Sherlock Fic: The Principle's the Same - Chapter Three
Title: The Principle's the Same
Author: Narcoleptic_ll (Narkito)
Characters: Sherlock, John
Rating: Teen
Category: Gen, AU, World War II
Word Count: 17.000~~ this chapter: 3000~~
Summary: Sherlock gets wounded on the battle field and they leave him for dead. John, who's just escaped from captivity finds him. Together they start their journey out of enemy territory. Written for a prompt.
Chapter Three - I'm Dealing with a Child
As the trucks drive away, both men slowly release their breaths, John turns to say something to Sherlock and the first thing he notices is his hand grabbing Sherlock by the lapel of his coat; it had drifted there during the pissing-soldier scare and, even more surprisingly to him, Sherlock’s hand is resting on top of his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. John gets a sinking feeling and his stomach is suddenly full of rocks. He whispers his apologies, dazed under the circumstances.
“Why?” Was Sherlock’s answer. John feels himself blush and looks away. “Oh, I see.” Sherlock was staring down now, looking a bit lost himself.
“Sherlock?”
“Yes?”
“My hand?”
“Yes, of course”. He lets go.
Both men take a few moments to collect themselves, arranging their uniforms and gathering their things. They needed to get out of there before another detachment of troops happened to wander by to relieve themselves. Plus, under the light of day, the walls of the cave seemed even more constricting and suffocating than before.
John kicked the foliage and dragged himself outside. His shoulder was killing him, sending stabs of pain down his arm and up his neck. He stretches as far as his body will let him and pats his front pocket to make sure the pouch’s still there, except it isn’t. He turns around to see if he had dropped it, when he takes on the sight of Sherlock, struggling to pass his giraffe-like figure through the entrance of the cave. Jesus, how the hell did he manage to get in in the first place?.
“Need any help?”
“No, thanks, I can manage.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I managed to get in and out of this bloody hole all night, didn’t I?”, he looked like a stubborn five year old determined to climb into his father’s desk chair, which was both endearing and disturbing, “and where is that damned thing you got me?!”. Exasperation seeping through his voice.
John thinks Sherlock’s referring to the cane, so he tries his best to look past him, into the cave and search the ground with his eyes, it should be easy to find, considering the shiny metal parts. He walks towards him and steps into something. Of course it’s the walking stick. He picks it up and hands it to him.
Sherlock stares at it for a second and then grabs it harshly from his hand, putting it on his right side and leaning his entire body weight into it, finally being able to stand without torturing his ribs any further. He huffs twice during the process and John winces internally, that must’ve hurt a lot. And the thought of it brings him back to his missing pouch.
“Sherlock, did you see my leather pouch, the one where I have the syrettes?”, before he can even finish his question, Sherlock reaches into his pocket and pulls it out, briefly hesitating before handing it to him. A smile reaches John’s lips, but it’s not really a good once, or a nice one for that matter. A bit of tongue sticks out as he tries to understand. “I’m sorry; did you take this out of my pocket when I was sleeping?”
Sherlock hasn’t moved from his spot, just outside the cave, almost on top of the foliage cover. He nods, once.
“Any particular reason?” Sherlock looks up and that immediately tells John more than he wanted to know. He’s angry, like Sherlock has disappointed him somehow. “Well no wonder the morphine didn’t even tickle you last night. You do many drugs, back home?”
Sherlock doesn’t answer and shifts on his feet (and cane).
“Is that why they wanted a doctor with you at all times? God, how did you end up in here anyway? Surely someone like you didn’t offer”. John sidesteps him and retrieves his bag. “Happen to take anything from here, too? Mmm?” Sherlock’s no longer looking at him; he’s looking past him, through him, into the distance. It’s not the first time he’s heard this song, that much is clear, and yet... “here, lean on the hill, I need to redress your bandages.” After crossing the bag over his chest, he opens the pouch to find the syrettes exactly as he left them; he opens the unused one, breaks the seal and motions Sherlock for him to lift his shirt sleeve. Surely he finds the old marks of needles in there, but he purposefully ignores them (or at least tells himself to do so). He finds a vein and just as he’s about to inject Sherlock, the aforementioned decides to talk.
