Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Sherlock Holmes or any recognizable character and am not making any profit by using them.

Thank you all for reading and especially to those who gave feedback! It´s most appreciated!

Enjoy!

o o o

To the Core

o o o

Part 5

o

"Nothing happened to me," Sherlock finally settled on saying. "I... he only threatened to do to me what has actually been done to you. I don't know why it affects me so much. It's not like he -" he broke off, and suddenly the full extent of what John had told him hit Sherlock, because in his mind, he had already been there; when Davenport's men had wrestled him onto the bed, securing his limbs with manacles, grinning, making lecherous comments and also groping him, he had seen it all in his inner vision, unable to stop it.

Fortunately Mycroft's team had been able to stop it in time, but for John, there had not been any help.

"You didn't deserve that," Sherlock breathed, "you least of all people, John."

John straightened up a little: "No one deserves being raped," he clarified, a chill running down his spine at the word.

Sherlock moved even closer to John, who unsure as to how to react. Sherlock solved the issue by tentatively slipping his hand into John's, who was relieved that they had come this far.

"Nevertheless, it was still terrible for you," he said, returning to the initial subject.

Sherlock drew his knees up higher, cradling his free arm between his legs and his torso.

John reached out and pulled a blanket over them; it was the same one he had been using when he had slept on the sofa; it had still been lying on the armrest. Sherlock was grateful for the warmth and huddled into it, letting John's scent engulf him.

They sat silently for a long time, pondering.

"He lay down on top of me," Sherlock said abruptly and barely audible, sounding strangely absent. "He unbuttoned my shirt and my trousers-"

He paused for a moment. "He tried to kiss me... and when I turned my head away, he... bit me instead, saying we'd come back to the kissing later."

He felt queasy at the memory. Davenport's weight, his breath on Sherlock's face, the blatant enforcement of the man's lust- it was too much. Sherlock could not subpress a shudder.

John turned towards him, eyeing him not with pity, but with sympathy. "He bit you?"

Sherlock met his gaze and held it for a moment, then he reached up and pulled his shirt aside. There was an unmistakable mark there at the bend of his neck, already beginning to fade a little.

Fresh anger welled up in John: "Where else?" he demanded.

Sherlock looked uncomfortable, but he pulled his shirt even further down to reveal two more marks, one on his collarbone, the other a little further down on his chest.

"Is that all?" John asked, barely able to keep calm any longer. Sherlock nodded, pulling his shirt up again. John had seen the bruises on his arms and also the abrasions of the manacles where Sherlock had pulled at them, but he had not noticed the bitemarks when he had helped Sherlock into the bed after his shower the other night.

"I'm sorry," he murmured.

Sherlock immediately bristled: "Don't."

John sat back: "Why are you allowed to say sorry, but I am not?"

"Because yours is worse."

"Sherlock-"

"No, John. I mean it. I am... overreacting."

"What?" John's voice sounded shrill even in his own ears.

"I can't allow this to be blown so ridiculously out of proportion," Sherlock said. "Nothing happened, as I said."

"What you told me didn't sound like nothing," John retorted.

"I can't let it affect me so much," Sherlock insisted, sounding desperate. "It's not right, I can't be afraid of being touched for the rest of my life."

Silence fell between them once more, this time with a heavy thud.

When John spoke next, his voice was trembling. "You," he said, struggling for the right words, "have every right to be affected by it, Sherlock-"

"Please," Sherlock interrupted, "please stop. I can't- if you don't stop, I won't be able to process it."

John shook his head in disbelief: "You can't be serious."

Sherlock avoided his gaze again: "I am serious. I need to be able to forget this, and move on. I can't think if I don't."

"You hid in your room for four days, and you clearly aren't coping well. Forgetting the whole affair in order to look ahead won't work, Sherlock."

"I can make it work," he snapped.

"No," John smiled sadly, "no, you can't. It will keep rearing its ugly head time and again. You need to talk about it."

"Oh really, so you can pity me?" There was as much venom in Sherlock's voice as he could muster.

John gasped, exasperated: "No, you idiot! Because I care about you, I thought you had understood that much!"

Sherlock pulled his hand back and leaned his forehead against his knee: "Fine, call it sympathy then. Doesn't matter, it still means the same."

"What are you talking about?" John was getting louder as his patience ran out.

Sherlock closed his eyes, wishing he was able to simply transfer his thoughts into John's brain, so he would understand.

"I don't want your sympathy," he murmured, exhausted, "I don't want you to think that I am... that."

"Are what?"

Sometimes he thought that John was doing it on purpose. "Pathetic, John. A pathetic person who doesn't have any friends except one."

John remained silent for some time. "But I don't think you are," he eventually said. "And frankly, I don't understand why you are thinking so low of me." He sounded hurt. "I am your friend, Sherlock, but I don't want to have to prove it to you. I didn't think I'd need to."

Sherlock stared at his hands and realized that they were shaking. He was going to lose John. He was going to lose this one person who had always been loyal to him, no matter what he had done. He had lost people before, yet it had never hurt this much.

But John, wonderful John, did not get up and leave. He did not tell Sherlock to piss off, or threaten to move out. It was not how his mind worked.

"Why is it so important to you whether I think you're pathetic or not?" he asked, wanting to get to the core of the matter.

The shaking got even worse.

Because I want you, Sherlock wanted to say, and I want you to want me, too. I want you to think I'm the most wonderful thing in the world, be all you'll ever need, so that you'll stay with me. I want to wake up in the middle of the night and have you there with me. But not out of pity.

