Thanks for waiting, y'all: and thanks for reading, and giving me feedback, encouragement and kudos. None of this would happen without my readers! Also, none of it would happen without my betas Science, Snog and guest-starring (this chapter required three!) MildredandBobbin. Ladies, you sculpt me into a better writer with every edit!
Chapter 15: The Insidious Power of Priorities
"That is not Harriet Watson. It is her girlfriend Melissa."
"What?" Dimmock says, caught completely off guard.
John is silent, so stunned that he can't think what emotion to feel: relief, shock, anger, sorrow...
Sherlock repeats, "This woman is not Harry Watson. John?"
John slowly shakes his head, feels the grating of cervical vertebrae and muscle that has been held with such fearful tension for the past half hour. "No," he confirms. "It's Melissa. Um. I don't know her last name. Not my sister."
Sherlock reaches into the bodybag, and gently touches the side of Melissa's head, turning it left, then right. There is a sickening gape in her throat, slit deeply, viciously open, although the blood has been cleaned away. Her head rolls easily under Sherlock's guidance... no rigor mortis yet, so dead less than 3 hours... and the motion causes the chasm in her throat to move and flex like a grotesque mouth.
Bile rises hot and swift to the back of John's throat, and he has to struggle to impose his Army doctor persona over that of the brother, flayed raw by guilt and worry. As everyone assimilates this new information, Sherlock pulls away the bag some more and begins to lift and examine Melissa's arms and hands, unperturbed by the fact that he is handling a nude, recently warm, dead body. John swallows hard and diligently focuses on the hesitant D.I.
"Not your sister." Dimmock repeats. He is not very quick on the uptake, it seems. Molly stands there, gloved hands an inch away from her mouth, shocked and fascinated. Her eyes dart between John, who feels brittle and distant, and Sherlock, who is rapidly moving down Melissa's body, pushing the bodybag to the side as he does. Her puzzled gaze lingers on his feet, on the uncovered calves visible under the swing of his coat; however, in spite of obvious concern and confusion, she doesn't say anything.
"But," Dimmock complains. "The bank card. The keys. There's a health club ID on the keyring that says Harry Watson. The name on her shirt says Watson."
"And yet," Sherlock interrupts, posh accent brimming with disdain, "She is not Watson. So that question is answered. The next question is..." he looks up and waits for anyone to jump in there and fill in the blank. No one does, and Sherlock gusts a showy, frustrated sigh. "Where is the real Harry Watson, then?"
John jerks and quickly fumbles his phone from his pocket, dialing up one of the three numbers he has in his contacts list (Harry, Mike and his therapist). It goes straight to voicemail, and he shakes his head at Dimmock while leaving a brief, urgent message for Harry to call him.
Dimmock looks back at Sherlock and suddenly seems to realize that a ragged, half-dressed man is pawing ungloved at his corpse. "Oi," he protests. "Don't touch it."
Sherlock looks up and narrows his eyes, which is as telling as a good adolescent eye roll. "Don't tell me you have been trained as a forensics analyst or a coroner," he begins. "You're not even noticeably qualified to be an inspector, evidenced by such baseless assumptions about the identity-"
Dimmock finds a bit of backbone. "No. Stop. You stand back. Both of you. Actually, Dr. Hooper, you can cover her back up." Molly steps forward and apologetically rearranges the bag; the zipper is loud in the echoing room as Melissa's desecrated body is hidden from view.
"Well. I'm sorry to have called you down here," Dimmock says to John. He seems painfully awkward and stiff with embarrassment and anger. "Do you have any information on this woman, then?"
John shakes his head again, snapping from a fugue of confusion and worry back into the present; into this very real space, occupied by these very solid people, even the dead one. The dead one who is not his sister. It's as if what he's been drawing into his lungs for the last 40 minutes hasn't been air, but now suddenly he can breathe... and Harry isn't dead. She's a drunk, and she's an arsehole, and she's not dead. And John can't even hate himself, in this moment, for his relief that it's Melissa, and not Harry in that bag.