“Shouldn’t you keep this one for yourself? I mean, you did get shot in the shoulder, and even though I’m sure you gave excellent and accurate instructions to your mates on how to take the bullet out -under the circumstances, I mean- I sincerely doubt they did half a decent job.” John hesitates, just a fraction of a second, and then plunges the needle in. Sherlock winces almost imperceptibly, almost.
“As much as I admire your attempt at altruism, you’re my responsibility, whether you like it or not. You’re a civilian, not only that, but an asset to the army. It’s my duty to take you back to safety.” Sherlock swallowed audibly and retrieved his arm from John’s grasp. “Now, I need you to take that off, so I can change the bandages.”
They go through this awkward task of trying not to mind the other’s sighs of exasperation and pain. John opens a paper packet and sprinkles the yellowish powder on top of Sherlock’s injuries and then wraps him again on the support bandages, after he’s done, he instructs Sherlock to take three deep breaths and coaches him through it (not that he really wants to, but it’s his job, and he takes pride on a job well done).
He can tell the morphine is already working. Sherlock has that certain glaze in his eyes, and his movements are slower now. He also looks stupidly content, which reminds him way too much of the last time he saw his sister, and that’s one of the many things he doesn’t want to dwell on. So he continues working on the head injury which has been healing just fine and no longer needs a dressing. It’s got a nice bruise all around it, though, and eventually the black and blue from the eyebrow is going to move below and give him quite a shiner on the right eye. He expects that will actually annoy the hell out of Sherlock, he almost wishes so.
When he’s done with him, he takes care of himself, carefully stripping the shoulder bandage away; caked blood tearing away skin, his eyes filling with tears (which he blinks away in an effort to concentrate on the task at hand). Once the bandage is out, the real extent of the damage becomes clear. There’s a large bruise that goes down his arm and torso, and up his neck, all revolving around a red angry blotch of poorly stitched skin. It was a through and through. A small calibre by the looks of it, but not less painful because of it. The real torture probably was having to stay awake during the entire procedure, as to give proper instructions for the stitching of important tissues and vessels.
A through-and-through; not like he had thought at first, but it does signify a cleaner wound (there’s always something), however John will be lucky if he only ends up losing his arm. It’s bound to get infected and eventually gangrened, if only they could speed up their journey… but there’s no sense in even thinking about it, he has a busted knee and John has a… well he’s not sure what’s wrong with his leg yet, sometimes it’s even as if he’s forgotten all about it, and then, the limping’s back. He’s quite aware that he’s staring and mapping every centimetre of John’s body, but he can’t help it, he can practically make out where the fists connected with his stomach, and where a boot bruised the back, if he were closer he could also tell the size. From this distance he can, however, tell what came first and what came later. First he got shot, then he got “roughed up” (as John’s so mildly put it) and then, kicked some more. Sherlock had only been vaguely aware of John’s experience before they met (as in, he vaguely acknowledges that knowing wherever John was before doesn’t really help or worsen the dilemma they’re in now), but he’s seen enough of it. He fidgets with his torso bandages, which suddenly feel too tight to breathe properly.
When John finishes cleaning and redressing his wound, giving it the same sulphanilamide treatment he gave to Sherlock, he’s presented with an image of the latter fidgeting with his bandages and wheezing as the weight of his upper body collapses into the broken ribs.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m dealing with a child,” he mutters as he steps closer. He sorts Sherlock’s bandages (probably a little more forcefully than strictly necessary) and just as he’s finishing they can hear faint giggling to their backs, just over the hill.
Giggling?. Sherlock and John stare at each other, confusion getting the best of them.
“Tais-toi!”, it’s a child’s voice. John can easily recognise it as a girl’s admonishing someone else, but he’s even more surprised when Sherlock perks up and answers in French. What he says exactly, is forever lost in his brain, but he knows enough words to make out the general message; that roughly being “who’s there”.
