Re: Fill: Human For A While, 4c/?
anonymous
June 26 2011, 23:34:04 UTC
Human For A While
Part Five: Sherlock
Too many watchers, so close to home: he'd always known he couldn't escape their surveillance forever. His luck had run out at last; the storm broke over his head.
His brother tried to order him not to go back there again, which was frankly absurd. As if Sherlock was going to do what he said.
When that didn't work, he claimed Sherlock had broken the rules in going to John in the first place. Said there was no record of a summoning.
“Then your records are wrong,” Sherlock snapped. Trust Mycroft to make a mess of things.
His mother was just as upset and angry as he'd feared: “This man's family nearly destroyed yours, Sherlock; don't you care about that at all?”
Always talking about the history. Why did everyone behave as if the only things that could happen were the ones that had happened before?
If Mycroft's records were anything to go by, history couldn't be trusted anyway. Probably all of it was equally distorted: centuries of carelessness, prejudice and assumptions.
And if the history was wrong, maybe the rules were too. Maybe there was a way to escape them. Or rewrite them.
There had to be a way. Not here, but somewhere.
When Sherlock impulsively said he'd go with him to London, John looked so happy it took his breath away, then kissed Sherlock as if he was trying to crush the life out of him.
After that it was too late to back out, even if he'd wanted to.
A long way from the sea, and the thought of that made Sherlock breathless in a different way, feeling imagined walls closing in on him. He tried to tell himself the distance would help; too close and he'd be constantly drawn back.
Maybe they'd be safe in the city. Plenty of places they could hide.
He knew his way around London by now; the city had been his refuge from the breeding-grounds in autumn and winter, year after year. Escaping the monotonous cycle of courtship and reproduction, the weight of expectation that dragged him down. His family's obsession with lineage and heredity, the duty of perpetuating your kind. He didn't want any part of it.
He liked the anonymity of crowds: wave after wave of people passing through the city and none of them his. There were watchers here, too, but the security cameras seemed blessedly impersonal.
The disguise he wore made it easy to slip away from these strangers, even from those who thought they knew him. Better than a cloak of invisibility: they saw a drug addict and never looked beyond the label. If he wasn't around, they just assumed he was out of his skull somewhere, or maybe trying to get clean.
The city's mysteries and riddles pleased him, suited him. He'd explored its hidden alleyways and secret places, tracing forgotten paths and boundaries long since blurred to near-invisibility. Buried streets and lost rivers, read about but seldom or never seen.
There were other mysteries there, too, if you knew where to look or how to invite them. Puzzles and games for a mind that rebelled at stagnation. Too easy to satisfy him for long, but he always hoped for something better, harder, a challenge to test him to the limits, an opponent worthy of him.
He'd played in that world alone, and always on his own terms. It felt strange, revisiting it now with someone by his side.
^^^^Fill: Human For a While, 5a/?^^^^; this part 5b/?
anonymous
June 26 2011, 23:37:31 UTC
He wanted to be with John, more than anything in the world. Wanted the daylight hours as well as the dark, wanted people to look at him and envy him. He's with me. What he knew already was enough to make anyone proud to call this man their own: loyal and brave, a healer and a warrior. A man who had seen the world, but who looked at Sherlock as if he was the most amazing thing that had ever been since before the world was made. It was intoxicating, that look. He wanted to make it happen again and again, in bed and out of it. Wanted it to burn into him, till he was imprinted with John's gaze, an invisible legend stamped on his skin like the marks of John's mouth and his hands.
But John was working, and the hours passed too slowly when he was away. Sherlock had never lived like this in the city before, day after day without respite. Even this far south, the long summer days made him feel stretched out beyond bearing, longing to disappear beneath the waves.
The first time Sherlock bolted, he was gone forty-eight hours. John didn't need to tell him he'd counted every one of them; it was written all over him.
Seeing John like that, bleached with pain and exhaustion, hurt him in ways he couldn't explain. He'd never felt like that before. But then he'd never felt those other things before either. The intensity of passion that lifted him so far outside himself he was scared he'd never get back again. The longing that felt like a string tied tight around his heart and pulling, pulling right through his body and out of it, all the way to John's. As strong as the pull of being too long away from the sea, the one that forced him to run, not stopping to tell John where or why or even to say he was going.
“You can't do this to me,” John said. His fists were clenched by his side; Sherlock could feel the tamped-down violence coming off him in waves.
“I'm sorry,” he said, the word still unfamiliar in his mouth.
“Christ, Sherlock, I thought you were dead. Do you have any idea what that was like?”
A flash of it, yes, but his mind wouldn't hold the thought, too big, too overwhelming, making him feel he was falling apart.
“Promise me you won't disappear again,” John said fiercely.
He couldn't promise. He tried to explain, but it was no good. John didn't understand why he couldn't risk making a promise he knew he wouldn't be able to keep.
They took these things more lightly, Sherlock thought. Even if you ended up breaking a promise, they still expected you to make it. Like marriage. The promise itself was a necessary sign, and the failure to make it was an injury.
Fill: Human For a While, 5c/?
anonymous
June 26 2011, 23:38:56 UTC
This quarrel was much worse than the one about the old man. It burnt till there was nothing left but ash, till Sherlock was almost ready to beg for forgiveness. He'd never begged for anything in his life, but he couldn't bear John's cold anger, his withdrawal into silence.
Get out of here, the voices urged him. Run while you still can.
He'd bolted again, a second time and a third, struggling to resist till he couldn't hold out any longer, desperate with longing and fear. And each time it was worse: the agony of being apart from John, even for a single night, and the bitterness and anger between them when he returned.