"I, uh," he dredges through his interactions with the poor woman earlier in the evening, trying to think of anything useful. "She said she went on leave about... a week and a half ago? She's in the Army. Ah. I imagine that if you take off that 'Watson' tag you'll likely find her real name under it. They met at the gym you've got the card for. Um. That's all I've got. You'll have to find Harry to get more, I'm afraid."
"You may be sure that we will," Dimmock snaps. He takes Harry's number and address, and John and Sherlock leave; Sherlock with a longing look at the bodybag, and Molly with a longing look at Sherlock.
The woman at the desk dials up a cab for them, and John and Sherlock wait under the awning, both of them shivering in the unrelenting cold. "Sherlock, I'm going to send you home in this one," John says when the black car pulls up. "I'll get another: I'm going out to Harry's flat. But you should go home."
He means because Sherlock has no clothes.
Sherlock skewers him with his eerily pale stare, the fluorescents of the entryway painting his skin an unnerving fungal green and washing the tint from his eyes. "Harry is not at her flat, John. You know she isn't. A brash woman with a power complex like that would always go to her liaison's home in order to dominate and mark that territory. She needs to prove herself all the time, doesn't she? Also, she's not very trusting. It's obvious that one of your parents was occasionally abusive when you were children … likely while under the influence of drink. You and she have the 'us against them' solidarity that speaks of the need to band together for survival in your formative years. She wouldn't invite a stranger into her home, although she's comfortable enough fornicating with one."
His delivery is staccato, enunciation crisp, and his breath forms smoke signal puffs in the air as he speaks. He fishes his leather gloves from his coat pocket and smooths them over thin fingers. "I know you're worried about her, but there's nothing to be done until she makes contact, as we don't know the woman with whom she left."
Sherlock ends the discussion by sliding into the cab. John follows, frowning and unsettled.
They are silent on the way home. John pays the cabbie when they get back to their new flat. £20. Christ. 20 pounds, and they could have walked. He guiltily looks down at Sherlock's cold, abused feet. No, no. Of course they couldn't have walked. But he's abruptly aware of the fact that their income is composed solely of his pension once again. No more pawning magically regenerating precious stones and metals. They will likely have to move back to a bedsit, if they want to stay in London.
As Sherlock pulls the key from the pocket of his greatcoat, John is unexpectedly swamped in a black waterfall of distress; he's overwhelmed and buffeted and there's simply too much to take in. He pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut, concentrating on slow, deep breathing to stave off a panic attack. The perception that his life is utterly out of his control, that he's no more than a twig in a raging river, leaves him literally staggering, and he grabs onto the door frame as he passes through. But he fights through it, closing a door he can't see, turning blindly up the stairs, putting one foot above the other and just breathing, breathing, breathing and shaking... until he's reached the top, and the world comes into focus once again.
His brain is spinning.
In barely a week his life has been turned completely upside down. It had been gray and hopeless before, and not necessarily worth the trouble of maintaining breath and a beating heart. It had been cripplingly lonely and bleak.
And in this surreal, brief period, he has come to life again, with the ferocity of a long-numbed limb recovering in an endless flare of pins and needles. There has been color, and life and yearning. Stimulation. The edge of danger, the thrill of which he'd never thought to balance on again. He'd begun establishing a connection with someone, and feeling hope about the future.
And the last two or three hours has utterly obliterated all of that.
Finding Sherlock outside the club, surrounded by ruthless men and yet struggling successfully against them, bold and strong, had been, quite frankly, exhilarating. But what followed...
What followed was like getting shot all over again, and John feels the same hypnagogic disorientation that had subsumed him then, as he'd fought the numberless days of fever succeeding his wounding. His concern is depleting him: the shock of his sister's 'murder' and current unknown whereabouts eating at his equilibrium. What is happening with Harry? Is she dead right now? In danger? Simply out of touch? Is it somehow John's fault? He is filled with repulsion and anger at seeing what has been done to Melissa, and guilt at his relief that it didn't happen to Harry.
