Disguise, part 6d/?
anonymous
April 27 2011, 01:57:11 UTC
"Sherlock. Your arse is fine."
"Just fine? I've some ballistics gel moulds upstairs that I can slip into the shorts if I need to make it look more pert."
"Pert?"
"Pert, yes. 'Lively, spritely, in good health.' You've heard the word before, one would think."
"Yes. Yes, of course, just--" sometimes John thinks he should just keep his mouth shut "... just not in relation to my flatmate's buttocks and with an almost academic consideration thereof."
But Sherlock isn't listening. He's bouncing on the balls of his feet, rolling his neck, and clenching and unclenching his fists.
John moves to the chair, setting his tea down and reaching for the newspaper. He's not had the chance to sit for... for the last few days, actually. "Have fun, then," he says.
"Why would you say that?"
"It seemed polite."
"But you're coming."
"To the gym?" John takes a sip of his tea and tries to think what on earth Sherlock might need him to do at a gym. He's a doctor, perhaps observe fitness levels, blood pressure, something along those lines.
"Yes, of course. After you change." Sherlock looks at him expectantly. "Your uniform is upstairs. Off you go."
John chokes on his tea.
"You want me to wear ... that? In public?"
"Of course, John. How else will we be able to observe the entirety of the gym area?"
John takes a breath, presses his lips together to keep himself from laughing. Because he is actually, truly considering this. God help him. Pressing his hands to his thighs, John stands up and looks at Sherlock.
"Alright then. Uniform is upstairs. I assume the requisite ballistics gel moulds for the shorts are up there as well?"
"You don't need them, John. Your arse is well shaped without them."
"... er, thank you."
Sherlock looks at him in surprise. "Why are you thanking me?"
"Never mind." John grins to himself. He takes the stairs two at a time. Upstairs, he pulls off his shirt and unfastens his trousers, humming quietly. The uniform is going to look ridiculous on him; there will probably be some unexpected fiasco they'll have to either: solve or run from, and most likely, John won't get dinner until sometime far past eleven-thirty.
And yet, he doesn't care.
Because -- and not for the first time since returning from Afghanistan -- John Watson truly likes his life.
Re: Disguise, part 6d/?
anonymous
April 27 2011, 02:13:29 UTC
LOL! Oh yes, this is hilarious. I would love to see them in their gym outfits.
John rolls his eyes and wonders, for perhaps the thousandth time, if someone in the world is actually toying with him: putting him in absurd situations on purpose and laughing at him from above.
Yes, John, there are in fact many anons toying with you. :]
Re: Disguise, part 6d/?
anonymous
April 27 2011, 14:34:06 UTC
AMAZING. I love how John not only takes this madness in stride, but also just totally runs with it. given the prompt, it should be completely cracky but is somehow just awesome. LOVE THIS
Disguise, part 7a/?
anonymous
May 8 2011, 17:34:18 UTC
a/n: this part is divided into four comments. It appears that we're finally getting to the actual meat of the prompt. :) Thank you so much for all of the encouragement (and links to gorgeous arses!) so far. ♥
~*~
John whistles to himself as he moves around the kitchen, putting away dishes and taking great pleasure in binning various leftover experiments that Sherlock's long abandoned.
Even though he's had, maybe, four hours of sleep, John feels great. His muscles are pleasantly sentient to their excursion last night and he's well aware that he's got a stupid grin on his face.
The kettle's just started boiling when John hears Sherlock's footsteps moving to the loo upstairs. He pours water into two cups and starts fixing them each a cup of tea.
"I've got a cuppa for you," he calls when he hears Sherlock's footsteps on the stairs. "I wasn't sure when you'd be coming down, but I heard you coming and deduced that you'd want one."
"How maddeningly clever you are," Sherlock drawls.
"Just one of the perks of living with a reclusive genius," John says. He picks up the teacups and turns to face Sherlock in the entryway. "I'm on two shifts today, so I won't be back until--"
John's blood runs into ice. Both cups slip from his hand and crash to the floor.
"You," he says coldly.
Sherlock looks at him blankly; the warm smile on his face fades.
"I'm sorry?"
