There is a link for what the CPM Machine looks like on my profile, just in case you're wondering what the hell John is in. xD Other than that, just a lot of depressing angst and fluff at the end because John's so impatient even while being patient. xD It's been a pretty damned long time since I had updated, so for that I'm sorry, but I may as well just wish you guys a Happy New Year a whole nine days late. xD Thank you for the reviews and I'll see ya soon?

Dear John

Chapter Seven: This is Bloody Stupid!

~oOo~

Third Person POV

Three days passed without many obscene happenings. Mycroft had stopped over twice within those remaining lapses of time, one when his brother there and one when he was not. Despite John's previous lack of emotions towards his lovers elder brother, the blonde found himself liking Mycroft much more than he previously had. Once he put the betrayal aside – he wasn't sure he would ever be able to forgive him for that – the bloke wasn't such a terrible person. He actually did care about Sherlock; he cared about Sherlock a lot, more or less.

Other than talking with Mycroft, he and his lover had just goofed around those remaining days. Sherlock deduced every nurse he had had – and by god, some of them were pretty darn dirty – and he had worked on teaching the dark-haired man a few more constellations that he hadn't yet heard of that John absolutely adored. It was calm and everything, something John wasn't really used to while hanging around his boyfriend, and it wasn't as bad as he had predicted it to be.

Besides the food, anyway. Sherlock snuck some things in sometimes, but mostly the hospital would only allow any army-originated food and their own, so the blonde had told his counterpart to stop so he didn't get in some sort of trouble. People in the force never took kindly to those who broke the rules.

Now, though, the only thing that John was able to do was sit in some technical wheelchair waiting for his lover to sign him out of the hospital. He was back in his forest green head-doctor's suit, being his fighting one was adorned with those two bullet holes that he hadn't gotten around to sewing. In his hand rested the papers saying his physical therapist and some details on how to work his injuries – the ACL tear was the only one that would ache for a good, long while – and the appointment for getting all of his staples out.

Mycroft had provided him a ride to his sessions, and Sherlock would be tagging along. John hadn't remembered the last time he had had support like this. It was refreshing.

"Alright, that should be it," the nurse added quietly as Sherlock shuffled some of the paperwork he himself was given, "and do make sure you use the ice machine while he rests in the CPM, yes? It will take down most of the swelling." Sherlock merely raised an eyebrow at the lady, having known this already. John fought back a giggle as he overheard the conversation.

"Oh yes, I am aware." Sherlock mocked sincerely. The woman didn't even bat an eye. "Oh, and you should stop spending your time with that receptionist and spend more time with your husband. He's getting finicky, I believe. Started noticing your actions a week or so ago, which is why he doesn't take time admiring you anymore. Have a good day."

Before the woman could reply, Sherlock turned heel, a dramatic sigh in wake. John rolled his eyes at the tactics that could not belong to anyone but the consulting detective himself, having seen this a million or so times. Reactions were always different, though. The blonde loved them. "You have the dressings, yes?" John asked the taller figure as he took ahold of the wheelchair, beginning to push him along. He ignored the slight feeling of discomfort having to have Sherlock take care of him.

"At the flat with Mycroft already."

John nodded affirmative as he was wheeled, chin high, out of the hospital.

~oOo~

The first thing John did when he got home – er, well, Sherlock anyway – was get carried up to his bed. He still was in no shape to walk, hence the wheelchair, and he wasn't the biggest fan of something known at 'crutches'. When he had told his lover that, Sherlock hadn't even asked before lifting him up, leaving poor Mrs. Hudson to pick up the fallen pieces of metal to place them upstairs by their door.

As he was placed as soft as possible onto the bed, John Watson immediately realized just how quiet it had been. Sherlock wasn't speaking like he usually was, and John didn't have much else to say. The dark-haired figure crawled into the bed with his lover though, and he made sure to take care of the injured man next to him so he wasn't hurt so bad. Slowly, almost in a scared fashion, John looked up at Sherlock, trying to figure out what was the matter.

"Sherlock?" John decided to ask, instead of racking his brain, trying to understand the most improbable man in all of London.

"Mmn?" Mumbled the other, due to the fact that Sherlock was still nuzzled in the blonde tuft of hair on top of his head. Said blonde rolled his eyes in a very Sherlock-y fashion, willing himself not to get agitated at the unresponsive boyfriend.

"Is there something wrong?"

John gulped as he felt his lover move away from him just enough to look into his eyes; those eyes Sherlock owned that bore into his soul and made him feel naked even when fully clothed. He could get lost in those eyes – god, he could swim in them forever and not bother to try and get out because they were just so beautiful. Unlike John, they weren't really war, per se, but they were calculating and emotional in their own way. Sherlock didn't reply though, and with a few seconds that seemed to pass, John's brow furrowed.

Had he said something wrong? It wasn't like Sherlock to be this quiet. Well, uncomfortably quiet anyway. Whenever he was in his mind palace or in a deep thought, he always got quiet, but that was almost always during a case. Just during a case.