And on top of this chaos of deleterious emotions, he doesn't even know how to respond to the theft of Sherlock's lamp... doesn't even fully realize what the loss entails: money, sure, but that's manageable, that's minor; instant wardrobe changes, again, small stuff. Is this the end of his time with Sherlock? Of whom the least can be said that he's the catalyst back to the land of living for John?
What does losing Sherlock mean for John? For Sherlock? He's only just begun to accept that Sherlock... actually is what he said he is.
They have entered the living room, and Sherlock pulls off his scarf, the tail of it flicking John near the eye, and slips out of his coat; he doesn't check, but thrusts it carelessly behind him, expecting that John will be there to hang it up, which he does mechanically, alongside his own.
John notes a boot-shaped bruise coming up on his lower back. He involuntarily puts his hand forward, hovering over purpling skin, but Sherlock whirls obliviously away and flings himself out on the sofa with a stifled groan of discomfort.
John looks around the flat and pulls the gun from his pocket, saying quietly, "I'm going to check the flat. Stay here."
Sherlock looks mildly derisive and says, "Don't bother John. No one's here. They got what they wanted."
John does not say, "Obviously they didn't, because they don't have you."
Regardless of Sherlock's prediction, John obeys the dictates of his training, and sweeps each room, vigilant and thorough.
The flat is empty.
In a few minutes he is back in the living room, standing near the sofa. Sherlock is stretched out full length, in nothing but his gray trousers. One hand toys with his lip, and the other arm is laid across his eyes. His ribs are slightly arched, thrown into relief by the stretch, and John's professional eye assesses the bruising and gooseflesh distorting the rusty henna tattoos.
"You're going to freeze to death like that." John snaps his mouth shut, completely surprised by the words that came out. "I mean..." His eye falls on the disordered jumble of clothes that had been scattered on the floor. He doesn't imagine Sherlock would abide wearing that ancient ensemble, no matter how cold the flat. He surprises himself with an intense, possessive fury at the thought that Sherlock might.
Not because it would mean that John no longer has a half-naked genie in his flat, but because it would imply that Sherlock belongs to someone else. To the last man with whom he'd worn those clothes. Someone malicious and cruel who had demonstrably hurt him many times and should in no way be allowed to touch Sherlock ever again.
John swallows, a rude gulping sound that ripples into the silence in the room.
Sherlock languidly removes his arm and opens his eyes, so clear and piercing and argent; like holes torn through space, like searing starlight.
"Start a fire," he suggests laconically.
John presses his lips together, but turns nonetheless and does as suggested. It is gas, with fake logs. John finds the flue and the valve key and the box of matches on the mantle. He wonders briefly if Sherlock tried, perhaps, and if he's been foiled by the modern technology. Or maybe this particular arrangement has been there since the 80s. Doesn't matter. He doesn't mind doing it anyway.
The flames lick, orange and yellow and comforting, in spite of their less than organic origin, and John kneels there, allowing himself a moment to relax and go blank. But he doesn't take more than a few seconds, shoving to his feet and turning around.
Sherlock is staring at him. "John. I know why Melissa was killed."
John feels his whole system stop, and then jolt into gear again; off rhythm, out of sync. "What?" he asks. "How-"
Sherlock bounces up and sits on the sofa arm, facing John, folding his knees up like a gargoyle, and rests his fidgeting hands on his feet, toying with a toe, tapping his thumb on his anklebone. John stares for a minute at those long, slender appendages. The meandering patterns of henna are brutally interrupted and obscured with evidence of the struggle at the club. Besides mild bruising apparently derived from battling barefoot, and those on top of the foot, scattered and ugly, there are abrasions and one lurid haematoma from being stomped on rising to the surface. John makes a note to get some ice on that; swelling in the feet, with its narrow cluster of fragile bones, is no picnic. There are small cuts on the edges and, he imagines, on the bottom as well, acquired via running across sharp gravel.
"Wait," he says, snagging the flannel abandoned on the table from before they got the phone call and heading for the kitchen. "Let me take care of that while you tell me."
He rinses out old blood and grabs ice as Sherlock says, "Melissa had your name, your sister's name, on her uniform, didn't she, John?"