“Are you insane? You don’t know who’s on the other side?” John whispers.
“Oh please, it’s only children, don’t be so dramatic”, Sherlock answers as he goes around the hill, looking for a place he can climb without too much trouble
“Dramatic? Oh, gee, I keep forgetting we’re only stranded behind enemy lines”, there’s no use in saying this, though, as Sherlock is already climbing up the slope, leaving John behind to pick up after him.
Sherlock’s shirt’s still open from when John fixed (for a second time) his bandages. He plants his foot on the slope and pushes up with the help of the cane, his shirt tails gingerly fluffing at his sides.
His pain level has greatly subdued and his mood seems to be improving by the minute. On the other side of the hill there’s a house, and a house where there’s children it’s bound to have food.
John gathers their things the best he can and follows. By the time he climbs up the slope, Sherlock’s already talking to both children (quite animatedly); he must be telling a joke, because both kids are laughing.
The girl’s wearing a flowery dress, with a heavy red coat on top. She looks about seven and laughs with a hand half-covering her mouth. Her hair is braided and, holding the braids, two silky, red strings of fabric. The boy, her brother by the looks of it, looks around five and is laughing too. When they see John appear, they both stiffen a bit and start to back out, their eyes moving from Sherlock to John and back again.
Sherlock puts himself between John and the children and gestures to himself and then to John. He can only make out one word in there, as Sherlock is talking significantly faster now: “English”.
“John, would you mind to lower your rifle?”
Jesus, of course children get scared around these things, what has he thinking!
He lowers it and puts it over his shoulder. He’s about to say something when a scream cuts through the conversation and the boy yells “Maman!” and makes a run for it, the girl looks stunned and rooted to the ground, tears lurking just over the edge of her eyes.
The house is something like thirty or forty metres away, the woman who had screamed before is running towards them, and sure enough, there’s a man running just after her. He’s got a gun.
“Tell her to go, tell her to go to her parents.”
--------------
Notes: Tais-toi! is french for "Shut up".
Author: Narcoleptic_ll (Narkito)
Characters: Sherlock, John
Rating: Teen
Category: Gen, AU, World War II
Word Count: 17.000~~ this chapter: 3000~~
Summary: Sherlock gets wounded on the battle field and they leave him for dead. John, who's just escaped from captivity finds him. Together they start their journey out of enemy territory. Written for a prompt.
Chapter Three - I'm Dealing with a Child
As the trucks drive away, both men slowly release their breaths, John turns to say something to Sherlock and the first thing he notices is his hand grabbing Sherlock by the lapel of his coat; it had drifted there during the pissing-soldier scare and, even more surprisingly to him, Sherlock’s hand is resting on top of his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. John gets a sinking feeling and his stomach is suddenly full of rocks. He whispers his apologies, dazed under the circumstances.
“Why?” Was Sherlock’s answer. John feels himself blush and looks away. “Oh, I see.” Sherlock was staring down now, looking a bit lost himself.
“Sherlock?”
“Yes?”
“My hand?”
“Yes, of course”. He lets go.
Both men take a few moments to collect themselves, arranging their uniforms and gathering their things. They needed to get out of there before another detachment of troops happened to wander by to relieve themselves. Plus, under the light of day, the walls of the cave seemed even more constricting and suffocating than before.
John kicked the foliage and dragged himself outside. His shoulder was killing him, sending stabs of pain down his arm and up his neck. He stretches as far as his body will let him and pats his front pocket to make sure the pouch’s still there, except it isn’t. He turns around to see if he had dropped it, when he takes on the sight of Sherlock, struggling to pass his giraffe-like figure through the entrance of the cave. Jesus, how the hell did he manage to get in in the first place?.
“Need any help?”
“No, thanks, I can manage.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I managed to get in and out of this bloody hole all night, didn’t I?”, he looked like a stubborn five year old determined to climb into his father’s desk chair, which was both endearing and disturbing, “and where is that damned thing you got me?!”. Exasperation seeping through his voice.