John bit his lip and broke eye-contact with his lover, instead managing to nuzzle his way back into Sherlock's shoulder. His hands rested just below the dark-haired man's collarbone, having nowhere else to put them with being wrapped around so tightly.

"I…." Sherlock trailed with a gruff, almost foreign voice. John stiffened, but he didn't dare move again. "I don't really know. I just feel lost, most likely. But god, when you had gone, I don't remember how much I wished I would be able to hold you like this again, making sure you were absolutely safe and out of the harm of anyone else. It made me feel useless, finding you so…so broken, thinking you were dead, not bothering to look for you. I –…."

"Sherlock." John said sternly, his face hard. This time he did glance up to look at his lover. "Don't call me broken."

Sherlock, in a bit of surprise, met the eyes of the man he had thought he lost. Inside those crystal orbs Sherlock saw loneliness again, fear, anger, and above all, hate. He knew that hate wasn't distributed to him, but he knew, he just knew, that John was beginning the first round of recovery. Was he going to talk? Was he going to say that he was worthless? John could never be worthless in his eyes. He, the first time he had laid eyes on the man after he had received the letter, had seen a measure of self-disgust in the back of John that he knew he didn't like – was this what John was feeling?

"I didn't mean you emotionally, John. I meant physically. God, you were just so bad. You looked like death had already come from you and taken you away, like a fragile doll that had been shattered. The bruises, the gauze, the stitches and machines and electronics all around you…I was so scared. I thought I might have to lose you again." Sherlock admitted, this time closing his eyes so he wouldn't have to meet John's.

John glanced away again, a soft gulp his only source of satisfaction. He had become tense in his lovers arms again, but this time because he felt like keeping what had happened to him was…it made him feel secretive. Sherlock didn't deserve that. He had already suffered so much, and he's going to make him suffer even more? What kind of boyfriend was he? What kind of lover?

John cleared his throat and repositioned himself so he was once again buried away from the gaze of Sherlock. With a deep breath, he spoke. "I-I….There was this man. His name was Thomas. He was…he was in there, held captive, like me." John began, his voice quivering. "He didn't make it. But…But they made us do things to each other, and god, it was terrible. I don't even know. What we did, what they made us do….Torture, sex, fighting like animals, caged and…And branded, we were branded, Sherlock." John muttered, nearly silent, remembering the exact moment he was taken into a room and had numbers burned into his skin, marking him. Oh it had hurt so badly.

"Branded?" Sherlock stated, definitely not knowing what he was talking about. John fisted the clothing on Sherlock's chest and buried his face deeper into the taller man's chest, trying to hide himself even further.

"Branded. It's…We have one on our ankle, and one on the back of my neck. I had a collar with my numbers on it as well – 41324. It had hurt so much getting it on my skin, searing and tearing and burning – but it felt like bliss compared to other things. Sherlock, I had to torture people. People tortured me. It was almost like a whole organization, planned out and based like slavery. I had to stitch myself up on more than one occasion, sometimes not fed for days, and – and it….It made me so impure. Somehow, we –…." John drifted off again as he felt the first of many memories flash back behind his eyes.

He almost felt like he was back there again instead of in the bed with his lover. He knew he was still there, but never having experienced something like he had just gone through before – oh, it was scary. Frightening. John was no stranger to frightened, but this was a new fear. Raw. Purely raw.

"Shhh, John." Sherlock hushed the man under him as he brought the arm he had over John's waist up to stroke his hair. "Hush little baby, don't you cry, Momma's gonna buy you a mockingbird, and if that mockingbird doesn't sing, Momma's gonna buy you a diamond ring. And if that diamond ring turns to brass, Momma's gonna buy you a looking glass…."

In tune with Sherlock's singing, John's breath had evened and whatever thoughts that were swimming around his head began to fade. Hoping it would do the trick, the blonde focused on Sherlock's voice and Sherlock's voice only. He tuned out everything and anything else. Nothing. Just him and his lover. There was no one out there but them, they were all they needed.

John faded to sleep to Sherlock's lulling not long after, for once in his pitiful life not having a single dream.

~oOo~

Sherlock was pissed. He was utterly, completely, absolutely livid. After hearing the first beginnings of John's time there, the only thing he could remember feeling was sheer anger. How could someone do that to John? Why would someone do that to John? What had he ever bloody done? He could think of so many people that deserved what they had gotten, but John….? John was a mess. A complete, utter mess. He had gotten so much more than he could ever deserve and that was simply unacceptable.

Glancing down, Sherlock watched the even breath of John. He would have to wake the other up soon to get him in his CPM machine, but he didn't want to. For once Watson looked completely harmless and happy, not fearful or damaged or scared or anything. He was just John.

Sherlock would abide John's wishes. He wouldn't go out and search for that organization until John was better. That would be a good year, but that didn't mean he couldn't monitor them for that time. Mycroft would surely help with this situation. His brother also had a strange bond with his lover – one he had never seen in a man who thought all emotion was wrong – and that's how he knew John was special. Mycroft didn't do favors for just anyone.