John comes back to see that the medkit is still on the little table from earlier, when John hadn't had time to use it on the cut on Sherlock's temple. "Yes," he says, standing at Sherlock's shoulder, tipping his head back to the light. "Go on." He presses the damp cloth against the dried blood on Sherlock's temple to soften it up, holding that brilliant brain clasped between his two hands. Sherlock makes a soft noise, but does not pull away.
"So she was identified as Watson right there for all to see," Sherlock continues, irritably pushing at the flannel as it drips down his cheek. "And your sister called her Watson at least three separate times, very loudly, while they argued at the bar, poking that same nametag whilst she did. Anyone would have assumed Melissa was actually Watson."
"I didn't think of that," John says slowly. One hand is cupped under Sherlock's jaw, and John feels him swallow before beginning to speak, and he tells himself it is not a caress when he slides his hand back, under Sherlock's ear, half on his neck, half in his hair. Sherlock lets him take the weight of his head, staring at him with his intense eyes, and John is somewhat dismayed by this enormously inappropriate timing; for he is thinking about the warmth of skin underneath cool silky hair, and his body is remembering the frantic and satisfying chaos of need and satiation in the club, the slick of hot skin under his hands, the almost painful edge of desire swooping through his body - his cock - and the shuddering, pliant mass of Sherlock, limp and heavy on top of him in the aftermath, smelling of sweat and rust and sex.
So John stands frozen, lost in that memory, and Sherlock twitches an eyebrow, as if he knows what John is thinking (he probably does) and continues, "The detective mentioned that Melissa had three other items belonging to your sister: a bankcard, a keycard for their gym, and the keys to Harry's car and flat."
John takes a harsh breath and comes back to himself, back to a present that is not so much about lust and physical joy as it is about dread. He remembers Harry shouting invectives at him because he had sent her girlfriend home with Harry's belongings. John had thought it drearily ironic at the time: well-deserved retribution. He chews on the inside of his cheek as he grabs ointment from his kit, carefully coating the laceration and covering it with a plaster.
"In the club, you spent significantly more time with Melissa than you did with Harry." Sherlock's voice is blurred and muffled as John holds the flannel to his split lip. "You talked to her, she... embraced... you. You got her a drink and gave her money for the cab. Whereas to Harry, you were either hostile or evasive."
"Alright," John says slowly. "I can see why someone might assume that out of the two, it was Melissa that was my sister." He sits down, and pulls one of Sherlock's feet into his lap, swiping at the grime that has mixed with dribbles of blood to become black and scabby. Sherlock doesn't so much as twitch, showing no sign of discomfort, and offers no resistance as John examines the damage. It is wide-ranging, but all of it fairly mild, and John concentrates only on cleaning and disinfecting, turning the frangible limb in mindful hands, and traces his thumb lingeringly along the instep as he finishes, oddly soothed by the contact. "You think someone wanted to murder Harry Watson. Specifically Harry. And that they were watching me in order to identify her. And this has something to do with you and the lamp and... all this." His gesture encompasses the haphazard pile of clothes on the floor.
"Yes." Sherlock lifts a hand to fist in his hair, tugging sharply. His eyes flash up before dropping back to John's careful probing. He hums, almost inaudibly, as John applies a single plaster to his foot, taking the other up in his hands.
This one is worse, henna almost entirely eclipsed by dirt and bruising, haematoma vivid over the metatarsal. John manipulates it to check for compression fractures, but although Sherlock's breath catches, he thinks it is simply the result of a heavy boot coming down on unprotected and vulnerable feet. John feels a simmering rage at those who had dared to go after what his primitive self identifies as his. Sherlock is his. His genie. His friend. His to protect, and to care for.
These thoughts sift through his head, but his hands remain gentle, practical and trained, cleaning away dirt. The henna, he is interested to see, does not fade or disappear under his ministrations.
"You asked earlier, John, if a wish could bring her back. We've had this discussion, of course, and you knew already that the answer was no." Sherlock peers at John's lowered eyes; he can feel the heat of that scrutiny burrowing through his forehead as he keeps his face stubbornly down, over Sherlock's foot. "If it had been Yes. If there was something I could have done..." Sherlock pauses, and John glances up through his lashes to catch uncertainty flare across the unique features before they are schooled into impassivity once again. "If it had been possible, John, and if it had been your sister. What would you have done?"
