The Ceremony of Innocence (Fourth Fic in The Cold Song series) (1/2)
Series: The Cold Song
Title: The Ceremony of Innocence (1/2)
Author: eldritchhorrors
Beta & Britpicker: The Amazing pennypaperbrain
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Crime scene violence and all that might entail
Genres/Tropes: Asperger's!Sherlock, H/C, Romance, Case Fic, Sherlock's Childhood, Character Study, Intellectual Angst
Word Count: 10,300
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, nor am I making any money from this transformative work.
Author's Note: This is the fourth fic in The Cold Song series, after I Hear Those Voices That Will Not Be Drowned, Within This Frail Crucible of Light, and A Light Shines In The Darkness. They really, really should be read first, but this can also stand alone. I am Asperger's on the autism spectrum, so this is based on my own personal experience.
Series Summary: When Moriarty told Sherlock that he would cut the heart out of him, he failed to mention that someone of his acquaintance already had. (He was saving that little tidbit for later.)
Fic Summary: Sherlock is tested to the shattering point, but some things must be broken before they can be fixed, and some things can never remain hidden...especially from ourselves.
“And in that hour,
The ceremony of innocence is drowned...”
Benjamin Britten -- The Turn Of The Screw
Libretto -- Myfanwy Piper
The Ceremony of Innocence
Things had been getting dreadfully dull. He’d give John’s left testicle for a case.
There was the experiment with the fatty tissue in the crisper, but that wouldn’t be ready for another week at the earliest.
John was an excellent distraction, but there was only so much sex two men over thirty could have before they had to tap out.
The morning air was thick, and the gentle rhythmic patter of rain against the flat’s windows begged for musical accompaniment.
There was a piece for the Baroque violin he wanted to try, but he didn’t feel like he could be still for long enough to devote to it the kind of single-mindedness it required. And...he wasn’t feeling very Baroque right now. He often did. When he wasn’t feeling modern. Or angry.
Not very Bach-like at the moment, no.
He tried on a few pieces for mood, but couldn’t settle on any one thing. Maybe Vivaldi instead? A different feel of Baroque.
No. Too much emotional investment. His Winter would sound like a slight chill.
He took refuge in modernity instead.
And a break for toast.
Shostakovitch String Quartet number two. Triumphant A major sliding into an unsure waltz. This was his favorite of the 15 quartets, no matter that the eighth was so famous. The restatement of the theme, the pulsating end to the first overture and the start of the second part. The second. Yes! This is what fit his mood of the morning. Recitative and romance, pensive, austere, ambiguous sound, profoundly sincere violin monologue that kept time beautifully with the pattering of rain against the windows, a hazy dawn of a piece that lit the room with the same ambient light as the muted sun outside. It was exquisitely like the quiet spirituality of Beethoven’s last quartets, distilled for a more contemporary audience.
Yes.
The morning filtered around him, muffled by the violin, but Sherlock was aware of all the important things. John was lolling on the sofa, something he rarely did but which often corresponded with a day off and this sort of weather. Mrs. Hudson was bustling around the room, probably making a hash of his carefully ordered chaos and tut-tutting at the more permanent messes.
There was a footstep on the stair. Dress shoes, but well-worn, quieted as Lestrade ascended two at a time.
A case. Suddenly the violin and Soviet composers could wait.
And Lestrade was bringing him something...interesting. Lestrade had slept, but only just. A call had come in and he’d dashed from his flat not bothering with his usual ablutions or his morning coffee, which was more important to a copper anyway. Dimmock should have had this one considering the time of the call, but it was given to Lestrade, so it was one of a series he was already investigating. There weren’t any interesting serials currently in the paper, and Sherlock’s informant at the yard hadn’t been forthcoming about it, perhaps he’d already grown jaded about Sherlock’s involvement maybe he wasn’t in the know worth investigating might need a new friend in the force, so it was something they’d kept a tight lid on.
Curiouser and curiouser.
He dressed quickly, but lingered in front of the mirror for a moment to make sure that there was nothing incriminating showing, no beard burn, no abrasions or suction marks. He was looking at his skin, but his mind was on Lestrade’s claim that this case was a ‘bad one.’ It was a trite phrase that didn’t really convey what Lestrade meant, but Sherlock was familiar enough with his jargon that he had an idea about what they would find.
Lestrade was a paternal man who didn’t suffer this type of crime easily -- most did not. The few that could probably did what Sherlock did -- deletion. Through force of will, or perhaps drink.
Simple. Effective.
Sherlock splashed water on his face and looked at himself one last time. His face was clear. Familiar. Blank. Hard.
Simple. Effective.
He stalked out the door and down the stairs, calling for John and Lestrade to hurry.
--- --- ---
John was stretching out on the sofa in a very Sherlockian position, hands behind his head as he listened to Sherlock play.
He’d got up late, twisted in the sheets that Sherlock never failed to turn into some sort of soft origami. Sherlock’s legs had tangled with his, but Sherlock was face down on the edge of the bed, one arm trailing along the floor. Sherlock’s spine seemed impossibly long, like some Romantic artist had added too many vertebrae, but his bum was round and firm, barely hidden by the creased cotton wrapped around it.
It was gorgeous and cozy warm. John was all shagged out, and he didn’t feel much of a need to get up and accomplish anything so he lay there, softly rubbing Sherlock’s back until the lure of tea and the need to void his bladder made rising a necessity.
He shrugged on Sherlock’s blue dressing gown over his boxers and padded into the kitchen for a cuppa before slouching his way over to the sofa and melting into it with the firm conviction that he didn’t need to do a damn thing today. Didn’t even pick up the paper, though it was right there and Sherlock hadn’t yet ruined the crossword by solving it in ink. There was a slight drizzle outside, the window sweating a little with the chill moisture, and days like this were meant to be spent lazing around inside, reading, or cuddling. Maybe work on his writing a little later. Things with no urgency to them.
It was a while before Sherlock zombied his way out of his room, rubbing his eyes and looking for a cup of tea himself. He’d pulled on some navy boxer briefs and a white button down that he hadn’t bothered to button. The white of the shirt matched the white of the bunny slippers on his feet, a gift from John that had come about when he found out that Sherlock had never seen, or had deleted the memory of, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He’d rectified that grievous hole in Sherlock’s ‘cultural education’ in much the same way Sherlock tried to remedy the holes in his, and he couldn’t stifle the smile that emerged whenever he saw them on Sherlock’s feet. They had little fangs on them.
John would have made him tea, but...fuck. That would require getting up.
Sherlock made tea and dry toast before grunting out a greeting, then doodled something on a notepad as he slumped over the kitchen table. He didn’t perk up until his second cup of tea. John knew he had perked up because he crossed the room in those ridiculous slippers to grab his violin out of its case, taking it back to the kitchen chair.
John couldn’t see what he was doing, but it was several minutes before he heard a careful pizzicato that gained momentum, then a pause while Sherlock fiddled with his bow.
