Bonus udpdate because it took so long to update. It took so long to get the emotion and the ideas all together. It is perfect to me. I really hope the next chapter is faster.
John opened the door and cursed. He had gone to work for a grand total of three hours and Sherlock had woken, surely with a horrid migrane,and had left his bedroom. John knew the other man didn't normally go very far but he had never seen him get high before, nor had he ever seen the after effectes. He had left Sherlock sleeping soundly in bed. It had taken a lot of quiet pursuasion to get Sherlock to let go of him.
He searched the apartment," Sherlock? Sherlock Holmes! Where are you? Come out! Sherlock!" He wandered the halls and stopped when he heard the sound of rushing water. He knocked on the door," Sherlock? Are you alright?"
"No." Sherlock answered in a dull, toneless voice.
"Are you hurt?" Jahn asked urgently.
"Have been for a month or so now.
He pushed the door to the bathroom open and peeked in. He gasped and cursed himself again.
Sherlock stood in the shower in a white long sleeve shirt and black pants. His hands were pressed to the wall shoulder width apart in front of him and the water poured over his head and off his long black hair and down his bleeding back. John cautiously walked up to his friend.
"Sherlock." He said quietly. Sherlock didn't startle, or acknowledge his presense at all,"Can you hear me?"
"Of course I can hear you." Sherlock's deep voice rumbled.
"What's going on? You have stitches." John touched Sherlock's shoulder but Sherlock shrugged him off.
"I'm taking a shower." Sherlock said in a mock cheery voice, grinning up at John then letting his head hang again.
"You know you aren't supposed to get you back this wet. It'll get worse." John said.
"My bloody back. Oh my back. I try to take a bath, which men normally don't do, and I find I can't sit down, I can't get my shirt off, I can't even wash my hair!" Sherlock punched the wall, gritting his teeth,"I was hopeing I'd drown but it hurt too much to lay down in the tub. Can't even wash my hair."
"Why are you still in your clothes?"John asked, moving closer still. He was starteing to think he was going to have to pull Sherlock out of the shower with brute force. He had seen stranger happen because of Sherlock.
"Because I couldn't... I can't reach up and take it off. I needed to bath so here we are." He sighed then shouted at the drain," I can't even wash my hair!" He kept returning to the fact.
Guilt washed over John. He should have noticed how much pain Sherlock was in. Suddenly his eyebrows furrowed. Sherlock shouldn't be in that much pain this far along. Granted there would be pain but he had gotten past this a while ago.
"Have you taken your pain medication today?"
"Yes!" Sherlock said," Regularly and as needed. It doesn't seem to help."
"Lean down as far as you can." John directed. Sherlock looked at him and his eyebrows furrowed. He turned his head and raised an eyebrow, keeping eye contact.
"What for?" Sherlock questioned.
"Because I am short, you bafoon! Lean down!" Jahn put a hand on the top of Sherlock's head and made him lean slightly over, his head out from under the water. John grabbed the shampoo,poured some in his hand, and sharted scrubbing Sherlock's curley mass of black hair,"Close your eyes." He shoved Sherlock's head under the water and started to rinse the soap out of the man's hair.
"What the hell was that?" Sherlock asked.
"I was shampooing your hair. And showing you I'm not ashamed of helping you or you needing help. That means with ANYTHING!" He helped Sherlock over the ledge of the shower and turned the hot water off. He started to notice how much the man was shaking and took his own jacket off," Take off your clothes and out my jacket on. I will get your clothes and come back. Sit down when you are done."
John left the room and returned as fast as he could with another white sleeved shirt and a pair of black pants and some underwear. Sherlock sat on the toilet trembling. He had his head in his hands. John helped him stand andpeeled the thin wet shirt off of him then helped him redress. Sherlock's pale skin was tinted red. He wasn't sure if it was fever or if Sherlock was embarassed. He sat the other man down on the bed facing the wall and sat a chair behind him.
" I your cold but I need you to take this shirt off." John whispered, running a hand gently down Sherlock's spine.
"No." Sherlock muttered, crossing his legs and intengling his fingers together, resting his chin on his netted fingers.