John's hands tighten involuntarily, and Sherlock jolts, grunting at the pressure over traumatized flesh. John guiltily loosens his grip, pushes the foot away and leaps up; jitters over to stare at the fire. "I. I don't. That's not really a fair question, Sherlock." His fists are balled at his sides, and his lungs feel calcified, and he feels adrenaline rising to the surface, stores not depleted after all. He can only take short, sharp breaths.
"That's not fair," he says again. Because it isn't. Because he is fully aware that if he made the wish, Sherlock would vanish. Even before the lamp had been stolen, Sherlock would have vanished. Mrs. Hudson had tried, and yet she couldn't keep him after she made her wish. And what John wants more than anything is to keep him. Wants to keep Sherlock, and all his energy, vivacity and fervor. The fierce fascination John feels for him far exceeds lust and is dangerously out of the bounds of friendship. He's never felt as connected to another being as he does with Sherlock, and the panic of losing him abrades the social indoctrination of a lifetime, which demands that if he can save his sister's life, than he should do so.
He whirls and growls at Sherlock. "I don't know," he says at last.
Sherlock hesitates, and then says, quiet, but very steady. "John. You can wish to know where she is. Right now. I can do that. It is within my power." He sucks in a quick breath, as if to continue speaking, but instead stops abruptly. His base-level fidgeting has stilled, and he watches John intently.
Ah, jesus. John stares down at the fire and saws his teeth against each other, back and forth, grating and grounding. A part of him cries out in vexation. What did he do to deserve being put in this position? Why does it seem as if he was given Heaven, but the fine print all spelled Hell? He leans an arm on the mantle and clicks his thumbnail against that of his index finger: click, click, click.
"No," he says finally. And with that one world, his entire body relaxes. "No. It's not worth the risk. I think you're right, that she's with that ginger. The risk. I can't..."
When he turns around, Sherlock's eyes are wide and glow brightly green in the dim light of the fire and a single floor lamp: they are so feline and alien. And addictive. Sherlock wets his lips, and John is drawn to study the pink bow, the shadow of a crisply defined philtrum and patrician nose.
"Alright." Sherlock says. "Well, that's fine then." His voice is flat, but his body broadcasts relief, shoulders relaxing, and hands running briskly along his shins, curling protectively around his toes. "However, it is a reasonable assumption that whoever stole the lamp could have predicted that you would respond by making a wish: what if they think that you would immediately wish for Harry to be alive, unhurt and safe?" He cocks his head at John, and his eyes burn into him, magnetic, and John has to stop striding the small room and come stand in front of the genie once more.
"What would have happened?" Sherlock prompts.
"You'd have gone back into the lamp," John is feeling his way, slow and hazarding the guess, theories pulled out by Sherlock's vehemence. "Because once you grant my wish, you get sucked back into your lamp."
Sherlock nods, and John's world contracts to black pools of pupils, banded with green. "They would have had me," he agrees, calm, unemotional.
Suddenly, John is filled with anger, his guilt and agitation lashing out. He whirls away, kicking at a chair as he does so. "All this is about you!" he cries. "You. Melissa is dead, and it was supposed to be my sister, and it's because of you! They. They tried to kidnap you, and when we got away, they killed Melissa, murdered Melissa, because that was their second chance to draw you out. Right? Am I right?" The rage in him is spilling over, and he actually stalks over and grabs Sherlock, shakes his shoulders. "That poor girl. Just trying to have fun on her leave. Risking her life for freedom in Afghanistan, only to come home and. Look what happened to her! She didn't deserve it. No one deserves that." Ragged breath chokes him, and he sees Melissa, with the sad, shocking slit in her throat, superimposed over Sherlock's widened eyes and battered face.
"What? You're so valuable, so special that it's worth killing to have you?" He says this even though not three hours earlier he himself would have happily killed to protect and possess him.