When the music finally began John knew the piece. Sherlock had been practicing it on and off for the past several weeks. It was a recently composed Glass partita for solo violin. It started out like slowly poured treacle, then quickened into a more frantic pace without losing its sensuality.
He rather liked it. He’d have to record it so they could use it as a soundtrack for sex one day. Which was a good idea, a soundtrack for sex. Maybe he could get Sherlock to make a few of them, depending on the mood. The thought made John blush a bit, because he was going to ask Sherlock for a mix tape even though they were both grown men. He put his feet up on the arm of the sofa and let his head hang off the edge of the cushion so the pink in his cheeks could be blamed on increased blood flow to his face.
Mrs. Hudson came in a bit later, picking up as she went, quietly tutting, but John had figured out that she visited, and cleaned, more often when Sherlock was coaxing something gorgeous from his instrument.
John smiled. If Sherlock was playing he wasn’t opening his mouth. They might be having sex, and John might be liking it, but John wasn’t blind to any of Sherlock’s numerous faults. The man still drove him round the twist sometimes.
The Glass faded into something indeterminate, then something that sounded crazily like Master of Puppets, then a line or two from a Shostakovitch string quartet -- the second one, he thought. Sherlock was doodling on his violin, just as much as he had on the notepad earlier, not settling on any one thing until the Shostakovitch took flight. The morning was rare -- lazy, domestic and silly looking, he was sure.
It was lovely.
And ruined completely when Lestrade let himself in looking grim and tired.
He closed the door behind him with a soft click before leaning against it. There were dark bags under his eyes, and the light patterning of crow’s feet had deepened to match the crease in his forehead, aging him by at least five years.
Despite all that Lestrade grinned at the picture Sherlock made. John sat up to get a better look, and Sherlock was bolt upright in the dining chair, chest bare, shirttails askew, bunny-slippered feet canted out as he played.
With a last bite of toast sticking out of his mouth.
Sherlock merely raised an eyebrow and pulled his bow to an abrupt finish as he sucked in the last bit of crust.
“Don’t.” Sherlock’s voice was firm, and only slightly distorted by the food he was chewing.
“Don’t what?”
“Touch the camera phone and you’re a dead man.”
“Wish I had time to joke, but I need you on this one.”
“Just let me get dressed.” Sherlock popped up, wiping his instrument down with a hasty cloth before putting the violin in its case and rushing off.
“Sherlock...” Lestrade ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. “This is a bad one.”
Sherlock paused on the way to his bedroom and nodded once, decisively, before closing the door behind him. John was just getting up to do the same, feeling a little thrill of anticipation himself, when he caught the little byplay. “Bad one?”
Lestrade sighed. “Yeah. None of us like it when it’s kids. Not even Sherlock.” Lestrade shook his head. “He doesn’t say it, but he’s always quieter, during. No baiting, won’t take any bait.”
“And this one?”
Lestrade looked at him. “Might want to stay home. It’s about as bad as it gets.”
John shook his head. “You know me better than that. And I doubt it’s worse than Afghanistan.”
“Yeah, I do know you. Know him better, too. That’s why I have my car this time. No cruiser.”
“Good. I’m sick of taxis.”
“But as far as Afghanistan goes...”
John just raised an eyebrow over his last swallow of tepid tea.
“There’s some things war doesn’t prepare you for.”
--- --- ---
John looked out the window, pretending to be engrossed by the trip because speaking meant adding to the tension. The ride to the scene seemed to take forever, and there wasn’t any data to keep Sherlock occupied. He wouldn’t let Lestrade tell him about the murder either, unwilling to trust ‘ham-handed speculation spoon-fed to him by dabblers’. They couldn’t discuss the case, but neither could they think of anything else, so the only sounds on the long drive were Sherlock’s irritated huffs and the strumming of his fingers against the plastic of the interior door.
John just shrugged and burrowed into his coat, trying to find the happy place he had inhabited earlier that morning.
He didn’t succeed. There was too much anticipation running around his skull. If just the promise of adrenaline could do this to John, what did it do to Sherlock?
They finally pulled up to a mass of cars and lights surrounding the husk of an industrial site overlooking the Thames. Mycroft occasionally grabbed him and stole him away to industrial sites, but those were just unused, not completely defunct and decrepit. This one was five derelict stories of rectangular brick with narrow windows, and the facing of one wall was crumbling from the top down, revealing concrete slab and twists of rebar underneath. Bits of rubbish were spread like mulch and disposable plastic shopping bags were caught on smashed fencing and waving in the breeze like post-apocalyptic flowers.
On a day like today, with a foggy chill and the the odd drizzle of rain, the building cultivated an air of complete depression. It wasn’t surprising that someone had used it as an impromptu crypt.
As sepulchres went, John hoped he rated better.
Sepulchre. That was a good word. Better remember that for the blog.
Sepulchre.
Sepulchre.
Sepulchretudinous.
Ha.
Sherlock would tell him he was being silly, but he’d say it with a tolerant smile. Much to his surprise John had turned into a bit of a writer because of the blog, and had taken to jotting down words he liked as they came to him. He’d always liked words, but now he had the idea that something could be made of his words.
Something else he’d have to thank Sherlock for.
It wasn’t raining at the moment, but the sky was heavy with it as they got out of Lestrade’s silver Jetta. Sherlock’s feet had hit the pavement before the car had come to a complete stop. John, used to Sherlock’s lack of patience, was at his heels, almost jogging to keep up with his long stride.
The car was within the tape so they had neatly ducked a face-off with Sally, and John couldn’t recognize most of the others that had gathered. A drawn-looking blond woman was propped up outside an access door that flanked a closed and dented bay door. Sherlock made a beeline for her, and she looked at Sherlock, and then to Lestrade who nodded in confirmation. She stepped back, allowing her weight to depress the push handle, backing into it to swing it wider for them.
John wasn’t Sherlock level savvy, but he noticed the way she averted her eyes away from the interior.
She pointed to the left. “Past the support pillar and around the corner.” She frowned and cleared her throat. “There’s a smaller workroom.”
Sherlock raced ahead so John called out a quick “Thanks!” before following him. Lestrade stayed with the woman at the door for a moment with a question about the property owner, but John had no ears for that. It wasn’t immediate, and Sherlock’s lack of interest told him it probably wasn’t important anyway..
He’d taken out his pen light. The day was overcast enough, and the windows filthy enough that everything was cast in a late twilight. No lights were on, and the rusted hulks of old machinery, the winch chains dangling useless and noose-like from the ceiling, the musty smell he’d come to associate with the squatting homeless, it all made the scene look spooky in a way that screamed contrived. It was too book-perfect not to be. It was only missing windy rattling or the film noir sound of precise footsteps.
Sherlock seemed to think so too, because he slowed and panned his light around, catching the cobwebbed corners of the room and the heavy fall of dust on everyth-- almost everything. John saw what Sherlock had seen, a clean swath of floor had been cut through the filth, a swath they were walking on like a grim red carpet, leading them to the viewing box for the opening act.
