Prompting Part XXXII
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GUIDELINES
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“Okay,” Sherlock says, “if it satisfies you, I wasn’t willing, but it’s already forgiven. Don’t make a mess of this, John. It’s not the things people do to each other that really matter, not in the end, when it’s over, when we’re finished, it’s how we decide to act on them afterwards - ”
“Stop it,” John says. “God, just listen to yourself.”
“One end of a leather belt doesn’t make for a very strong knot; you knew that,” Sherlock continues on without stopping. “You’re deluding yourself if you think for one second that I was at your mercy.”
“You told me to stop and I didn’t.”
Sherlock waves his hand, frowning.
John closes his eyes and takes long, steadying breaths.
“You need to get checked out.”
“I don’t see the point, although you can easily do it,” Sherlock says. “I trust you.”
“No, I really can’t,” John says.
“Then I will,” Sherlock says, standing. John stays on the bed and watches him leave. From the other side of the wall he can hear Sherlock moving around, and it’s so close, so alarmingly close, to normal. He gets up sluggishly and pulls on his clothes.
Sherlock re-emerges from the bathroom, hair combed, shirt tucked in, ear bandaged, and his expression is still and unfaltering.
“Let me move back in.”
“Tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. Let me move back in.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because if I can’t look at you without hating myself now, later, maybe not right away, but eventually, I will start hating you too.”
“You’ve barely looked at me at all.”
“You really don’t get it, do you?” John says in wonder, slumping against the wall. “You just can’t even allow yourself to understand.”
“The thought of you hating me,” Sherlock says impatiently, “is the most unbearable thing I could ever imagine. Do you understand? It’s the worst thing that could happen.”
He’s shouting by the end, and before John knows what he’s doing he’s locked himself in the bathroom. Sherlock’s quiet, muffled voice seeps in from under the door, “I don’t fail. Sometimes I make mistakes, but I don’t fail. I expect others to fail me, and they do. You are the exception.”
John gets into the bathtub, turns on the water, and sits under the spray until his clothes hang off him and his skin starts to itch. He looks at the crooked towel rack, at the dust on the light fixture, at the soap scum on the shower curtain, at the objects on the countertop: toothpaste, razor, mouthwash.
He leaves his clothes in a sodden pile and finds something in Sherlock’s room to wear, some leftover t-shirt and jeans from when he’d slept there.
“I look a decade older than I am,” John says, “and you haven’t aged a day.”
Sherlock glances at him. “When you’re ready to hear it, I will tell you everything.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“Yes,” Sherlock says, turning on the kettle, and John looks at the backs of his long hands, and stands there for awhile, for ages, waiting and waiting and waiting.
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I think I'm crying, my god. This entire thing has been intense, and powerful, and just incredibly well-done. Thank you <3
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(OP, not OOP here)
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