Sherlock's face freezes, and his body is rigid under John's grip. He jerks back. "I am highly valued chattel. Nothing more," he bites out. "And. And I am vincible, in this way. I am compelled... . There is nothing I can do."
And behind that waxen, expressionless face radiate waves of pain so intense that John sinks to his knees next to the man, tugging him from his perch on the armrest to the seat, and his hands coast down chilled arms to curl around the leather bands that stop their slide, and his head drops as he lets go of his anger. Sherlock is right, and of course, none of this is his fault. There was murder, yes, and it is due to Sherlock, yes. But only because the goal of the killer was to violate Sherlock, to enslave him again.
John thinks of the pitiful pile of 18th century clothing on the table behind him, of the taunting box and the threat implicit in its presence, of the centuries of tracking and hatred that is flaunted through their delivery.
And he can imagine the fear that Sherlock must be feeling, concealed though it may be. Thinks that this is no situation for anyone to endure, and particularly not alone. He sighs, and his fingers ghost over skin and muscle beneath the hard edge of leather, run down over pointed elbows and jangling bracelets to clasp hennaed hands. "I'm sorry," he says. "I know it's not your fault. I'm just..." He doesn't finish, but instead plays with slender fingers, rubbing his thumb against the delicate webbing between them.
He pushes to his feet and steps back. He looks at the clock and it's nearing 4am. "We should go to bed. Harry won't answer until mid-morning at the earliest, I'm sure."
Sherlock looks wretched; tired and beat up. The dirt and the bruising has dulled his luminous skin; his jaw softens as he slumps to the side and stretches out again on the cushions, head on one end and feet digging into the other. He has only the faintest hint of dark stubble under his skin. His frown makes his chin recede, and John is unexpectedly struck by the notion that he's an ordinary man. Just an ordinary man. Attractive, yes, but as likely as anyone else to be caught in poor light, an unflattering position. An ordinary man, with an uncommon brain, bound in extraordinary circumstances.
John awkwardly clears his throat, and turns around to head for the stairs. "I'll just," he hesitates and twitches a shrug. "Goodnight, Sherlock."
He hears a rustle behind him that indicates that Sherlock has shifted and risen, and feels long fingers wrap around his arm. "Don't go upstairs, John," Sherlock says against his hair. He is not whispering, but his voice is low and rich, and it vibrates through the air until it crawls, hot and provocative inside John's ear, bypasses his brain to dive directly into his chest.
John slants a look up, into Sherlock's face over his shoulder. He thinks of the gun in his pocket, and of the danger Sherlock is in. It is irresponsible to be so far away as upstairs. He may be needed.
Is this what Sherlock is asking for? Protection? Is he scared, off balance because of the exposure of his vulnerability? Or is he asking because they have spent a week nestled in each other's arms, tangled together like puzzle pieces, slotted pain against pain, bleak loneliness lessened through empathy and physical proximity? Or is it desire, frustrated lust, the need to finish what began in the cab, only this time on a soft bed, behind locked doors, without spectators?
In the end, Sherlock's motivation doesn't matter: John will take what he can get. He nods, and they silently get ready for bed. John has fresh clothes in his bag upstairs: a clean vest and pants. When he gets back down, Sherlock emerges from the bathroom stark naked but for tattoos and ornamentation, hairs on his abdomen ruffled and glistening with the recent application of water. Cleaning off the crust of semen left there from the Lounge in the night club, John thinks, flushing to his ears. He brushes past John without meeting his eyes, and John stops in the loo to brush his teeth and clean himself as well, swiping his own smutched belly. Sherlock's trousers are gently dripping over the curtain rod, oddly intimate and domestic. John recalls the vest wadded up in his pocket and pulls out the bedraggled, wrinkled mess. He soaps and rinses it in the sink, hanging it thoughtfully next to the trousers.
Sherlock is in bed when John comes in, curled on his side, facing the wall; the duvet is pulled up to his shoulders, showing only the knobs of his neck, and the edge of one ear through his hair. John switches off the light and climbs in beside him, lying stiffly on his back, unsure of his purpose. This is the first night they've gone to bed at the same time. Until now, John was always fully asleep when Sherlock nested against him under the covers.