"You're the--" John's anger is a white storm inside him. That face. That smile. And god, all those words, words, words that he'd tried so hard to forget. It's been so long -- so bloody long -- but it all comes rushing back. Rushing back and crowding into his mind with memories, wishes, desires ... all dashed in the blink of an eye. John's vision starts to tunnel and he can barely see. He has to -- needs to -- get out of here.
"John? What is it?"
John won't look at him, can't look at him. It's all been a lie. A fucking lie. All those years and now it's happening all over again.
"I can't do this," John says. He moves past Sherlock in the doorway, his skin crawling, and walks out. Leaves everything behind.
~*~
John is more than preoccupied during his entire shift.
Even after walking the entire way to the surgery. Recently he'd been splurging on cabs more often than not, but his mind had been churning so viciously as he walked out of their flat and he knew that he would bite someone's head off if he didn't find a way to calm himself down.
Sarah waves at him as he comes in. John can do more than nod at her, escaping to the examination room and brewing a stiff cup of tea, then discarding it in anger.
The first patient he sees (a young woman, clearly in Uni) is for nothing more complicated than a shot, but his mind feels foggy throughout the entire consultation. Twice the woman rouses him from his reverie with a gentle: "Doctor?" as he's poised in mid-injection. Once he finds himself poised with the needle dangerously close to her chin. That won't do. At all.
He is able to rouse himself just enough to administer the shot, make some notes on her chart, offer a falsely cheerful pleasantry or two, and send her off to Prudence with a note that he needs a few minutes to call the lab for some other patient's results.
As the woman (he can't remember her name) walks out, the sharp ginger of her hair swirls in his vision and his mind closes in on itself, blocking out everything but John's belaboured thoughts.
Disguise, part 7b/?
anonymous
May 8 2011, 17:34:46 UTC
November 1992 -- Wild Things
John dances with abandon in the middle of the dance floor. He's out with a few mates from medical school, having (a lot of) drinks and letting off some much deserved steam. They've just finished dissecting an entire cadaver; John can name each muscle, bone, and nerve, and it's high time he got well and truly pissed.
As the night wears on, his mates beg off one by one, but John's not tired, not interested in going back to his small, cramped flat and waking up back to the reality of medicine, done wrong. No, John needs tonight. He needs to let loose, forget about life, school, reality, and just pretend for a night that he's a normal bloke with a normal life. Not a scholarship student with a drunk for an older sister and an orphan, to boot.
He feels eyes on him and turns around, his face heating when he catches the eye of a bloke over by the bar. He's tall, ginger, and very lean. His legs seem to go on forever. His nose is sharp, and his hair is very clearly full of product to make it curl and fall so attractively. John can feel his gaze travel up his body, stopping at his waist, then chest, before he looks back into John's eyes and smiles. The smile is what does it -- it's almost shy, as though he didn't mean to be caught checking John out so obviously.
John must be drunk, must be out of his mind, because (bloody hell) he can feel his body start to respond. Warmth spreads through him, fills his head, and he looks around for a moment.
He looks back up at the bloke across the room, the coloured lighting of the nightclub painting his hair. The bloke smiles at him, lifts his drink.
Why the bloody hell not?
John nods at him, then crosses the room deliberately.
May 2010
The buzzer sounds, startling John and he blinks rapidly. He hasn't thought about that in years. Not since ... well, not since everything went to hell following that night.
He yawns, for want of something better to do, scrubs his hands over his eyes, and digs the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
"Get a bloody grip," he whispers to himself, then answers the buzzer.
Two hours later, he's on his fifth patient and counting down the hours left in this shift. His concentration is shit and he can't remember a single detail about any of the people he's seen all morning.
"... so, I've this rash on -- on my, er, down there." The man (what was his name?) sitting on the table goes red and gestures toward his crotch. "It's -- I've had it a while now, and I just --" He looks at John, his eyes almost pleading.
"It's all right, Mr--" what was his name? "Mr... uh--"
" ... Tyler."
John tries to smile. "I'll have a look and we'll get you fixed up, Mr Tyler. He gestures to the folded garment laying on the edge of the table. "Go ahead and remove your trousers and pants, let the gown open in back, and I'll be back in a moment to examine you."