“Staged?” John had to stop himself from whispering, kowtowing to the ambiance left by a killer, but he dislike the way his voice ricocheted around the cavernous space.
“Like an opera.”
--- --- ---
Sherlock swept past the sergeant on duty, mid-thirties divorced single desperate for a child rather fancies Lestrade, but he barely saw her because the facility had his attention. The facility that housed the crime was too good to be true. John had a stack of dramatic movies at home with budgets of millions that didn’t have this kind of setting. It was a penny dreadful. A police procedural with expensive lighting and self-consciously chic cinematography.
And the wide swath of clean that cut through the gloom just cinched matters.
Sherlock hated instinct. Not the quicker-than-thought action that could save his life by telling him to movemovemove at the right time, but this. There were no obvious clues that he could follow to tell him that this case was personal between Sherlock and the perpetrator. As he walked through the building taking in the defunct equipment, die-making, machining, extrusion, blow molding, injection molding, bankruptcy over five years ago, parts cannibalized and the working machines sold, bank ownership, in never-ending court battle, ultimately unimportant and only significant because of its availability and probably its...ambiance, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all for him. There was nothing concrete for him to point at, but his sub-conscious brain must be filtering hundreds of different points of minutiae to come to the conclusion that Sherlock was meant to be here as a witness/participant/something. This was for him.
Sherlock deduced based on acute observation paired with statistical probability. He read copious amounts of raw numerical data, detailed studies, statistical analyses, and cataloged the information for later use. When he was deducing John’s phone, Harry’s alcoholism was the best guess because the other alternatives, an illness like Parkinson’s 13.4 per 100,000 and only 4% occurring below age sixty, likelihood of John having sibling over sixty exceedingly small, or plugging it in in the dark 3%, previous owner was not so welded to technology that they must have it with them to the last moment, were a much smaller statistical likelihood than being inebriated, 10-20% of men, 3-10% of women though that is increasing/getting diagnosed more often.
But there was nothing concrete and numerical that he could define at the moment that was leading him towards the conclusion that everything he saw was carefully stage set with him in mind. This was very much as he understood more plebian minds to work and he Did Not Like It. Clear cause and effect was superior in every way.
He’d have to ask John if everyone normal went round with this feeling of anticipatory dread all the time, or if it only manifested in special circumstances.
Might explain why Anderson was so craven and weasel-like.
But so would inbreeding and eating lead paint.
--- --- ---
John couldn’t get over the feeling that something was off. It might be the crime scene, but he’d been to plenty and never felt this type of wrongness. Maybe it was the agitation that Sherlock was telegraphing. Maybe it was Lestrade’s warning at the flat.
Lestrade caught up to them as they went round the corner, following the clean path. “Dust mop left outside the door we entered.”
“I’ll need samples.”
“Not much to sample. They took the disposable dust head and the dust with it.”
They reached a steel industrial double door and Lestrade irised his way in front of Sherlock to bar him for just a moment.
“Gloves. I need this by the book. It’s...” Lestrade had a searching look on his face, trying to find the proper words. “We have to convict.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes and snagged the blue rubber from his coat pocket, dangling them in front of Lestrade before pulling them on. “I always wear gloves.”
“Better safe than--”
But Sherlock was already opening the door. John was pulling on his own vinyl gloves, so he didn’t get the full effect of the reveal as they swung wide, but he looked up and his breath caught. Sherlock had taken only a few steps into the room before coming to a halt, and John could see why. It was...it was...
He’d seen quite a bit working with Sherlock. Crimes of passion/jealousy/money. He’d seen the work of madmen and serial killers. He’d seen bodies that had been tortured for secrets then thrown away like rubbish.
But this...
“Oh God.” He didn’t feel like he was going to vomit, but he felt sick to his stomach nonetheless. There were several technicians in the room, but they had retreated to the edges of the shop when they came in, looking at them uncertainly. Even Anderson looked grateful for any reason to take his eyes away from the lonely figure in the center of the concrete. Everyone looked away, looked at Sherlock.
Sherlock.
Sherlock stood there, stock still, which was odd because John always imagined him in motion at a crime scene, he vibrated with so much harnessed energy.
And then Sherlock made this noise.
It was a terrible thing. As terrible as the assemblage in front of them. John had last heard that kind of agonized whimper from a five year old boy just outside Kandahar. He’d lost his entire family in a roadside bombing, the only survivor. They’d found him wrapped around his mother, half her head gone, lap a soup of viscera and blood. He’d made that sound, a keening low in the back of his throat, when John had separated him from the corpse.
He’d never have expected it from Sherlock.
Jesus.
Jesus.
It still didn’t prepare him for the way Sherlock’s legs gave out beneath him.
--- --- ---
Lestrade put himself in front of them for a moment, arm barring the door. He sighed before speaking, as if he knew that Sherlock would mock his statement of the obvious, but felt the need to do it anyway, which drove Sherlock nuts because he knew procedure, had been following procedure, everything had already been swept by the techs, and Lestrade knew he knew all of that.
“I always wear gloves.”
“Better safe than--”
Sherlock didn’t stick around to hear the tired aphorism Lestrade had gotten from his doddering grandmother and pushed against the heavy steel door. The springs inside the press of the door ground as he shoved, rust and disuse making them squeal as it finally swung open, catching on a hidden stop once it reached an obtuse angle. He swept into the room, taking in the group of techs well away from the scene, the dimensions and layout of the space, the...
...the child in the center, eight or nine, face covered in a hood. It would be a burlap sack lined in cotton turned inside out...
Redact.
...the cord round the throat, hemp rope this time but sometimes variable-- stockings, scarves, or a tie...
Redact.
...the criss-cross of binding, intricate and dense, technique more refined, the killer more knowledgeable, but still not enough to hold in the entrails...
Redact.
...the bare, dirty mattress, scavenged from somewhere, disgusting with all manner of bodily fluids, red staining to pink at the edges...
Re...re...
...the mutilated sex organs...
...the way she must have begged and screamed for hours...
...the brutal sodomy of a body too small to take it...
...so small...
...so...
And something new...
...a message writ large in blood, wreathed in swirls of scarlet, broad slashes of multitudinous seas incarnadine...
...a message for him.
O amnis, axis, caulis, collis, clunis, crinis, fascis, folks, bless ye the Lord.
It.
Britten.
It...
Sherlock would never properly remember what happened in the next few minutes. He only had vague impressions of the world spinning, reversing its polarity around him. The laws of gravity were suddenly repealed by a higher power. He remembered hitting the floor, rubbery and gelatinous, nothing working. He remembered staring, but not processing anything, for the first time in memory a complete blank. He remembered John’s arms around him, John behind him, pulling him up, John’s voice in his ear, Lestrade’s voice overlapping it, voices blending together as others joined the chorus in concern, possibly amusement, possibly distaste for perceived weakness.