"What? I need to see why your fevered. It's probably infected." John said.
"i don't want to take the shirt off." Sherlock pouted.
"Fine." John grunted. He reached up and grabbed the shirt and roughly pulled it off Sherlock," Oh. They're all infected." John put a hand on Sherlock's shoulder that was swatted off but he kept looking at the wounds," i know it hurts all along but when did it escelate?"
"Yesterday I couldn't lift my arms at all without hurting it." sherlock said, barely audibly.
"But that case yesterday...Sherlock you could have killed yourself." John said,rolling up his sleeves to prepare for stitching him up. He started out the room and found his bag on the table just outside Sherlock's room. He had left it there in anticipation of such an event. He had stitched up Sherlock's hand about two days ago from a wound he got when he jumped over a rusty railing using just his hand.
John sanitized his hands and wiped Sherlock's back surrounding the wound with an alchohol rub. Sherlock shuddered at the doctor's now freezing hands. John noticed that after the shuddering stopped, Sherlock seemed to still be trembling. John had known him for quite a while and could tell that something was wrong.
"Sherlock. I'm sorry about what happened to you... No one deserves this." John remembered how he had found Sherlock just three days ago, shooting up to get the voices to go away. If only John knew what the voices were!
"What if I do?" Sherlock mumbled, jolting John back to reality.
"What? No, Sherlock, whatever you have done, it does not deserve this as payment." john said, slowly removing the stitches one by one. John ran his free hand down Sherlock's back gently, barely touching where he was stitched," No one deserves this."
"I killed those men..." Sherlock started.
"You had no choice." John said, shocked. Suddenly Sherlock stood up and spun around and John fell to the floor.
"I killed those men... And I liked it!" Sherlock said as he towered over the man on the floor. His face was partially shadowed creating an even more frightening image until tears poured down his face," I killed the men who raped and knifed me and I liked it! " Sherlock sobbed," All I could think is how I had wanted to try that all my life and they had given me a legal way to! " he sat down and put his face in his hands," And it scares me!" he shrieked.
John stood up weakly and sat next to the younger man, wrapping his arms around the pale, trembling form," That's a good thing! It's a good thing that it scares you! It should! To this day it scares me."
"Do I scare you?" Sherlock asked in a very high pitched voice.
"No. Never. You could never scare me, but killing someone, taking another life! anyone would be scared. Likeing it, is well, human nature. you were high on adrenaline and nicotine patches. "
"I'm a sociopath! This is the next step! What if I can't stop!" He whined.
"But the fact that you can stop yourself and think that is enough! I can tell you that it will come and you'll be able to stop yourself." John smiled and put a hand into Sherlock's hair.
"If you're there, maybe." Sherlock mumbled hoarsely.
"Sherlock, did they hurt you? Did the doctors check you out? I mean..."John asked nervously, massaging Sherlock's head lightly.
"Yeah they checked me out. I think."
"Did they know that they needed to check... because they...There's certain things that need to be checked because of what they did. Am I the only one who knows this happened to you?"
"Yes. I've told no one. I was... scared." Sherlock let the last word fall. John turned his body and pushed Sherlock's hands gently away from his face then put a hand on his cheek, turning Sherlock's head so they were facing one another.
"You don't have to be scared anymore. No one is going to hurt you. I'll keep you safe." He whispered, still holding Sherlock's face.
"But who's to stop me from hurting you?" Sherlock's face went red and he jerked it out of John's grasp to hide behind his dark curls. John grabbed his face forcefully and kissed Sherlock's forhead.
"I'm sure you will." He said. Sherlock layed his head on John's chest and started to sob. If anyone asked he would openly deny this. He hoped that it wouldn't ruin the only real relationship in his life, but for now he didn't care. He just cried. Long and hard into the older man's chest, Loudly and into the late hours. At around three in the morning both men fell asleep, Sherlock laying on John's chest and John's arms wrapped protectivly around the shirtless Sherlock.
If asked the next day , both would deny it, but in the end this was all they needed.
Thanks to all of my wonderous readers!