Learning Curve: Exponential Growth
Fandom: Sherlock
Kink: Threesome
Pairing: Sherlock/Jim/John
Summary: After discovering that Jim was abused by Sebastian, Sherlock and John save him and settle him into 221B.
Normality
Learning curve: Lag Phase
Sherlock was on his third rhapsody of the week. Jim was watching from the sofa, trying to remain inconspicuous. It was hard to concentrate on the book John had lent him when Sherlock was playing his violin like that.
John had assured Jim that it was Sherlock’s way of releasing stress and getting on people’s nerves but it made Jim nervous anyway. He had expected Sherlock to stop composing after a bit but his compositions had gotten more fevered, more passionate, more angry. The rapid arpeggios, the almost violent arco and the impatient staccato passages, it made Jim feel a little strange inside.
Jim enjoyed the other parts of living with John and Sherlock though. He enjoyed the strange dinners of take out and random restaurants John picked out from the telephone directory. He enjoyed having Mrs. Hudson bustle in and out and listening to her ramble on about the state of the flat.
He took it upon himself to clean the flat. It was by force of habit rather than the need to repay Sherlock and John. Sebastian placed great importance on cleanliness and order. It wasn’t as if Jim had anything else to do either. Sherlock composed at a furious rate. John went out and saw patients at the surgery. The two of them would go off sometimes and solve a crime or two in the evenings and they always left Jim at home.
The peace and quiet was strange. But it was likeable and it was really nice in an oddly uncomfortable way. It felt like when you bought new shoes that were a little bit too tight but you liked them cause they looked nice and you knew they would stretch a bit later on. Jim had spent the first part of the week flinching at sudden moves and loud noises but by the latter half, he had realised that it normal human beings didn’t usually physically threaten the existence of their living space partners. Apparently, even if two or more people who lived together disagreed, the disagreement should not disintegrate into one-sided fisticuffs. He wasn’t sure whether he was the shoe or the person who bought the shoe.
He wasn’t sure what to make of the strange tension in the room though. Sherlock was always looking at him. John was always not looking at him. Jim felt a strange pressure on him not unlike the one he felt all the time with Sebastian. It was as if they expected something from him but Jim wasn’t sure what. If it had been anyone else, he would have offered himself again but John had made it expressly clear on the first day that Jim wasn’t acceptable.
The look of disgust and revulsion still stayed in Jim’s head. It hurt a little even though Jim had gotten a lot of those looks in the past.
He ignored those feeling as best as he could and focused on doing things real people did. He went and bought the shopping according to the list on the fridge. He heeded John’s warnings about the chip machine and had a slightly awkward conversation with the cashier regarding the weather. He supposed the comment he made about sunny days being the best for a bombing and rain best for committing murder was not really good.
Jim added that to his new set of rules about how to be normal. He named it Rule 12: No talking about committing crimes in front of other people.
Molly had been quite helpful too. She came over to see how he was doing and introduced him to something other than Glee. Jim found that he also quite liked CSI, Bones and a number of other crime-related shows.
John had gave Jim and Sherlock very disapproving looks when he came back from the surgery and found them sitting in front of the telly, one shouting about who the culprit was, the other shouting about how the crime could be improved.
It had been really strange when he was introduced to the rest of New Scotland Yard. There had been a lot of gun pointing, shouting and random accusations, one of which was something about dinosaurs, aliens and clone conspiracies.
Donovan had called Jim a ‘fucking liar’ who would turn Sherlock into a murdering freak instead of just an antisocial freak.
Anderson insisted that someone had to have brainwashed someone else and this was a huge conspiracy to overthrow the law.
Lestrade had stared, pointed a gun, asked a lot of questions and then finally muttered that he was getting too old for this sort of drama.
The three of them had then disappeared into a room with Sherlock to discuss something, leaving Jim outside to stare at whitewashed walls with John.
A woman had come out of the room, insisting on questioning Jim about his past. Jim had followed her into another room, amidst shouts of ‘Please, Lestrade!’ and ‘This really isn’t our division, Sherlock!’
“Does this Sebastian hit you all the time?” The woman had asked him. Jim frowned.
“Daddy doesn’t kiss and tell.” Jim said defensively, crossing his arms. The woman made a note on her clipboard.
“What does Sebastian do on a normal day?” She asked.
“Still not telling.” Jim sing-songed. He was staying with Sherlock and John. He didn’t see how this had anything to do with them. She wrote something else, her mouth forming a little downturned line. Jim didn’t like her. She wasn’t sweet like Molly or forward like Donovan or even devious like Irene. Jim didn’t like the woman.
“Are you a criminal?” the woman asked.
Jim snarled. This woman was asking him all the obvious questions. He refused to play these sort of games with anyone other than Sherlock.
He rose from the chair abruptly, ignoring it as it clattered to the ground behind him. He upended the table and glared at her.
“Daddy doesn’t like to dance.” He said quietly. John was in the room all of a sudden, grabbing his arm and whispering words in his ear that sounded surprisingly soothing.
“It’s alright, Jim. Calm down. She doesn’t mean anything by it. She just needs you to answer some questions.”
“Daddy loves Sherlock best.” Jim muttered under his breath as the woman left in a hurry. He watched her say something to Sherlock.
Both Jim and John were taken aback by the ferocity of Sherlock’s “You had no right to ask him that! If you had any idea what goes through his mind” whereupon he suddenly decided that words weren’t enough and he actually lunged at her.
For a split second, Jim thought he was going to see Sherlock spill actual blood but the detective ripped the clipboard away and ripped up the notes the woman wrote.
“They’re putting a case together.” John forced Jim to turn away from the verbal dressing down that Sherlock was visiting upon the woman.
“Just give us a reason and we’ll go after Sebastian.” John continued. Jim stared at him. A case? Against Sebastian?
“But why would you want a case against Seastian? You can’t prove any of the murders, I covered all his tracks perfectly.”
There was a beat of silence.
“For you, Jim.” John said quietly, looking at him with such an expression of sadness that Jim felt a strange sour feeling in his chest. “He shouldn’t have hurt you. He should never have hurt you.”
The words sounded so strange that Jim actually stared for a minute, trying to understand them.
No one had the right to just hurt another person.
No one.
He just realised that.
Not even him.
And that was the first step to being normal.
No more hurting others.
No more hurting him.