He remembered half walking, half being carried from the room, being pulled outside into the drizzle which should have shocked him out of his stupor, torpid brain reactivating, but only made that stupor cold and wet as he sank to the pavement and leaned into the support of a filthy wall. John was there, kneeling next to him, questioning, taking a pulse and other doctorly things. Sherlock looked up, looked up at the sky and rocked, rocked, clasped his knees and rocked, shouldn’t rock, nothing wrong with his cerebral cortex or basal ganglia, no, no. No stimming, no need to regulate his sensory input because nothing was computing anyway may never compute again.
No.
And John was there with him, facing him on his knees and John shouldn’t be on his knees for him -- it was the other way around, didn’t John know that? Sherlock wanted to ask, but John took Sherlock’s face in his hands and smoothed away the water just like he had soothed away Sherlock’s tears after a scene, and he was doing that in front of the Yard, kissing his temple and telling him it would be all right though that was obviously a lie because nothing would ever be all right.
Lestrade came and wrapped Sherlock up, and what was their obsession with blankets that they always covered him so? He had a stack of them at home.
“John.” Sherlock was going to ask him about the blanket. About shock. Tell him that in-hospital mortality was higher in patients with cardiogenic shock, 6.2% versus 63.6%, versus non-shock myocardial infarction patients. John would be interested in that. “John.”
But once he said John’s name he couldn’t stop saying it. “John. John. JohnJohnJohnJohnJohn...”
“Shhh. I’m here. I’m here, Sherlock. I’m here.”
John was holding him, blanket wrapped round them both, and John was rocking with him.
“John.”
--- --- ---
Sherlock didn’t remember the ride home, either. He only recalled arriving at the curb and being manhandled onto the pavement, becoming enamoured with the play of light on a puddle of water that collected in the street. Lestrade was there, in his boring work-wear, calculated to be bland and inoffensive because in real life no one wanted their coppers handsome because handsome almost never equaled solid, honest and dependable in proletariat eyes. Lestrade must have driven, but all Sherlock could remember of him was wide, spooked eyes and concerned bleatings before he disappeared into nothing.
John was there. He was always there, but John was there in a way that no one else could be, because Sherlock wanted him there, elevated John above the rest, despite John’s innate goodness, and his value judgments that forced Sherlock to be a better man because he couldn’t bear to disappoint John. Perhaps it was because of John’s natural leanings towards axiology that Sherlock trusted him so. With the work. With pain. With his submission. With other things Sherlock was hesitant to name because they left a deep ache in the center of his chest, like a shot center mass.
John tugged him up the stairs, into the flat, onto the sofa. John pressed tea, too hot, too much sugar, into Sherlock’s hand. John sat there across from Sherlock, elbows on his knees, hands clasped tight.
John waited.
Waited.
Patient man, John.
John waited as Sherlock stared at the tea, watching it cool, watching his breath disturb the surface tension of the liquid with each puff of air, a motion timed with every exhale, pushing against the cohesive force of liquid molecules.
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what the problem is.”
“I thought the SOP was not to push.”
“Are you saying you’re standard?”
Sherlock tried for a wry smile to share the joke, but John wasn’t joking, and when Sherlock went to put the tea mug down it was shaking. Sherlock stared at his own asthenic hand, pale gone to bone white and grim, a tremor that wouldn’t cease.
“Lestrade will have it out of you tomorrow anyway.”
He started thinking again. Didn’t like it. He stood abruptly and removed his coat, tossing it to the side. He stared at John the entire time. John, who looked completely unfazed as Sherlock unbuttoned his cuffs and the front placket of his white dress shirt. Sherlock unfastened his belt with one hand while he grabbed John’s arm, pulling him up and dragging him towards Sherlock’s room. His trousers were already sagging round his hips as he made it to the bed, and they were quickly disposed of along with his pants and shoes.
Naked. Naked was good. Naked was freeing. Naked meant he wouldn’t have to think. He palmed his own cock and groaned, anticipating what was about to happen.
“John.” John John John John John. Sherlock sat on the bed, legs spread and leaning back on one elbow. He pulled John, still acquiescent, still all good, a study in insouciance, in between his thighs. “Please.” This is what John is for. Reordering. Rebooting. Tabula rasa for the work.
He had John by the jumper, had John by the mouth, tongue diving deep, giving John what he liked, what he wanted, and John liked to kiss, yes? Slow and deep, and Sherlock was rather apathetic about kissing outside of a scene, but John loved it, and what John wanted, John got.
But John wasn’t giving in to the kiss. He kept it soft -- not quite chaste, but nothing that would embarrass him in a church. When Sherlock tried to pull him down, covering Sherlock like a blanket, John held fast, putting a hand on Sherlock’s chest to put space between them.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to stop looking at me and do this.” John had knowing eyes, which was just a foolish flight of fancy, because what did John know anyway? John was just as obtuse as the rest of them, just as blind stumbling ignorant outside of his own bailiwick.
“But what do you want?”
Sherlock leaned in, kissing the side of John’s throat, a pulse point, scent like gunpowder and witchhazel...licked. “I want you to hurt me.” Yes. Yes. Sherlock spoke directly into John’s ear, let his tongue trail the lobe, hitting all of John’s carefully catalogued arousal points with lips and hands. Lobe, pulse point, nape of neck, right inner elbow, torso just under the armpit, iliac crest. “I want you to fuck me. And fuck me. And fuck me...”
“Sherlock...”
Sherlock grabbed at John again, this time throwing his weight behind it, and he quickly had John on the bed, under him, and Sherlock’s hands were under John’s blue jumper, Sherlock’s mouth was travelling John’s collarbone.
“You can do anything you want to me. Bruise me. Cut me. Whip me. Beat me -- just fuck me and make it hurt. You’ve fantasized about it. Do it.” Sherlock slotted their hips together, riding his cock into the groove of groin and thigh. “I want you to.”
But John...froze underneath him.
“Crucible.”
Sherlock tensed for a moment, hanging his head against John’s neck, his hands on John tensing with him.
When John spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “Crucible. I’m not joking.”
Sherlock jerked, then sat up, rolling off John and to his side, away from John. Not looking at John. He curled up, knees to chest, chin tucked in.
Sherlock couldn’t stifle the whimper that escaped.
Bit not good. Bit not good. Bit not...
“No, it’s okay. Really.” John pressed against Sherlock’s back, arm going round him. “I’m not angry.”
“John.”
“I know. But not like this.”
“You keep saying that as if it means something. I need--”
“Not like this. We’re better than that.”
Sherlock laughed, and he could hear the thread of hysteria in his own voice; wondered at it. “Better.” It sounded and tasted like bitter.
“You are, you know. Better than that. We can’t just because you don’t want to talk. You don’t have to right now.”
“I don’t want to think.” John tightened his hold when Sherlock began to rock forwards and backwards, pressed a dry, sexless kiss to Sherlock’s shoulder.
Once the tears started to fall they refused to stop. But there was some comfort in the way that John cried with him.
