FIC: Ensconced - Sherlock
Title: Ensconced
Rating: R
Word count: ~3700
Spoilers: 2x03 - "The Reichenbach Fall"
Other formats: AO3
Disclaimer: This is an amateur, not-for-profit work of fiction. No attempt has been made to copyright characters and/or concepts owned by the Sherlock people, nor is any infringement intended on existing copyrights.
A/N: Thanks to the OP and/or the Gently Nagging Nonny.
Warnings: Rape/Non-con, kidnapping
Summary: A fill for the following Kink Meme prompt (excerpted): "Sherlock and John are captured by Bad Guy. They're drugged, and when they wake up they're in an unusual situation: they're in a small room, and Sherlock is halfway through the wall. Seriously. He's lying flat on his back, and is through a hole in the wall up to his waist. . . . John and Sherlock are talking, trying to figure out how to get out, when Sherlock suddenly tells John that on the other side of the wall someone is touching his legs. John realizes what's going to happen before Sherlock does. First he tries to save him, but when he realizes he can't he just tries to get Sherlock through it. . . .
"Super bonus points if Sherlock gets taken more than once. . . .
"Possibly save my soul from Hell (because I am going to hell for this prompt, no questions asked): if it turns out it never really happened. It was a dream, or they were drugged, or something."
Ensconced
The wall itself was hardly extraordinary, windowless and some permutation of beige. Reinforced concrete most likely, given the state of John's knuckles. Partition presumably, given the state of Sherlock Holmes.
"Well done, John," Sherlock muttered as John rocked back and huffed curses, cradling his hand to his chest. For what distinguished this particular wall was the upper body of Sherlock Holmes protruding from it like an upside-down mouse from its mousehole. (An exceptionally clever, stroppy upside-down mouse. From an experiment gone terribly, terribly wrong.)
"Partition presumably. Not load-bearing," Sherlock had catalogued. "Relatively little difference in surface texture or temperature between this side and the other."
This side: a cellar, small and squat, maybe eight square meters all told, the ceiling not two meters from the floor. No doors or vents of any kind, and empty but for them--no furniture, no fixtures, no light source anywhere.
The other: the place on the opposite side of the wall into which Sherlock's middle and lower body disappeared.
Amusing mouse imagery aside, the conditions weren't exactly agreeable. John had used the torch app on Sherlock's mobile to do his initial reconnaissance. "Can't move laterally either?"
"Hardly at all," Sherlock had answered, his tone close to neutral. "John, below my sternum. The materials--"
"Got it." John's fingertips brushed Sherlock's shirt sleeve as the two of them felt along a stainless steel panel. It was embedded somehow in the wall, impounding Sherlock, locking him down at the chest and pinning him onto his back.
John hissed softly. He set the mobile on Sherlock's chest, went at the panel with palms and elbows and fists. It was impossible to come at the thing from the proper angle or with any degree of momentum: it was too low and too narrow and God, fit far too snugly to Sherlock's frame.
(He would not think of IED's and severed men and rockets of blood. He would breathe in the chemicals in the industrial carpet and he would stay put.)
John began to dig about with more urgency, seeking out any fraction of wiggle room. Sherlock lay back, lacing his fingers behind his head.
"Clearly the hole in the wall itself was gouged out prior to my placement here--that would be how the kidnappers got us in. The steel, that was cut to size and installed around me afterward. Given the nature of such an effort it mustn't have been chloroform we were drugged with. Something longer lasting, more stable, but still readily obtainable. High-dose flunitrazepam? Mm. My configuration would be reminiscent--" Sherlock released a high, painful giggle when John grazed a spot under his arm, "--reminiscent of a guillotine, if not for the obvious discrepancies in positioning. No, no, not a guillotine, a Fallbeil, the Mannhardt or the Tegel--oh! Neo-Nazis! John, check to see if--"
It was at this point that John had had his go at the actual wall. He rocked back and huffed curses, cradling his hand to his chest.
"Ah. Reinforced concrete, most likely," muttered Sherlock. "Well done, John."
John muttered in return and sucked at his knuckles. He retrieved the mobile with his other hand, quadruple-checked for a signal. Then he set it back down, this time on the ground at Sherlock's side.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked Sherlock, earning him a dry sidelong glare. "Right, well. Aside from the obvious. Your legs, they're all right?"
Sherlock turned his head to glare more directly but otherwise said nothing.