He steps out of the examination room, pulls the door shut, and leans against the wall. Today is really not his best day.
Disguise, part 7c/?
anonymous
May 8 2011, 17:35:25 UTC
November 1992 -- Wild Things
It didn't take them long. Not long at all.
One drink, then a brief but dizzying snog in the loo, and John follows Brad home without a second thought. His mind is helplessly blank and he can't take his eyes off Brad's body as he walks. John thinks he must be a dancer, or at least a performer of some kind, because he is unreasonably fluid with every movement, even walking up the bloody stairs.
Once they're inside, Brad crowds John back against the door, sliding his hands under John's tee shirt and licking a slow, sexy line at the edge of John's jaw. "God, you're lovely," he whispers, his lips a maddening tease at John's ear, "compact and smart, and perfect to unwrap."
John's stomach flips dangerously. It's been a long time since he's got off with anyone, but with every push of Brad's body against John's, it's impossibly difficult to forget that he's actually doing this with a man.
Brad has got to be younger than John -- how is he so fine with this? But then he swoops his body against John's in a slow wave: knees thighs groin stomach chest and John ... John just -- god, he wants this, his mind be damned. Fuck it, he thinks, fuck it all. Brad's teeth score his neck and John hears himself gasp, and then-- then, he just lets go.
May 2010
John empties his pockets of crumpled prescription pad papers, sweets wrappers, and four pens that clearly must have multiplied as he's quite sure he's only used one or two today at most. It takes far longer than it ought to, but his mind feels like it's an old computer running far too many programs at once, sluggish and unresponsive to even the simplest things.
Sarah walks down the hallway with a chart in her hand. "John? Did you order insulin for Mrs. Vintner?"
John has to think about that for a long moment. Vintner... was it the older woman? Or the thirty-two year old?
"Which one was she, then?" John wonders aloud. "'Cat lady?' Or 'afraid of sex?'"
Sarah looks at him like his mother used to just before she would use her 'I'm extremely disappointed in you, John' voice. She frowns but says nothing, simply looking down at the chart. "Caucasian female," she reads. "Late 60's."
John pauses a moment, dragging his fingertips over the edges of his white coat and digging them into his pockets. He's blanking on the exact result of her exam. It was--
"I'm sure that's right, yeah."
"Did you read her chart?"
"Of course I read her chart."
"John." Sarah's voice goes dangerously low. "You ordered a generic insulin for a diabetic woman over the age of sixty-three who has a history of allergies to animal insulin."
John's heart drops. He looks at the orders on the chart: his own jerky handwriting, then skims over the medical history in her file. Sarah's right. He'd ordered it without even thinking, without even checking her chart.
"I can't have done," he whispers.
Sarah looks at him with concern. There's a small wrinkle between her eyebrows that he doesn't see very often, only when she's very worried. Sarah is not a worrier.
"John. Are you alright?"
John's mind races with possibilities. Had Sarah not caught this, Mrs. Vintner might have gone into shock and possibly died. John could have been responsible for the death of one of their patients, and all for a stupid, first year medical student oversight.
"I'm fine. Thanks for catching that. I don't know how I missed it."
The wrinkle between Sarah's eyebrows deepens. She asks again, "Are you alright, John?"
Disguise, part 7d/?
anonymous
May 8 2011, 17:36:31 UTC
December 1992 -- Southeast London
John wakes up with a start, rubbing his eyes and groaning at himself when he feels the puddle of drool soaking his pillowcase. The sunlight shining through his window is bright. So bright. Too bright.
Bloody fucking hell.
He sits up in bed and blinks at the clock. He's late. Late again, and, god, this time he might not be able to talk his way out of it. He rolls out of bed and stumbles around the room, grabbing trousers and tee shirts and sniffing them until he finds one that smells less offensive than the others, and pulls them on as he looks wildly around the tiny flat for his satchel.
When he finds it, he tears out of the and heads to Saint Bart's. It takes a full five minutes before he realizes that he's got no shoes on.