Continued in part two...
Title: The Ceremony of Innocence (1/2)
Author: eldritchhorrors
Beta & Britpicker: The Amazing pennypaperbrain
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Crime scene violence and all that might entail
Genres/Tropes: Asperger's!Sherlock, H/C, Romance, Case Fic, Sherlock's Childhood, Character Study, Intellectual Angst
Word Count: 10,300
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, nor am I making any money from this transformative work.
Author's Note: This is the fourth fic in The Cold Song series, after I Hear Those Voices That Will Not Be Drowned, Within This Frail Crucible of Light, and A Light Shines In The Darkness. They really, really should be read first, but this can also stand alone. I am Asperger's on the autism spectrum, so this is based on my own personal experience.
Series Summary: When Moriarty told Sherlock that he would cut the heart out of him, he failed to mention that someone of his acquaintance already had. (He was saving that little tidbit for later.)
Fic Summary: Sherlock is tested to the shattering point, but some things must be broken before they can be fixed, and some things can never remain hidden...especially from ourselves.
“And in that hour,
The ceremony of innocence is drowned...”
Benjamin Britten -- The Turn Of The Screw
Libretto -- Myfanwy Piper
The Ceremony of Innocence
Things had been getting dreadfully dull. He’d give John’s left testicle for a case.
There was the experiment with the fatty tissue in the crisper, but that wouldn’t be ready for another week at the earliest.
John was an excellent distraction, but there was only so much sex two men over thirty could have before they had to tap out.
The morning air was thick, and the gentle rhythmic patter of rain against the flat’s windows begged for musical accompaniment.
There was a piece for the Baroque violin he wanted to try, but he didn’t feel like he could be still for long enough to devote to it the kind of single-mindedness it required. And...he wasn’t feeling very Baroque right now. He often did. When he wasn’t feeling modern. Or angry.
Not very Bach-like at the moment, no.
He tried on a few pieces for mood, but couldn’t settle on any one thing. Maybe Vivaldi instead? A different feel of Baroque.
No. Too much emotional investment. His Winter would sound like a slight chill.
He took refuge in modernity instead.
And a break for toast.
Shostakovitch String Quartet number two. Triumphant A major sliding into an unsure waltz. This was his favorite of the 15 quartets, no matter that the eighth was so famous. The restatement of the theme, the pulsating end to the first overture and the start of the second part. The second. Yes! This is what fit his mood of the morning. Recitative and romance, pensive, austere, ambiguous sound, profoundly sincere violin monologue that kept time beautifully with the pattering of rain against the windows, a hazy dawn of a piece that lit the room with the same ambient light as the muted sun outside. It was exquisitely like the quiet spirituality of Beethoven’s last quartets, distilled for a more contemporary audience.
Yes.
The morning filtered around him, muffled by the violin, but Sherlock was aware of all the important things. John was lolling on the sofa, something he rarely did but which often corresponded with a day off and this sort of weather. Mrs. Hudson was bustling around the room, probably making a hash of his carefully ordered chaos and tut-tutting at the more permanent messes.
There was a footstep on the stair. Dress shoes, but well-worn, quieted as Lestrade ascended two at a time.
A case. Suddenly the violin and Soviet composers could wait.
And Lestrade was bringing him something...interesting. Lestrade had slept, but only just. A call had come in and he’d dashed from his flat not bothering with his usual ablutions or his morning coffee, which was more important to a copper anyway. Dimmock should have had this one considering the time of the call, but it was given to Lestrade, so it was one of a series he was already investigating. There weren’t any interesting serials currently in the paper, and Sherlock’s informant at the yard hadn’t been forthcoming about it, perhaps he’d already grown jaded about Sherlock’s involvement maybe he wasn’t in the know worth investigating might need a new friend in the force, so it was something they’d kept a tight lid on.
Curiouser and curiouser.
He dressed quickly, but lingered in front of the mirror for a moment to make sure that there was nothing incriminating showing, no beard burn, no abrasions or suction marks. He was looking at his skin, but his mind was on Lestrade’s claim that this case was a ‘bad one.’ It was a trite phrase that didn’t really convey what Lestrade meant, but Sherlock was familiar enough with his jargon that he had an idea about what they would find.
Lestrade was a paternal man who didn’t suffer this type of crime easily -- most did not. The few that could probably did what Sherlock did -- deletion. Through force of will, or perhaps drink.
Simple. Effective.
Sherlock splashed water on his face and looked at himself one last time. His face was clear. Familiar. Blank. Hard.
Simple. Effective.
He stalked out the door and down the stairs, calling for John and Lestrade to hurry.
--- --- ---
John was stretching out on the sofa in a very Sherlockian position, hands behind his head as he listened to Sherlock play.
He’d got up late, twisted in the sheets that Sherlock never failed to turn into some sort of soft origami. Sherlock’s legs had tangled with his, but Sherlock was face down on the edge of the bed, one arm trailing along the floor. Sherlock’s spine seemed impossibly long, like some Romantic artist had added too many vertebrae, but his bum was round and firm, barely hidden by the creased cotton wrapped around it.
It was gorgeous and cozy warm. John was all shagged out, and he didn’t feel much of a need to get up and accomplish anything so he lay there, softly rubbing Sherlock’s back until the lure of tea and the need to void his bladder made rising a necessity.
He shrugged on Sherlock’s blue dressing gown over his boxers and padded into the kitchen for a cuppa before slouching his way over to the sofa and melting into it with the firm conviction that he didn’t need to do a damn thing today. Didn’t even pick up the paper, though it was right there and Sherlock hadn’t yet ruined the crossword by solving it in ink. There was a slight drizzle outside, the window sweating a little with the chill moisture, and days like this were meant to be spent lazing around inside, reading, or cuddling. Maybe work on his writing a little later. Things with no urgency to them.
It was a while before Sherlock zombied his way out of his room, rubbing his eyes and looking for a cup of tea himself. He’d pulled on some navy boxer briefs and a white button down that he hadn’t bothered to button. The white of the shirt matched the white of the bunny slippers on his feet, a gift from John that had come about when he found out that Sherlock had never seen, or had deleted the memory of, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He’d rectified that grievous hole in Sherlock’s ‘cultural education’ in much the same way Sherlock tried to remedy the holes in his, and he couldn’t stifle the smile that emerged whenever he saw them on Sherlock’s feet. They had little fangs on them.
John would have made him tea, but...fuck. That would require getting up.
Sherlock made tea and dry toast before grunting out a greeting, then doodled something on a notepad as he slumped over the kitchen table. He didn’t perk up until his second cup of tea. John knew he had perked up because he crossed the room in those ridiculous slippers to grab his violin out of its case, taking it back to the kitchen chair.
John couldn’t see what he was doing, but it was several minutes before he heard a careful pizzicato that gained momentum, then a pause while Sherlock fiddled with his bow.