John thinks Sherlock’s referring to the cane, so he tries his best to look past him, into the cave and search the ground with his eyes, it should be easy to find, considering the shiny metal parts. He walks towards him and steps into something. Of course it’s the walking stick. He picks it up and hands it to him.
Sherlock stares at it for a second and then grabs it harshly from his hand, putting it on his right side and leaning his entire body weight into it, finally being able to stand without torturing his ribs any further. He huffs twice during the process and John winces internally, that must’ve hurt a lot. And the thought of it brings him back to his missing pouch.
“Sherlock, did you see my leather pouch, the one where I have the syrettes?”, before he can even finish his question, Sherlock reaches into his pocket and pulls it out, briefly hesitating before handing it to him. A smile reaches John’s lips, but it’s not really a good once, or a nice one for that matter. A bit of tongue sticks out as he tries to understand. “I’m sorry; did you take this out of my pocket when I was sleeping?”
Sherlock hasn’t moved from his spot, just outside the cave, almost on top of the foliage cover. He nods, once.
“Any particular reason?” Sherlock looks up and that immediately tells John more than he wanted to know. He’s angry, like Sherlock has disappointed him somehow. “Well no wonder the morphine didn’t even tickle you last night. You do many drugs, back home?”
Sherlock doesn’t answer and shifts on his feet (and cane).
“Is that why they wanted a doctor with you at all times? God, how did you end up in here anyway? Surely someone like you didn’t offer”. John sidesteps him and retrieves his bag. “Happen to take anything from here, too? Mmm?” Sherlock’s no longer looking at him; he’s looking past him, through him, into the distance. It’s not the first time he’s heard this song, that much is clear, and yet... “here, lean on the hill, I need to redress your bandages.” After crossing the bag over his chest, he opens the pouch to find the syrettes exactly as he left them; he opens the unused one, breaks the seal and motions Sherlock for him to lift his shirt sleeve. Surely he finds the old marks of needles in there, but he purposefully ignores them (or at least tells himself to do so). He finds a vein and just as he’s about to inject Sherlock, the aforementioned decides to talk.
“Shouldn’t you keep this one for yourself? I mean, you did get shot in the shoulder, and even though I’m sure you gave excellent and accurate instructions to your mates on how to take the bullet out -under the circumstances, I mean- I sincerely doubt they did half a decent job.” John hesitates, just a fraction of a second, and then plunges the needle in. Sherlock winces almost imperceptibly, almost.
“As much as I admire your attempt at altruism, you’re my responsibility, whether you like it or not. You’re a civilian, not only that, but an asset to the army. It’s my duty to take you back to safety.” Sherlock swallowed audibly and retrieved his arm from John’s grasp. “Now, I need you to take that off, so I can change the bandages.”
They go through this awkward task of trying not to mind the other’s sighs of exasperation and pain. John opens a paper packet and sprinkles the yellowish powder on top of Sherlock’s injuries and then wraps him again on the support bandages, after he’s done, he instructs Sherlock to take three deep breaths and coaches him through it (not that he really wants to, but it’s his job, and he takes pride on a job well done).
He can tell the morphine is already working. Sherlock has that certain glaze in his eyes, and his movements are slower now. He also looks stupidly content, which reminds him way too much of the last time he saw his sister, and that’s one of the many things he doesn’t want to dwell on. So he continues working on the head injury which has been healing just fine and no longer needs a dressing. It’s got a nice bruise all around it, though, and eventually the black and blue from the eyebrow is going to move below and give him quite a shiner on the right eye. He expects that will actually annoy the hell out of Sherlock, he almost wishes so.
When he’s done with him, he takes care of himself, carefully stripping the shoulder bandage away; caked blood tearing away skin, his eyes filling with tears (which he blinks away in an effort to concentrate on the task at hand). Once the bandage is out, the real extent of the damage becomes clear. There’s a large bruise that goes down his arm and torso, and up his neck, all revolving around a red angry blotch of poorly stitched skin. It was a through and through. A small calibre by the looks of it, but not less painful because of it. The real torture probably was having to stay awake during the entire procedure, as to give proper instructions for the stitching of important tissues and vessels.