As John lies there, nervous and uncomfortable, he dwells with deep mortification on the scene at the desk earlier, when he'd raised his fist to Sherlock, and the man had cowered back. John knows, in a deeply rooted way, what it feels like to be on the other side of a menacing fist. Knows from his childhood how it feels to be threatened, to feel powerless and afraid. And he also knows, from watching Sherlock during the fight with the kidnappers, that Sherlock could withstand him if he chose. After all, he'd taken out three men, exhibiting measurable ferocity and skill: one small, crippled pensioner wasn't going to offer too much of a challenge.
So why didn't he stand up for himself? John toys with the notion of affinity, or affection, but drops that thought as the desperate dreams of the delusional: it can only relate to John's position as Master over the lamp. John wonders, ill at the thought, how often Sherlock has been unable to fight back. How often has he been abused – physically, emotionally … sexually? He's already admitted these things happened – starting with Moriarty and occurring off and on; right until the present, John thinks, sour with shame.
At this point, in six days, John has molested him (no matter whether Sherlock said he was bothered or not John has to call a spade a spade), physically threatened him, and, he realizes bitterly, thinking of the exotic beauty next to him in the bed, continually objectified him.
In spite of the strange circumstances, in spite of Sherlock having no choice but to stay, to accept John's will, that doesn't make it ok.
So. John vows to do better. "Sherlock," he whispers, digging his fingers into his thighs and staring hard at the ceiling. "Sherlock, I'm sorry."
There's a faint grumble next to him, and John hears hair slither on the pillow as Sherlock turns his head. There are several beats of silence. "Ah," Sherlock says at last. "You are feeling guilty over me. Physical violence? Sexual predation? As yet unverbalized fears that the uncivilized part of you is taking advantage of my helplessness?"
John chokes a little, spends some time coughing to cover his surprise. Well. Yes. All these things. Sherlock's amazing brain has enumerated his anguish in mere seconds. Lord knows what he observed to make him come to the correct conclusions. The pacing of John's breath, perhaps. The pattern of movements since he lay down. The flicker of his eyes as he stares at the wall. "Yes," he admits. Such things are easier to concede when it is late, and dark. "All that. Sherlock-"
"I've told you before, John," Sherlock does not sound gruff, although John thinks maybe he is trying to. "Your guilt is tiresome. You think I can't protect myself?" He sounds strangely gentle, actually, and leans up on one elbow to look down at John's face, dimly lit by the glow of unfamiliar street lamps. "John. I've exacted retribution from almost anyone who's ever hurt me. It... takes time. Sometimes too long." Shadows curtain glittering eyes, and John reaches up to hover a hand near his shoulder, showing silent support. He doesn't touch, though, and Sherlock continues, "But I'm not helpless. Pardieu. I am smarter than these dullards by orders of magnitude. You think I cannot figure out a way? You are not taking advantage. I would let you know."
But John recalls the needle scars and thinks he's hearing a varnished version. However, he does not argue.
Sherlock collapses back onto his pillow with a whoomp. "Now. I'm tired. Go to sleep."
Five long minutes pass, and John slowly relaxes, exhaustion overriding the awkward climate of moral ambiguity. Sherlock finally huffs, and rolls over, begins pushing and arranging John, until he's on his side, playing little spoon, pulled into the curve of Sherlock's naked body, one arm jammed under his head, and the other curled around his chest. Bracelets clink together as they are worked under the pillow.
"There," Sherlock says at last, settling with a sigh that ruffles John's hair and tickles his ear, making him shiver slightly. "I like you here."
John's heart skips a beat, and he's quite still for a moment. "I like to be here," he breathes, after a long pause.
John is drowsily ecstatic, and he slumps back into Sherlock's cool embrace, pulling his top leg forward so that Sherlock can weave his own into the space in between. The give each other comfort as well as heat, and reaffirm that they have each other, still, in spite of the efforts of an unknown agency; believing, in order to be able to rest, that they are safe, at least for the duration of the night.
John slips into sleep, warm and surrounded, and does not dream.