There were tears welling up in his eyes again, and he tried to blink them away, but it was no use. This was inacceptible, he could not start blubbering every time those goddamn emotions took over. He focused on breathing regularly and tried to pull himself together, tried to reign in the disappointment and bereavement he had been feeling ever since the fateful day of his abduction.

"Sherlock," John said quietly, taking both of Sherlock's hands in his. "You're running in circles."

Sherlock looked on their hands and realized that John was right. "I can't stop," he breathed, meeting the other's eyes, "you were right, John. I... I can't make it better." His voice was soft from exhaustion, his expression crestfallen.

John caressed Sherlock's skin with his thumb: "But maybe I can." His gaze was affectionate as he took in the depleted figure in front of him. "If you let me."

Sherlock stared at him for an endless moment, then he closed his eyes, feeling all his remaining walls breaking away. Served him right; he had begun to talk about it after all. Either all or nothing, he thought.

"He wasn't allowed to do that," he whispered, the words aching in his throat. "He didn't have any right to touch me. I didn't want him to, I didn't want... it to be like that."

He pulled his hands away from John and hunched in on himself again, hands holding his shoulders as if needing to keep his body from falling apart. His sleeves rode up his arms, revealing his thin, bruised wrists and making him look very frail.

"I know I brought this on myself," he continued, his voice flat now, "I never had much physical contact with anyone, not beyond the customary social norm anyway. If I had, I'd been... prepared. It would have been less of an impact." John looked as though he was about to protest, but Sherlock could not stop, otherwise he would not have been able to speak on.

"I didn't want anyone to touch me, at all," he said.

Now John absolutely couldn't contain himself any longer: "Oh God," he moaned, remembering The Incident. "Sherlock- I'm so sorry. I was drunk, I didn't mean to- I didn't make a conscious decision back then, I really don't remember a thing from that night." He broke off, feeling like a complete arse. "I hope I wasn't rude," he then added, as an afterthought.

"You weren't rude," Sherlock said, after a moment of stunned silence. "You... said rather nice things, actually."

John hardly believed his ears; not because of what he supposedly had said, but because they were having this conversation at all. "I did?"

"Yes."

"Wh-what did I say?"

Sherlock's voice was so low that it was barely audible: "You said that you didn't think you'd ever want to live without me again, and that I was... that I was lovely." He neither looked up nor stopped hugging himself, and John could see that he was still trembling, if at least not shaking anymore.

"My grandma always said drunk people and children are speaking the truth," Sherlock murmured. "And I liked it when you said those things."

"So... how did I end up sleeping in your bed?" John asked, tentatively.

"You went into the bathroom to brush your teeth, and then you came back in your underwear and simply crawled in with me."

He had at least brushed his teeth. Good.

"And you didn't mind?"

"No. Why would I?" Sherlock frowned.

John was baffled once more: "Did I just miss something? I was under the impression that you don't appreciate that sort of bodily contact- you just said so."

Sherlock murmured something which sounded like "dense".

John raised an eyebrow: "Excuse me?"

Sherlock inhaled deeply: "Come on, John," he said, albeit a little shakily. "From all the hitherto existing evidence, you could have deduced that you are the exception."

The second eyebrow joined the first as John continued to stare at Sherlock.

"That's why I didn't want your pity," Sherlock concluded, feeling absolutely drained. "I liked waking up with you like that, very much so in fact. I would like to repeat that. But I don't want you to... to do it out of pity."

John was silent; when Sherlock finally dared to look at him again, he saw that his flatmate was smiling tentatively. He put one arm around Sherlock's shoulders and gently pulled him close, pressing a kiss into his hair. "I would like nothing better than waking up with you again, like that," he said into Sherlock´s ear, something akin to wonder audible in his voice. "Though I could do without being drunk beforehand."

Sherlock's heart beat wildly at his words; had John really said what he thought he had?

John read the other's expression and smiled at the look of dumbfounded surprise mingled with tentative delight, but he was not going to let Sherlock off a certain hook too easily: "But if you ever lock yourself in your room for four days and let me beg in front of your door again, I will punch you," he said. "Is that understood?"

Sherlock had the decency to blush.

"We can't undo what happened," John eventually said, bringing his other arm up around Sherlock, embracing him, "but it had nothing to do with your... inexperience, Sherlock. Besides, it's not easier when you know what's coming, and it doesn't hurt less no matter how experienced you are."

John couldn't bear the thought of anyone trying to hurt the man in his arms, and he was angrier than ever at the man who had Sherlock abducted. He pressed his cheek against Sherlock's soft curls, carefully emphasizing his next words: "You did nothing wrong," he said, quietly. "Just so you know. It's not your fault."

They stayed like that for a long time while Sherlock contemplated John's words, listening to the other's heartbeat, feeling his pulse against his skin and himself calming down. It had not been easy to say all those things, and he was sure he was not ever going to want to repeat them. But then, he didn't have to- John had listened, and he had understood. It seemed logical what he had said, and Sherlock found himself strangely relieved at the notion that virtually nothing could have prepared him for what had happened. And John had replied in the affirmative...

"What are we going to do?" Sherlock asked after a while, his breath ghosting over John's skin.

John reinforced his grip around him; he was not sure what was going to happen or whether the peace which was settling over them was going to last; the last time Sherlock had allowed John to hold him, it had ended in complete withdrawal, after all. Yet it seemed they had weathered the worst, at least for the time being. One step after the other.

"Right now," John said, squeezing Sherlock's shoulder, "we are going to make dinner."

o

To Be Continued

o

Thank you for reading, please leave some feedback.

o