A through-and-through; not like he had thought at first, but it does signify a cleaner wound (there’s always something), however John will be lucky if he only ends up losing his arm. It’s bound to get infected and eventually gangrened, if only they could speed up their journey… but there’s no sense in even thinking about it, he has a busted knee and John has a… well he’s not sure what’s wrong with his leg yet, sometimes it’s even as if he’s forgotten all about it, and then, the limping’s back. He’s quite aware that he’s staring and mapping every centimetre of John’s body, but he can’t help it, he can practically make out where the fists connected with his stomach, and where a boot bruised the back, if he were closer he could also tell the size. From this distance he can, however, tell what came first and what came later. First he got shot, then he got “roughed up” (as John’s so mildly put it) and then, kicked some more. Sherlock had only been vaguely aware of John’s experience before they met (as in, he vaguely acknowledges that knowing wherever John was before doesn’t really help or worsen the dilemma they’re in now), but he’s seen enough of it. He fidgets with his torso bandages, which suddenly feel too tight to breathe properly.
When John finishes cleaning and redressing his wound, giving it the same sulphanilamide treatment he gave to Sherlock, he’s presented with an image of the latter fidgeting with his bandages and wheezing as the weight of his upper body collapses into the broken ribs.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m dealing with a child,” he mutters as he steps closer. He sorts Sherlock’s bandages (probably a little more forcefully than strictly necessary) and just as he’s finishing they can hear faint giggling to their backs, just over the hill.
Giggling?. Sherlock and John stare at each other, confusion getting the best of them.
“Tais-toi!”, it’s a child’s voice. John can easily recognise it as a girl’s admonishing someone else, but he’s even more surprised when Sherlock perks up and answers in French. What he says exactly, is forever lost in his brain, but he knows enough words to make out the general message; that roughly being “who’s there”.
“Are you insane? You don’t know who’s on the other side?” John whispers.
“Oh please, it’s only children, don’t be so dramatic”, Sherlock answers as he goes around the hill, looking for a place he can climb without too much trouble
“Dramatic? Oh, gee, I keep forgetting we’re only stranded behind enemy lines”, there’s no use in saying this, though, as Sherlock is already climbing up the slope, leaving John behind to pick up after him.
Sherlock’s shirt’s still open from when John fixed (for a second time) his bandages. He plants his foot on the slope and pushes up with the help of the cane, his shirt tails gingerly fluffing at his sides.
His pain level has greatly subdued and his mood seems to be improving by the minute. On the other side of the hill there’s a house, and a house where there’s children it’s bound to have food.
John gathers their things the best he can and follows. By the time he climbs up the slope, Sherlock’s already talking to both children (quite animatedly); he must be telling a joke, because both kids are laughing.
The girl’s wearing a flowery dress, with a heavy red coat on top. She looks about seven and laughs with a hand half-covering her mouth. Her hair is braided and, holding the braids, two silky, red strings of fabric. The boy, her brother by the looks of it, looks around five and is laughing too. When they see John appear, they both stiffen a bit and start to back out, their eyes moving from Sherlock to John and back again.
Sherlock puts himself between John and the children and gestures to himself and then to John. He can only make out one word in there, as Sherlock is talking significantly faster now: “English”.
“John, would you mind to lower your rifle?”
Jesus, of course children get scared around these things, what has he thinking!
He lowers it and puts it over his shoulder. He’s about to say something when a scream cuts through the conversation and the boy yells “Maman!” and makes a run for it, the girl looks stunned and rooted to the ground, tears lurking just over the edge of her eyes.
The house is something like thirty or forty metres away, the woman who had screamed before is running towards them, and sure enough, there’s a man running just after her. He’s got a gun.
“Tell her to go, tell her to go to her parents.”
--------------
Notes: Tais-toi! is french for "Shut up".