Though when he got his hands on those bloody bastards….

Sherlock hadn't fought with anyone in quite a while. It was a useless need of energy, something he didn't need to entertain himself with anymore. But when he was little and he acted out due to the lack of friends, he had always found himself in a corner. Bullies and whatnot taught him one good thing in his history – how to fight dirty. And when he got every single bloody man that had forced John to do things he hadn't wanted to do – they weren't just going to pay. What he was going to do certainly wouldn't be qualified as legal, and Mycroft knew it.

Mycroft didn't really care.

No, he did care. He cared so much that he didn't care that Sherlock would become an animal while as forcing those men to bow down to him, beat them and brutally kill each and every single one of them, because Mycroft would have done the exact same thing. He did care.

John, in his arms, shifted slightly and groaned, but otherwise stayed asleep. With another glance down, Sherlock settled for putting all of those cross thoughts out of his mind and instead focus on the panes of John's sleeping, painless face. He could never get tired of that face. It was, in fact, something that he used when he himself was upset and forced that picture under his eyelids, remembering that John was that one good thing that Sherlock would never give up.

He missed the John before the war, oh, yes he did, and that wasn't something strange or conflicted to him. He didn't miss that John because he had less scars or had been more innocent, but he missed it because now – John's mind would never be the same. He would have more nightmares than he had ever had in the army and Sherlock wouldn't be able to do anything about it. He wouldn't, he knew. That made him feel helpless. How could he protect John like this? How could he try to shelter his lover from those terrible thoughts that must burn inside of his head and replay over, and over, and over.

Sherlock didn't want John to change again, to tell the truth. But he knew John would, and regardless of how different it was, he would deal with it.

He would do anything for John.

~oOo~

"Sherlock?"

"Yes?"

"How much longer?"

"Two hours, John."

"Ugh."

Sherlock rolled his eyes at his lover's petulant impatience. About three hours later Sherlock had to wake John up to put him in the machine, and now, six hours later, he had gauged that about every twenty minutes John had asked how much longer he had to stay inside the machine. He had made a point in this time to take down any lingering clocks that would hint at the time so John wouldn't feel quite as miserable stuck in that moving CPM, but even then he knew that John wasn't having the best of fun.

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock bit back another smile and he tilted his head in John's direction, thinking how cute it was how for once John was the impatient one. "Yes?" He asked again, raising an eyebrow in his direction, hinting at how amused he was. That earned a glare from John.

At least some things didn't change.

"I want a tattoo."

What?

"What?" Sherlock stated, his face drawing a blank as he processed what John Hamish Watson had just said. A tattoo? Why in the world would John want a tattoo? Not that he was particularly against it, he liked tattoos himself, but picturing John with them kind of made him feel like he was making John…un-innocent again.

"A tattoo. I want one." John clarified as he stared blankly at the ceiling, his face slightly scrunched up in pain. On a lesser man Sherlock made a side note that that machine would probably make plenty of other people bawl their eyes out. John certainly had a high threshold for pain.

"Why?" Sherlock asked, unable to deduce due to his sheer shock. In truth he was seriously not expecting what John had said.

"Because." John looked slightly uncomfortable. "I want it for my ankle and the back of my neck." He stated offhandedly, not really trying to meet the gaze of his lover. Sherlock continued to stare at the injured blonde for a few seconds, before his face drew back in realization. On another side-note his brain felt impeccably slow at this moment. That was new.

"For your…markings?" Sherlock stated more than questioned in his tone, but he was honestly confused. John just nodded.

"You can call them brandings. It…I just want them gone." John muttered at last, figuring this was one of the best times to get out what he was trying to say. To be honest, John was ready to take a knife to that whole chunk of skin just to tear it off of him, but he was sure Sherlock, no matter how morbid, wouldn't let him do such a thing.

Sherlock sat up from the bottom of the bed, hid full body now facing John while as sitting Indian styled. He knew exactly where this was coming from, and Sherlock would like nothing more than to call John out on it and tell him exactly how he felt about it, but he wasn't going to because that would conceive more memories than John was willing to see so soon. Instead, he nodded, and made a small smile form on his features.

"What did you have in mind?" He said instead, deciding to continue on this conversation for as long as he was able to.

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson knew that a storm was coming. They both knew during their small conversations. They knew. Yet, they wouldn't address it until the proper time, and until then, conversations like these will have to do the job. John, though, knew that his walls were wearing a lot thinner than he was willing to admit, and therefore that was a big warning. It was going to be soon.

He knew he was going to crack soon. They both did. Sherlock was still trying to span out the days and make John forget, but John knew he couldn't. He wouldn't be able to. But it would have to last. He had to last at least until he was better. That meant a good couple of months until he was almost-kind-of-mobile.

John had to last these next few months.

He was just glad he had Sherlock to get him through them.