He couldn't talk about where he'd been, or why he had to go. The words stuck in his throat: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, I never mean to hurt you but I keep doing it and I'll always keep doing it and this is why they said it wouldn't work, I can't stay and I can't go and I'm being torn in two.
The fourth time, scrabbling in disbelief and panic, he found the hiding-place empty.
John had been there before him. The skin was gone.
Part Five: Sherlock
Too many watchers, so close to home: he'd always known he couldn't escape their surveillance forever. His luck had run out at last; the storm broke over his head.
His brother tried to order him not to go back there again, which was frankly absurd. As if Sherlock was going to do what he said.
When that didn't work, he claimed Sherlock had broken the rules in going to John in the first place. Said there was no record of a summoning.
“Then your records are wrong,” Sherlock snapped. Trust Mycroft to make a mess of things.
His mother was just as upset and angry as he'd feared: “This man's family nearly destroyed yours, Sherlock; don't you care about that at all?”
Always talking about the history. Why did everyone behave as if the only things that could happen were the ones that had happened before?
If Mycroft's records were anything to go by, history couldn't be trusted anyway. Probably all of it was equally distorted: centuries of carelessness, prejudice and assumptions.
And if the history was wrong, maybe the rules were too. Maybe there was a way to escape them. Or rewrite them.
There had to be a way. Not here, but somewhere.
When Sherlock impulsively said he'd go with him to London, John looked so happy it took his breath away, then kissed Sherlock as if he was trying to crush the life out of him.
After that it was too late to back out, even if he'd wanted to.
A long way from the sea, and the thought of that made Sherlock breathless in a different way, feeling imagined walls closing in on him. He tried to tell himself the distance would help; too close and he'd be constantly drawn back.
Maybe they'd be safe in the city. Plenty of places they could hide.
He knew his way around London by now; the city had been his refuge from the breeding-grounds in autumn and winter, year after year. Escaping the monotonous cycle of courtship and reproduction, the weight of expectation that dragged him down. His family's obsession with lineage and heredity, the duty of perpetuating your kind. He didn't want any part of it.
He liked the anonymity of crowds: wave after wave of people passing through the city and none of them his. There were watchers here, too, but the security cameras seemed blessedly impersonal.
The disguise he wore made it easy to slip away from these strangers, even from those who thought they knew him. Better than a cloak of invisibility: they saw a drug addict and never looked beyond the label. If he wasn't around, they just assumed he was out of his skull somewhere, or maybe trying to get clean.
The city's mysteries and riddles pleased him, suited him. He'd explored its hidden alleyways and secret places, tracing forgotten paths and boundaries long since blurred to near-invisibility. Buried streets and lost rivers, read about but seldom or never seen.
There were other mysteries there, too, if you knew where to look or how to invite them. Puzzles and games for a mind that rebelled at stagnation. Too easy to satisfy him for long, but he always hoped for something better, harder, a challenge to test him to the limits, an opponent worthy of him.
He'd played in that world alone, and always on his own terms. It felt strange, revisiting it now with someone by his side.
~*~*~*
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But John was working, and the hours passed too slowly when he was away. Sherlock had never lived like this in the city before, day after day without respite. Even this far south, the long summer days made him feel stretched out beyond bearing, longing to disappear beneath the waves.
The first time Sherlock bolted, he was gone forty-eight hours. John didn't need to tell him he'd counted every one of them; it was written all over him.
Seeing John like that, bleached with pain and exhaustion, hurt him in ways he couldn't explain. He'd never felt like that before. But then he'd never felt those other things before either. The intensity of passion that lifted him so far outside himself he was scared he'd never get back again. The longing that felt like a string tied tight around his heart and pulling, pulling right through his body and out of it, all the way to John's. As strong as the pull of being too long away from the sea, the one that forced him to run, not stopping to tell John where or why or even to say he was going.
“You can't do this to me,” John said. His fists were clenched by his side; Sherlock could feel the tamped-down violence coming off him in waves.
“I'm sorry,” he said, the word still unfamiliar in his mouth.
“Christ, Sherlock, I thought you were dead. Do you have any idea what that was like?”
A flash of it, yes, but his mind wouldn't hold the thought, too big, too overwhelming, making him feel he was falling apart.
“Promise me you won't disappear again,” John said fiercely.
He couldn't promise. He tried to explain, but it was no good. John didn't understand why he couldn't risk making a promise he knew he wouldn't be able to keep.
They took these things more lightly, Sherlock thought. Even if you ended up breaking a promise, they still expected you to make it. Like marriage. The promise itself was a necessary sign, and the failure to make it was an injury.
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Get out of here, the voices urged him. Run while you still can.
He'd bolted again, a second time and a third, struggling to resist till he couldn't hold out any longer, desperate with longing and fear. And each time it was worse: the agony of being apart from John, even for a single night, and the bitterness and anger between them when he returned.
He couldn't talk about where he'd been, or why he had to go. The words stuck in his throat: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, I never mean to hurt you but I keep doing it and I'll always keep doing it and this is why they said it wouldn't work, I can't stay and I can't go and I'm being torn in two.
The fourth time, scrabbling in disbelief and panic, he found the hiding-place empty.
John had been there before him. The skin was gone.
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Mycroft says "Pacific unstem," which seems about right
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But that wouldn't work either and DAMMIT, I WANT THIS TO WORK OUT, AND IT CAN'T.
*headdesk* DESTROYING MEEEEEE.
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I can repost it as a response to 5c if it's easier that way - please say if you think I should do that and I will.
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