When the music finally began John knew the piece. Sherlock had been practicing it on and off for the past several weeks. It was a recently composed Glass partita for solo violin. It started out like slowly poured treacle, then quickened into a more frantic pace without losing its sensuality.
He rather liked it. He’d have to record it so they could use it as a soundtrack for sex one day. Which was a good idea, a soundtrack for sex. Maybe he could get Sherlock to make a few of them, depending on the mood. The thought made John blush a bit, because he was going to ask Sherlock for a mix tape even though they were both grown men. He put his feet up on the arm of the sofa and let his head hang off the edge of the cushion so the pink in his cheeks could be blamed on increased blood flow to his face.
Mrs. Hudson came in a bit later, picking up as she went, quietly tutting, but John had figured out that she visited, and cleaned, more often when Sherlock was coaxing something gorgeous from his instrument.
John smiled. If Sherlock was playing he wasn’t opening his mouth. They might be having sex, and John might be liking it, but John wasn’t blind to any of Sherlock’s numerous faults. The man still drove him round the twist sometimes.
The Glass faded into something indeterminate, then something that sounded crazily like Master of Puppets, then a line or two from a Shostakovitch string quartet -- the second one, he thought. Sherlock was doodling on his violin, just as much as he had on the notepad earlier, not settling on any one thing until the Shostakovitch took flight. The morning was rare -- lazy, domestic and silly looking, he was sure.
It was lovely.
And ruined completely when Lestrade let himself in looking grim and tired.
He closed the door behind him with a soft click before leaning against it. There were dark bags under his eyes, and the light patterning of crow’s feet had deepened to match the crease in his forehead, aging him by at least five years.
Despite all that Lestrade grinned at the picture Sherlock made. John sat up to get a better look, and Sherlock was bolt upright in the dining chair, chest bare, shirttails askew, bunny-slippered feet canted out as he played.
With a last bite of toast sticking out of his mouth.
Sherlock merely raised an eyebrow and pulled his bow to an abrupt finish as he sucked in the last bit of crust.
“Don’t.” Sherlock’s voice was firm, and only slightly distorted by the food he was chewing.
“Don’t what?”
“Touch the camera phone and you’re a dead man.”
“Wish I had time to joke, but I need you on this one.”
“Just let me get dressed.” Sherlock popped up, wiping his instrument down with a hasty cloth before putting the violin in its case and rushing off.
“Sherlock...” Lestrade ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. “This is a bad one.”
Sherlock paused on the way to his bedroom and nodded once, decisively, before closing the door behind him. John was just getting up to do the same, feeling a little thrill of anticipation himself, when he caught the little byplay. “Bad one?”
Lestrade sighed. “Yeah. None of us like it when it’s kids. Not even Sherlock.” Lestrade shook his head. “He doesn’t say it, but he’s always quieter, during. No baiting, won’t take any bait.”
“And this one?”
Lestrade looked at him. “Might want to stay home. It’s about as bad as it gets.”
John shook his head. “You know me better than that. And I doubt it’s worse than Afghanistan.”
“Yeah, I do know you. Know him better, too. That’s why I have my car this time. No cruiser.”
“Good. I’m sick of taxis.”
“But as far as Afghanistan goes...”
John just raised an eyebrow over his last swallow of tepid tea.
“There’s some things war doesn’t prepare you for.”
--- --- ---
John looked out the window, pretending to be engrossed by the trip because speaking meant adding to the tension. The ride to the scene seemed to take forever, and there wasn’t any data to keep Sherlock occupied. He wouldn’t let Lestrade tell him about the murder either, unwilling to trust ‘ham-handed speculation spoon-fed to him by dabblers’. They couldn’t discuss the case, but neither could they think of anything else, so the only sounds on the long drive were Sherlock’s irritated huffs and the strumming of his fingers against the plastic of the interior door.
John just shrugged and burrowed into his coat, trying to find the happy place he had inhabited earlier that morning.
He didn’t succeed. There was too much anticipation running around his skull. If just the promise of adrenaline could do this to John, what did it do to Sherlock?
They finally pulled up to a mass of cars and lights surrounding the husk of an industrial site overlooking the Thames. Mycroft occasionally grabbed him and stole him away to industrial sites, but those were just unused, not completely defunct and decrepit. This one was five derelict stories of rectangular brick with narrow windows, and the facing of one wall was crumbling from the top down, revealing concrete slab and twists of rebar underneath. Bits of rubbish were spread like mulch and disposable plastic shopping bags were caught on smashed fencing and waving in the breeze like post-apocalyptic flowers.
On a day like today, with a foggy chill and the the odd drizzle of rain, the building cultivated an air of complete depression. It wasn’t surprising that someone had used it as an impromptu crypt.
As sepulchres went, John hoped he rated better.
Sepulchre. That was a good word. Better remember that for the blog.
Sepulchre.
Sepulchre.
Sepulchretudinous.
Ha.
Sherlock would tell him he was being silly, but he’d say it with a tolerant smile. Much to his surprise John had turned into a bit of a writer because of the blog, and had taken to jotting down words he liked as they came to him. He’d always liked words, but now he had the idea that something could be made of his words.
Something else he’d have to thank Sherlock for.
It wasn’t raining at the moment, but the sky was heavy with it as they got out of Lestrade’s silver Jetta. Sherlock’s feet had hit the pavement before the car had come to a complete stop. John, used to Sherlock’s lack of patience, was at his heels, almost jogging to keep up with his long stride.
The car was within the tape so they had neatly ducked a face-off with Sally, and John couldn’t recognize most of the others that had gathered. A drawn-looking blond woman was propped up outside an access door that flanked a closed and dented bay door. Sherlock made a beeline for her, and she looked at Sherlock, and then to Lestrade who nodded in confirmation. She stepped back, allowing her weight to depress the push handle, backing into it to swing it wider for them.
John wasn’t Sherlock level savvy, but he noticed the way she averted her eyes away from the interior.
She pointed to the left. “Past the support pillar and around the corner.” She frowned and cleared her throat. “There’s a smaller workroom.”
Sherlock raced ahead so John called out a quick “Thanks!” before following him. Lestrade stayed with the woman at the door for a moment with a question about the property owner, but John had no ears for that. It wasn’t immediate, and Sherlock’s lack of interest told him it probably wasn’t important anyway..
He’d taken out his pen light. The day was overcast enough, and the windows filthy enough that everything was cast in a late twilight. No lights were on, and the rusted hulks of old machinery, the winch chains dangling useless and noose-like from the ceiling, the musty smell he’d come to associate with the squatting homeless, it all made the scene look spooky in a way that screamed contrived. It was too book-perfect not to be. It was only missing windy rattling or the film noir sound of precise footsteps.
Sherlock seemed to think so too, because he slowed and panned his light around, catching the cobwebbed corners of the room and the heavy fall of dust on everyth-- almost everything. John saw what Sherlock had seen, a clean swath of floor had been cut through the filth, a swath they were walking on like a grim red carpet, leading them to the viewing box for the opening act.
