...but they kept coming at me and I couldn't...John I couldn't...I didn't know what to do...I don't...I don't know...what..."
Sherlock spoke quickly; he began to tremble and his voice was shaking. John came in close to him, putting an arm around his shuddering shoulders.
"It's alright...it's ok..." he cooed tenderly, rubbing his arm. Sherlock made a noise that John assumed was a choked sob.
"John," he said weakly. "I just need...I need...I need to know why. Why, John? Why did this happen? What logical explanation is there to this? I've tried...I cant figure it out, John. And I'm so afraid. I don't know, John. I need to know why. Why?"
Sherlock looked up at John then, his face flushed and his eyes wet with crystal tears. John's heart leapt into his throat.
"I don't know, Sherlock," he said quietly, bringing his hand up to Sherlock's face. He stroked his damp cheek and with his thumb he wiped away his tears. "But you're safe now. You're safe."
Sherlock sniffed and took a breath, closing his eyes. He breathed deeply, calming himself. He still shuddered with each breath, but after a moment, he opened his eyes again and stared up at John with a curious, glossy gaze.
"Why did you say that?" he asked, his voice returning to normal. John sighed, admittedly in relief, that Sherlock was returning to himself again. It was difficult and even a little unnerving to try to comfort someone who has never really...asked for it before. Or appeared to need it. John gripped his friend's arm.
"Said what?" he asked, using his other hand to carefully brush Sherlock's curls from his eyes.
"That you loved me."
John's breath caught for a moment in his throat before he cleared it and looked down.
"I...don't really know, Sherlock," he said. Did he really not know? Or was he afraid to tell that he did?
"That's not true."
Sherlock was as sharp as ever. The remark was harsh.
"Tell me the truth John."
Gentler, now. A twinge of guilt.
"Please."
Hurt. There was the hurt. John sighed and looked into Sherlock's hazy eyes.
"I just...said it...like it just came out of my mouth," John said honestly. He searched Sherlock's face for any kind of reaction before he continued.
"I guess I've known for a while now, but never really admitted it to myself. Standing there on the balcony...thinking about all the things that have happened...Sherlock I...well I realized that there's no way that I can't love you. So I guess since there's no way that I can't, then I must, right?"
The words sounded odd, and Sherlock smirked.
"Deductive reasoning," he said. "Excellent, John. You improve each day."
John scoffed humourously.
"Thanks, Mr. Miyagi," he said with a goofy smile and a wink.
Sherlock smiled. The pop-culture reference may have gone over his head, but John knew that the smile was genuine.
"You're so bizarre," Sherlock said. John chuckled.
"Right. I'm the bizarre one, Sir Head in the Fridge."
Sherlock frowned, but it didn't hold for long...
...John kissed it off his lips.
Mycroft Holmes was not a patient man. He was also not a very nice man, all things considered. He was a man of principle, discipline, order. He was not one for petty arguments, idle chatter, emotional break downs. He was a man of fine wine, important phone calls, fireplaces, wing-backed chairs, long meetings, sleepless nights, and the occasional splurge on one too many desserts. Other than those things, there was very little that Mycroft Holmes chose to care about.
Mycroft Holmes, however, could be a very, very good big brother when he tried. Despite the fact that he hardly wished to be involved with his younger sibling's chaotic life, he had always looked after him, always made sure that he was taken care of, always made it so that no matter what, he was there to fix it. Picking up his drunken brother in alleyways, locking him in his bedroom for days so that he could get off the heroin or cocaine, paying his bills when he was just too occupied to remember, sending him cases just to keep him sane, buying him birthday presents when he knew his parents had forgotten again...
Sherlock may feign hatred and rebellion, may condemn his name, his life, his weight problems, his arrogance, but Mycroft silently took the abuse. He knew Sherlock was too damn stubborn to ever admit that he needed Mycroft, and Mycroft was too haughty to allow himself to inform Sherlock just how much he truly cared. Advantageous or not, he did.
But Mycroft Holmes could not, for any amount of cake or intelligence he possessed, figure out how to fix his little brother in this particular situation.
He sat in front of the fire at the Diogenes club, hands folded, a glass of iced Scotch on the coaster next to him. The paper sat in his lap. Not a single mention of his brother or the Merchants was to be put in the papers. He had made sure of it. He'd threatened nearly every paper in town who had caught wind of the story that if they even breathed the name Holmes, he'd have them...taken care of.
His brother was in Ireland. With John. Safe. For now.
Mycroft sighed.
How long would he be safe? And how could he keep him safe?
The Merchants were on the move, he knew, but he had no idea where. They moved underground, under the radar, away from the his prying eye, and he could only guess what they were up to next. Sure, Mycroft had other things to worry about, like the terrorist attacks in Libya or the proposed trade treaty with Japan, but he could not think of anything else but his brother. His damned brother.
His phone buzzed on the side table.
SMS: Arrived a few hours ago. Didn't have time to call. All fine. -SH
He stared at the text message. His fingers flew over the tiny buttons.
SMS: What do you mean you didn't have time? -Mycroft Holmes
SMS: Bugger off. I'm busy. -SH
SMS: How long are you staying? A week? -Mycroft Holmes
SMS: Yes. -SH
SMS: Alright. How's John? Do you two have enough money? -Mycroft Holmes
SMS: Are you at the dentist? You're texting an awful lot. I'm supposed to be on holiday. -SH
SMS: Sherlock... -Mycroft Holmes
SMS: Mycroft. -SH
Mycroft sighed irritably.
SMS: Call me if you need anything. -Mycroft Holmes
SMS: I won't. -SH
SMS: You're a child. -Mycroft Holmes
SMS: You're jealous. xx -SH
The elder let out a short breath of annoyance through his nose and rubbed his face. Sherlock seemed to be fine, to say the least, but he knew. He knew that this wasn't over. He'd heard about the incident nearly minutes after it happened, and all he could think was "how in God's name could I let this happen?"
"Christ..."
He sipped his Scotch and ruminated deeply over the situation at hand. He had ways of making sure that the Merchants never set a finger on a stupid little curl on his stupid little brother's head ever again, but if he could only locate where the hell they'd gone off to. Could they have known that Sherlock and John were going to Ireland? When had they decided?
His phone buzzed again. Anthea. He grabbed the small black rectangle and his eyes lit up.
SMS: Located Edgar Merchant. -A
Mycroft's heart jumped to his throat. He shifted.
SMS: Call me in ten minutes with the details. I'll be on my way. -Mycroft Holmes
Grabbing his umbrella, he nearly leapt from his chair and strode out of the club towards the black Mercedes, leaving the fire roaring and the glass of Scotch to sweat agitatedly on the table.