May 2010
John stands in the middle of the empty examination room with his hands clenched. Every time he relaxes them they start to shake. And not in any of that 'intermittent tremor' shit that his therapist likes to talk about. Full on, teeth-rattling, actual shakes of his hand. John wants to throw things. He wants to beat his fists into the wall, render every piece of furniture in the room useless, and howl out his rage. He wants to throttle Sherlock, tear the bloody disguise in pieces from his body and push him... punch him, shout at him, shake him until he's merely normal and ask whywhywhywhywhy
Rage fills him, gets under his skin and bursts out unexpectedly. John's skin is fire, and he's actually surprised when he looks down and doesn't see charred flesh.
The door opens and Sarah comes in, holding a chart. He takes a long, low breath and presses his lips together for a moment before he can open his mouth.
"How is Mrs. Vintner?"
"She's fine. Nothing permanent, John."
John presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He wants to ask if she's sacking him. He wants to apologise for his negligence, should offer his resignation, but he can't open his mouth. He can't stop the fear growing inside him that today is the day he's about to lose everything.
Again.
"John." Sarah's voice is quiet. He doesn't look at her. "John, are you alright?"
"Fine."
"John." Sarah tries again. "Is there something you want to talk about? Something going on?"
He doesn't say anything. He can't. What would he say? 'Oh, it's nothing, just I saw the first bloke I ever shagged again today and, whoa ... as it turns out, it's my flatmate, and he's just been toying with me all this bloody time. Or maybe: 'yeah, no worries, Sarah. Just had a flashback to something I thought was an amazing night from my past that ended up only being some meaningless shag, completely did my head in enough that it nearly cost me medical school and my scholarship -- which I tried for years to forget -- and oh, by the way, it was Sherlock and now I want to hurt things.'
"Are we done?" he asks, gestures to the stack of charts on the desk. "... paperwork, yeah?"
She looks at him for a long moment and takes a deep, obvious breath.
"Alright, yeah, paperwork. Don't come in tomorrow, John--" she looks at him sharply, but her eyes are soft. "Take a day or two, please."
His throat tightens. "Alright, yeah. Sarah, thanks."
John watches her as she leaves. He doesn't deserve her kindness.
Oh wow! This is brilliant! I love how you've just jumped from a seemingly amazing night to a month later, so we see how John's been suffering but we don't know yet exactly what Sherlock said/did that messed him up so much. I can't wait to see him talk to Sherlock again!
Re: Disguise, part 7d/?
anonymous
May 9 2011, 00:11:44 UTC
My spleen ruptured during the epic flailing that overcame me when I saw a new part had been posted. Then I promptly passed out in agony when I got to the end.
It was glorious. But not as glorious as this fic. I can't wait to see the confrontation between John and Sherlock. OMG. I'm seriously on edge.
Please don't make us wait too long for the next part, I beg of you!
"Just fine? I've some ballistics gel moulds upstairs that I can slip into the shorts if I need to make it look more pert."
"Pert?"
"Pert, yes. 'Lively, spritely, in good health.' You've heard the word before, one would think."
"Yes. Yes, of course, just--" sometimes John thinks he should just keep his mouth shut "... just not in relation to my flatmate's buttocks and with an almost academic consideration thereof."
But Sherlock isn't listening. He's bouncing on the balls of his feet, rolling his neck, and clenching and unclenching his fists.
John moves to the chair, setting his tea down and reaching for the newspaper. He's not had the chance to sit for... for the last few days, actually. "Have fun, then," he says.
"Why would you say that?"
"It seemed polite."
"But you're coming."
"To the gym?" John takes a sip of his tea and tries to think what on earth Sherlock might need him to do at a gym. He's a doctor, perhaps observe fitness levels, blood pressure, something along those lines.
"Yes, of course. After you change." Sherlock looks at him expectantly. "Your uniform is upstairs. Off you go."
John chokes on his tea.
"You want me to wear ... that? In public?"
"Of course, John. How else will we be able to observe the entirety of the gym area?"
John takes a breath, presses his lips together to keep himself from laughing. Because he is actually, truly considering this. God help him. Pressing his hands to his thighs, John stands up and looks at Sherlock.
"Alright then. Uniform is upstairs. I assume the requisite ballistics gel moulds for the shorts are up there as well?"