“Staged?” John had to stop himself from whispering, kowtowing to the ambiance left by a killer, but he dislike the way his voice ricocheted around the cavernous space.
“Like an opera.”
--- --- ---
Sherlock swept past the sergeant on duty, mid-thirties divorced single desperate for a child rather fancies Lestrade, but he barely saw her because the facility had his attention. The facility that housed the crime was too good to be true. John had a stack of dramatic movies at home with budgets of millions that didn’t have this kind of setting. It was a penny dreadful. A police procedural with expensive lighting and self-consciously chic cinematography.
And the wide swath of clean that cut through the gloom just cinched matters.
Sherlock hated instinct. Not the quicker-than-thought action that could save his life by telling him to movemovemove at the right time, but this. There were no obvious clues that he could follow to tell him that this case was personal between Sherlock and the perpetrator. As he walked through the building taking in the defunct equipment, die-making, machining, extrusion, blow molding, injection molding, bankruptcy over five years ago, parts cannibalized and the working machines sold, bank ownership, in never-ending court battle, ultimately unimportant and only significant because of its availability and probably its...ambiance, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all for him. There was nothing concrete for him to point at, but his sub-conscious brain must be filtering hundreds of different points of minutiae to come to the conclusion that Sherlock was meant to be here as a witness/participant/something. This was for him.
Sherlock deduced based on acute observation paired with statistical probability. He read copious amounts of raw numerical data, detailed studies, statistical analyses, and cataloged the information for later use. When he was deducing John’s phone, Harry’s alcoholism was the best guess because the other alternatives, an illness like Parkinson’s 13.4 per 100,000 and only 4% occurring below age sixty, likelihood of John having sibling over sixty exceedingly small, or plugging it in in the dark 3%, previous owner was not so welded to technology that they must have it with them to the last moment, were a much smaller statistical likelihood than being inebriated, 10-20% of men, 3-10% of women though that is increasing/getting diagnosed more often.
But there was nothing concrete and numerical that he could define at the moment that was leading him towards the conclusion that everything he saw was carefully stage set with him in mind. This was very much as he understood more plebian minds to work and he Did Not Like It. Clear cause and effect was superior in every way.
He’d have to ask John if everyone normal went round with this feeling of anticipatory dread all the time, or if it only manifested in special circumstances.
Might explain why Anderson was so craven and weasel-like.
But so would inbreeding and eating lead paint.
--- --- ---
John couldn’t get over the feeling that something was off. It might be the crime scene, but he’d been to plenty and never felt this type of wrongness. Maybe it was the agitation that Sherlock was telegraphing. Maybe it was Lestrade’s warning at the flat.
Lestrade caught up to them as they went round the corner, following the clean path. “Dust mop left outside the door we entered.”
“I’ll need samples.”
“Not much to sample. They took the disposable dust head and the dust with it.”
They reached a steel industrial double door and Lestrade irised his way in front of Sherlock to bar him for just a moment.
“Gloves. I need this by the book. It’s...” Lestrade had a searching look on his face, trying to find the proper words. “We have to convict.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes and snagged the blue rubber from his coat pocket, dangling them in front of Lestrade before pulling them on. “I always wear gloves.”
“Better safe than--”
But Sherlock was already opening the door. John was pulling on his own vinyl gloves, so he didn’t get the full effect of the reveal as they swung wide, but he looked up and his breath caught. Sherlock had taken only a few steps into the room before coming to a halt, and John could see why. It was...it was...
He’d seen quite a bit working with Sherlock. Crimes of passion/jealousy/money. He’d seen the work of madmen and serial killers. He’d seen bodies that had been tortured for secrets then thrown away like rubbish.
But this...
“Oh God.” He didn’t feel like he was going to vomit, but he felt sick to his stomach nonetheless. There were several technicians in the room, but they had retreated to the edges of the shop when they came in, looking at them uncertainly. Even Anderson looked grateful for any reason to take his eyes away from the lonely figure in the center of the concrete. Everyone looked away, looked at Sherlock.
Sherlock.
Sherlock stood there, stock still, which was odd because John always imagined him in motion at a crime scene, he vibrated with so much harnessed energy.
And then Sherlock made this noise.
It was a terrible thing. As terrible as the assemblage in front of them. John had last heard that kind of agonized whimper from a five year old boy just outside Kandahar. He’d lost his entire family in a roadside bombing, the only survivor. They’d found him wrapped around his mother, half her head gone, lap a soup of viscera and blood. He’d made that sound, a keening low in the back of his throat, when John had separated him from the corpse.
He’d never have expected it from Sherlock.
Jesus.
Jesus.
It still didn’t prepare him for the way Sherlock’s legs gave out beneath him.
--- --- ---
Lestrade put himself in front of them for a moment, arm barring the door. He sighed before speaking, as if he knew that Sherlock would mock his statement of the obvious, but felt the need to do it anyway, which drove Sherlock nuts because he knew procedure, had been following procedure, everything had already been swept by the techs, and Lestrade knew he knew all of that.
“I always wear gloves.”
“Better safe than--”
Sherlock didn’t stick around to hear the tired aphorism Lestrade had gotten from his doddering grandmother and pushed against the heavy steel door. The springs inside the press of the door ground as he shoved, rust and disuse making them squeal as it finally swung open, catching on a hidden stop once it reached an obtuse angle. He swept into the room, taking in the group of techs well away from the scene, the dimensions and layout of the space, the...
...the child in the center, eight or nine, face covered in a hood. It would be a burlap sack lined in cotton turned inside out...
Redact.
...the cord round the throat, hemp rope this time but sometimes variable-- stockings, scarves, or a tie...
Redact.
...the criss-cross of binding, intricate and dense, technique more refined, the killer more knowledgeable, but still not enough to hold in the entrails...
Redact.
...the bare, dirty mattress, scavenged from somewhere, disgusting with all manner of bodily fluids, red staining to pink at the edges...
Re...re...
...the mutilated sex organs...
...the way she must have begged and screamed for hours...
...the brutal sodomy of a body too small to take it...
...so small...
...so...
And something new...
...a message writ large in blood, wreathed in swirls of scarlet, broad slashes of multitudinous seas incarnadine...
...a message for him.
O amnis, axis, caulis, collis, clunis, crinis, fascis, folks, bless ye the Lord.
It.
Britten.
It...
Sherlock would never properly remember what happened in the next few minutes. He only had vague impressions of the world spinning, reversing its polarity around him. The laws of gravity were suddenly repealed by a higher power. He remembered hitting the floor, rubbery and gelatinous, nothing working. He remembered staring, but not processing anything, for the first time in memory a complete blank. He remembered John’s arms around him, John behind him, pulling him up, John’s voice in his ear, Lestrade’s voice overlapping it, voices blending together as others joined the chorus in concern, possibly amusement, possibly distaste for perceived weakness.
He remembered half walking, half being carried from the room, being pulled outside into the drizzle which should have shocked him out of his stupor, torpid brain reactivating, but only made that stupor cold and wet as he sank to the pavement and leaned into the support of a filthy wall. John was there, kneeling next to him, questioning, taking a pulse and other doctorly things. Sherlock looked up, looked up at the sky and rocked, rocked, clasped his knees and rocked, shouldn’t rock, nothing wrong with his cerebral cortex or basal ganglia, no, no. No stimming, no need to regulate his sensory input because nothing was computing anyway may never compute again.
No.
And John was there with him, facing him on his knees and John shouldn’t be on his knees for him -- it was the other way around, didn’t John know that? Sherlock wanted to ask, but John took Sherlock’s face in his hands and smoothed away the water just like he had soothed away Sherlock’s tears after a scene, and he was doing that in front of the Yard, kissing his temple and telling him it would be all right though that was obviously a lie because nothing would ever be all right.
Lestrade came and wrapped Sherlock up, and what was their obsession with blankets that they always covered him so? He had a stack of them at home.
“John.” Sherlock was going to ask him about the blanket. About shock. Tell him that in-hospital mortality was higher in patients with cardiogenic shock, 6.2% versus 63.6%, versus non-shock myocardial infarction patients. John would be interested in that. “John.”
But once he said John’s name he couldn’t stop saying it. “John. John. JohnJohnJohnJohnJohn...”
“Shhh. I’m here. I’m here, Sherlock. I’m here.”
John was holding him, blanket wrapped round them both, and John was rocking with him.
“John.”
--- --- ---
Sherlock didn’t remember the ride home, either. He only recalled arriving at the curb and being manhandled onto the pavement, becoming enamoured with the play of light on a puddle of water that collected in the street. Lestrade was there, in his boring work-wear, calculated to be bland and inoffensive because in real life no one wanted their coppers handsome because handsome almost never equaled solid, honest and dependable in proletariat eyes. Lestrade must have driven, but all Sherlock could remember of him was wide, spooked eyes and concerned bleatings before he disappeared into nothing.
John was there. He was always there, but John was there in a way that no one else could be, because Sherlock wanted him there, elevated John above the rest, despite John’s innate goodness, and his value judgments that forced Sherlock to be a better man because he couldn’t bear to disappoint John. Perhaps it was because of John’s natural leanings towards axiology that Sherlock trusted him so. With the work. With pain. With his submission. With other things Sherlock was hesitant to name because they left a deep ache in the center of his chest, like a shot center mass.
John tugged him up the stairs, into the flat, onto the sofa. John pressed tea, too hot, too much sugar, into Sherlock’s hand. John sat there across from Sherlock, elbows on his knees, hands clasped tight.
John waited.
Waited.
Patient man, John.
John waited as Sherlock stared at the tea, watching it cool, watching his breath disturb the surface tension of the liquid with each puff of air, a motion timed with every exhale, pushing against the cohesive force of liquid molecules.
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what the problem is.”
“I thought the SOP was not to push.”
“Are you saying you’re standard?”
Sherlock tried for a wry smile to share the joke, but John wasn’t joking, and when Sherlock went to put the tea mug down it was shaking. Sherlock stared at his own asthenic hand, pale gone to bone white and grim, a tremor that wouldn’t cease.
“Lestrade will have it out of you tomorrow anyway.”
He started thinking again. Didn’t like it. He stood abruptly and removed his coat, tossing it to the side. He stared at John the entire time. John, who looked completely unfazed as Sherlock unbuttoned his cuffs and the front placket of his white dress shirt. Sherlock unfastened his belt with one hand while he grabbed John’s arm, pulling him up and dragging him towards Sherlock’s room. His trousers were already sagging round his hips as he made it to the bed, and they were quickly disposed of along with his pants and shoes.
Naked. Naked was good. Naked was freeing. Naked meant he wouldn’t have to think. He palmed his own cock and groaned, anticipating what was about to happen.
“John.” John John John John John. Sherlock sat on the bed, legs spread and leaning back on one elbow. He pulled John, still acquiescent, still all good, a study in insouciance, in between his thighs. “Please.” This is what John is for. Reordering. Rebooting. Tabula rasa for the work.
He had John by the jumper, had John by the mouth, tongue diving deep, giving John what he liked, what he wanted, and John liked to kiss, yes? Slow and deep, and Sherlock was rather apathetic about kissing outside of a scene, but John loved it, and what John wanted, John got.
But John wasn’t giving in to the kiss. He kept it soft -- not quite chaste, but nothing that would embarrass him in a church. When Sherlock tried to pull him down, covering Sherlock like a blanket, John held fast, putting a hand on Sherlock’s chest to put space between them.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to stop looking at me and do this.” John had knowing eyes, which was just a foolish flight of fancy, because what did John know anyway? John was just as obtuse as the rest of them, just as blind stumbling ignorant outside of his own bailiwick.
“But what do you want?”
Sherlock leaned in, kissing the side of John’s throat, a pulse point, scent like gunpowder and witchhazel...licked. “I want you to hurt me.” Yes. Yes. Sherlock spoke directly into John’s ear, let his tongue trail the lobe, hitting all of John’s carefully catalogued arousal points with lips and hands. Lobe, pulse point, nape of neck, right inner elbow, torso just under the armpit, iliac crest. “I want you to fuck me. And fuck me. And fuck me...”
“Sherlock...”
Sherlock grabbed at John again, this time throwing his weight behind it, and he quickly had John on the bed, under him, and Sherlock’s hands were under John’s blue jumper, Sherlock’s mouth was travelling John’s collarbone.
“You can do anything you want to me. Bruise me. Cut me. Whip me. Beat me -- just fuck me and make it hurt. You’ve fantasized about it. Do it.” Sherlock slotted their hips together, riding his cock into the groove of groin and thigh. “I want you to.”
But John...froze underneath him.
“Crucible.”
Sherlock tensed for a moment, hanging his head against John’s neck, his hands on John tensing with him.
When John spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “Crucible. I’m not joking.”
Sherlock jerked, then sat up, rolling off John and to his side, away from John. Not looking at John. He curled up, knees to chest, chin tucked in.
Sherlock couldn’t stifle the whimper that escaped.
Bit not good. Bit not good. Bit not...
“No, it’s okay. Really.” John pressed against Sherlock’s back, arm going round him. “I’m not angry.”
“John.”
“I know. But not like this.”
“You keep saying that as if it means something. I need--”
“Not like this. We’re better than that.”
Sherlock laughed, and he could hear the thread of hysteria in his own voice; wondered at it. “Better.” It sounded and tasted like bitter.
“You are, you know. Better than that. We can’t just because you don’t want to talk. You don’t have to right now.”
“I don’t want to think.” John tightened his hold when Sherlock began to rock forwards and backwards, pressed a dry, sexless kiss to Sherlock’s shoulder.
Once the tears started to fall they refused to stop. But there was some comfort in the way that John cried with him.
Continued in part two...