"You don't need them, John. Your arse is well shaped without them."
"... er, thank you."
Sherlock looks at him in surprise. "Why are you thanking me?"
"Never mind." John grins to himself. He takes the stairs two at a time. Upstairs, he pulls off his shirt and unfastens his trousers, humming quietly. The uniform is going to look ridiculous on him; there will probably be some unexpected fiasco they'll have to either: solve or run from, and most likely, John won't get dinner until sometime far past eleven-thirty.
And yet, he doesn't care.
Because -- and not for the first time since returning from Afghanistan -- John Watson truly likes his life.
~*~
-end part 6-
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John rolls his eyes and wonders, for perhaps the thousandth time, if someone in the world is actually toying with him: putting him in absurd situations on purpose and laughing at him from above.
Yes, John, there are in fact many anons toying with you. :]
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~*~
John whistles to himself as he moves around the kitchen, putting away dishes and taking great pleasure in binning various leftover experiments that Sherlock's long abandoned.
Even though he's had, maybe, four hours of sleep, John feels great. His muscles are pleasantly sentient to their excursion last night and he's well aware that he's got a stupid grin on his face.
The kettle's just started boiling when John hears Sherlock's footsteps moving to the loo upstairs. He pours water into two cups and starts fixing them each a cup of tea.
"I've got a cuppa for you," he calls when he hears Sherlock's footsteps on the stairs. "I wasn't sure when you'd be coming down, but I heard you coming and deduced that you'd want one."
"How maddeningly clever you are," Sherlock drawls.
"Just one of the perks of living with a reclusive genius," John says. He picks up the teacups and turns to face Sherlock in the entryway. "I'm on two shifts today, so I won't be back until--"
John's blood runs into ice. Both cups slip from his hand and crash to the floor.
"You," he says coldly.
Sherlock looks at him blankly; the warm smile on his face fades.
"I'm sorry?"
"You're the--" John's anger is a white storm inside him. That face. That smile. And god, all those words, words, words that he'd tried so hard to forget. It's been so long -- so bloody long -- but it all comes rushing back. Rushing back and crowding into his mind with memories, wishes, desires ... all dashed in the blink of an eye. John's vision starts to tunnel and he can barely see. He has to -- needs to -- get out of here.
"John? What is it?"
John won't look at him, can't look at him. It's all been a lie. A fucking lie. All those years and now it's happening all over again.
"I can't do this," John says. He moves past Sherlock in the doorway, his skin crawling, and walks out. Leaves everything behind.
~*~
John is more than preoccupied during his entire shift.
Even after walking the entire way to the surgery. Recently he'd been splurging on cabs more often than not, but his mind had been churning so viciously as he walked out of their flat and he knew that he would bite someone's head off if he didn't find a way to calm himself down.
Sarah waves at him as he comes in. John can do more than nod at her, escaping to the examination room and brewing a stiff cup of tea, then discarding it in anger.
The first patient he sees (a young woman, clearly in Uni) is for nothing more complicated than a shot, but his mind feels foggy throughout the entire consultation. Twice the woman rouses him from his reverie with a gentle: "Doctor?" as he's poised in mid-injection. Once he finds himself poised with the needle dangerously close to her chin. That won't do. At all.
He is able to rouse himself just enough to administer the shot, make some notes on her chart, offer a falsely cheerful pleasantry or two, and send her off to Prudence with a note that he needs a few minutes to call the lab for some other patient's results.
As the woman (he can't remember her name) walks out, the sharp ginger of her hair swirls in his vision and his mind closes in on itself, blocking out everything but John's belaboured thoughts.
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November 1992 -- Wild Things
John dances with abandon in the middle of the dance floor. He's out with a few mates from medical school, having (a lot of) drinks and letting off some much deserved steam. They've just finished dissecting an entire cadaver; John can name each muscle, bone, and nerve, and it's high time he got well and truly pissed.
As the night wears on, his mates beg off one by one, but John's not tired, not interested in going back to his small, cramped flat and waking up back to the reality of medicine, done wrong. No, John needs tonight. He needs to let loose, forget about life, school, reality, and just pretend for a night that he's a normal bloke with a normal life. Not a scholarship student with a drunk for an older sister and an orphan, to boot.
He feels eyes on him and turns around, his face heating when he catches the eye of a bloke over by the bar. He's tall, ginger, and very lean. His legs seem to go on forever. His nose is sharp, and his hair is very clearly full of product to make it curl and fall so attractively. John can feel his gaze travel up his body, stopping at his waist, then chest, before he looks back into John's eyes and smiles. The smile is what does it -- it's almost shy, as though he didn't mean to be caught checking John out so obviously.
John must be drunk, must be out of his mind, because (bloody hell) he can feel his body start to respond. Warmth spreads through him, fills his head, and he looks around for a moment.
He looks back up at the bloke across the room, the coloured lighting of the nightclub painting his hair. The bloke smiles at him, lifts his drink.
Why the bloody hell not?
John nods at him, then crosses the room deliberately.
May 2010
The buzzer sounds, startling John and he blinks rapidly. He hasn't thought about that in years. Not since ... well, not since everything went to hell following that night.
He yawns, for want of something better to do, scrubs his hands over his eyes, and digs the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
"Get a bloody grip," he whispers to himself, then answers the buzzer.
Two hours later, he's on his fifth patient and counting down the hours left in this shift. His concentration is shit and he can't remember a single detail about any of the people he's seen all morning.
"... so, I've this rash on -- on my, er, down there." The man (what was his name?) sitting on the table goes red and gestures toward his crotch. "It's -- I've had it a while now, and I just --" He looks at John, his eyes almost pleading.
"It's all right, Mr--" what was his name? "Mr... uh--"
" ... Tyler."
John tries to smile. "I'll have a look and we'll get you fixed up, Mr Tyler. He gestures to the folded garment laying on the edge of the table. "Go ahead and remove your trousers and pants, let the gown open in back, and I'll be back in a moment to examine you."
He steps out of the examination room, pulls the door shut, and leans against the wall. Today is really not his best day.
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November 1992 -- Wild Things
It didn't take them long. Not long at all.
One drink, then a brief but dizzying snog in the loo, and John follows Brad home without a second thought. His mind is helplessly blank and he can't take his eyes off Brad's body as he walks. John thinks he must be a dancer, or at least a performer of some kind, because he is unreasonably fluid with every movement, even walking up the bloody stairs.
Once they're inside, Brad crowds John back against the door, sliding his hands under John's tee shirt and licking a slow, sexy line at the edge of John's jaw. "God, you're lovely," he whispers, his lips a maddening tease at John's ear, "compact and smart, and perfect to unwrap."
John's stomach flips dangerously. It's been a long time since he's got off with anyone, but with every push of Brad's body against John's, it's impossibly difficult to forget that he's actually doing this with a man.
Brad has got to be younger than John -- how is he so fine with this? But then he swoops his body against John's in a slow wave: knees thighs groin stomach chest and John ... John just -- god, he wants this, his mind be damned. Fuck it, he thinks, fuck it all. Brad's teeth score his neck and John hears himself gasp, and then-- then, he just lets go.
May 2010
John empties his pockets of crumpled prescription pad papers, sweets wrappers, and four pens that clearly must have multiplied as he's quite sure he's only used one or two today at most. It takes far longer than it ought to, but his mind feels like it's an old computer running far too many programs at once, sluggish and unresponsive to even the simplest things.
Sarah walks down the hallway with a chart in her hand. "John? Did you order insulin for Mrs. Vintner?"
John has to think about that for a long moment. Vintner... was it the older woman? Or the thirty-two year old?
"Which one was she, then?" John wonders aloud. "'Cat lady?' Or 'afraid of sex?'"
Sarah looks at him like his mother used to just before she would use her 'I'm extremely disappointed in you, John' voice. She frowns but says nothing, simply looking down at the chart. "Caucasian female," she reads. "Late 60's."
John pauses a moment, dragging his fingertips over the edges of his white coat and digging them into his pockets. He's blanking on the exact result of her exam. It was--
"I'm sure that's right, yeah."
"Did you read her chart?"
"Of course I read her chart."
"John." Sarah's voice goes dangerously low. "You ordered a generic insulin for a diabetic woman over the age of sixty-three who has a history of allergies to animal insulin."
John's heart drops. He looks at the orders on the chart: his own jerky handwriting, then skims over the medical history in her file. Sarah's right. He'd ordered it without even thinking, without even checking her chart.
"I can't have done," he whispers.
Sarah looks at him with concern. There's a small wrinkle between her eyebrows that he doesn't see very often, only when she's very worried. Sarah is not a worrier.
"John. Are you alright?"
John's mind races with possibilities. Had Sarah not caught this, Mrs. Vintner might have gone into shock and possibly died. John could have been responsible for the death of one of their patients, and all for a stupid, first year medical student oversight.
"I'm fine. Thanks for catching that. I don't know how I missed it."
The wrinkle between Sarah's eyebrows deepens. She asks again, "Are you alright, John?"
"I'm fine, Sarah. I am."
His heart won't stop racing.
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December 1992 -- Southeast London
John wakes up with a start, rubbing his eyes and groaning at himself when he feels the puddle of drool soaking his pillowcase. The sunlight shining through his window is bright. So bright. Too bright.
Bloody fucking hell.
He sits up in bed and blinks at the clock. He's late. Late again, and, god, this time he might not be able to talk his way out of it. He rolls out of bed and stumbles around the room, grabbing trousers and tee shirts and sniffing them until he finds one that smells less offensive than the others, and pulls them on as he looks wildly around the tiny flat for his satchel.
When he finds it, he tears out of the and heads to Saint Bart's. It takes a full five minutes before he realizes that he's got no shoes on.
May 2010
John stands in the middle of the empty examination room with his hands clenched. Every time he relaxes them they start to shake. And not in any of that 'intermittent tremor' shit that his therapist likes to talk about. Full on, teeth-rattling, actual shakes of his hand. John wants to throw things. He wants to beat his fists into the wall, render every piece of furniture in the room useless, and howl out his rage. He wants to throttle Sherlock, tear the bloody disguise in pieces from his body and push him... punch him, shout at him, shake him until he's merely normal and ask whywhywhywhywhy
Rage fills him, gets under his skin and bursts out unexpectedly. John's skin is fire, and he's actually surprised when he looks down and doesn't see charred flesh.
The door opens and Sarah comes in, holding a chart. He takes a long, low breath and presses his lips together for a moment before he can open his mouth.
"How is Mrs. Vintner?"
"She's fine. Nothing permanent, John."
John presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He wants to ask if she's sacking him. He wants to apologise for his negligence, should offer his resignation, but he can't open his mouth. He can't stop the fear growing inside him that today is the day he's about to lose everything.
Again.
"John." Sarah's voice is quiet. He doesn't look at her. "John, are you alright?"
"Fine."
"John." Sarah tries again. "Is there something you want to talk about? Something going on?"
He doesn't say anything. He can't. What would he say? 'Oh, it's nothing, just I saw the first bloke I ever shagged again today and, whoa ... as it turns out, it's my flatmate, and he's just been toying with me all this bloody time. Or maybe: 'yeah, no worries, Sarah. Just had a flashback to something I thought was an amazing night from my past that ended up only being some meaningless shag, completely did my head in enough that it nearly cost me medical school and my scholarship -- which I tried for years to forget -- and oh, by the way, it was Sherlock and now I want to hurt things.'
"Are we done?" he asks, gestures to the stack of charts on the desk. "... paperwork, yeah?"
She looks at him for a long moment and takes a deep, obvious breath.
"Alright, yeah, paperwork. Don't come in tomorrow, John--" she looks at him sharply, but her eyes are soft. "Take a day or two, please."
His throat tightens. "Alright, yeah. Sarah, thanks."
John watches her as she leaves. He doesn't deserve her kindness.
~*~
-end part 7-
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This is so exciting, but I feel so sad for John. What will become of them!!
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It was glorious. But not as glorious as this fic. I can't wait to see the confrontation between John and Sherlock. OMG. I'm seriously on edge.
Please don't make us wait too long for the next part, I beg of you!
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