John pursed his lips, tried a different point of entry. "What about the other room, then? Anything more on that? Anything at all you can deduce from, um, say...testing your range of motion?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Nope," he asserted, popping the final "p" unnecessarily. He pulled his hands out from behind his head and steepled them against his chin.
"Right. Okay. ...Egh," John said, having taken a hit off the fumes from the carpet. Coughing shallowly, he glanced over at Sherlock--at the slight flare of white-rimmed nostrils, the tight spire of long hands.
Right. Okay. As soon as he'd got his breath back, John wriggled out of his jumper, furled it, and had it stuffed beneath Sherlock's head before Sherlock could get half a syllable into his pique.
"What in God's name are you doing. I have no wish to lie here for the rest of eternity on one of your nubby Asda jumpers!"
"Come on, that one's from Mark's!" Oh, Mark's, Sherlock mouthed extravagantly to the ceiling. "Look, it's either my nubby jumper or the nubbier carpeting, and carcinogenic inhalants aside, you can't possibly be comfortable."
"My system is quite inured to carcinogenic inhalants, thank you. And I did not ask for nor do I require your coddling."
John snorted and set to turning up the cuffs of his button-down. Sherlock blew out harshly through his teeth but left the jumper alone.
"Anyway, I'm not sure if you've noticed, Sherlock, but you've been stuck. In a wall. Forgive me for trying to make the situation the tiniest bit more bearable."
Sherlock didn't answer, his gaze prowling the ceiling. The false light from the mobile built shine and shadow in his eyes.
"So, um." John chewed the inside of his cheek. "Neo-Nazis, is it?"
"No," Sherlock said.
John hadn't thought so. He fiddled erratically with the shirt cuffs, tension coiling in his stomach.
**
Now John was just waiting. He was waiting for something to happen. He was waiting with his best friend for something to happen, in the dark and the lull and the swelling heat of some unknown cavity, as the tension in his stomach coiled tighter and tighter.
(He breathed in deeply. His sinuses caught fire, but he anticipated the cough and subdued it.)
A short fff sound escaped Sherlock--he had started severely. John was crouched beside him at once, his calves touching Sherlock's arm. "What?"
"Ah. There's," Sherlock said. He cleared his throat. "There would appear to be," he said.
John reached instinctively for the mobile. He launched the torch app again and performed a rapid sweep: the perimeter of the room, then the perimeter of Sherlock. Sherlock winced into the light, threw his hand up to his cheek.
"Sorry, sorry." John put the mobile down but left the torch app running. "Sherlock, what's happening? There would appear to be--what?"
"My legs. They are being...handled," said Sherlock, slowly.
"Handled," repeated John.
Sherlock cleared his throat again. "Thick fingers, though not ungainly. Large palms. A man, medium height, sturdy build, an athletic sort. Calloused, dry skin, so not posh--a tradesman. Right wrist broken in a violent manner three, perhaps four years ago, never properly healed."
"What exactly is he doing? Is he hurting you?" John would re-break the man's wrist. Then he would break his other wrist. Then his neck.
"Not.... No. No, he--" The rest went missing into the back of Sherlock's hand. John reached out, stiff with care, to maneuver it down and off his cheek.
"He's what? Sherlock. What?"
"He is--fondling--" Sherlock worked his jaw viciously, "--my skin. The skin of my legs."
John would break the man's wrists all right, and his neck, but first he would do more, oh so much more. "Your skin under--" his voice lurched, "--under your trousers?"
"No trousers," Sherlock said.
"What?"
"I've not had--" Sherlock inhaled sharply, his face squeezing, squeezing. "No trousers," he repeated, "and no pants."
"You--this whole time?" John gasped. "This whole time?"
"He's wrapping his hands round my knees."
John's stomach shuddered in warning. "Kick out," he said urgently, leaning forward. "Sherlock, kick out at him. Now, kick out now!"
"Not feasible. Knees and ankles are bound."
"What--what the fuck--you didn't say--"
"Irrelevant," managed Sherlock, "for your purposes. What could you have...." Sherlock's eyes narrowed briefly--then blew wide--then shuttered, his lips fusing into a thin line that twisted to a grimace almost instantly.
"No. Sherlock, no, don't--don't do.... Just, tell me. Tell. Me. Sherlock!"
John saw the thin lips flutter, then pull another notch down. He saw them pull and pull until pocks formed on Sherlock's chin, a clump of tiny craters upon a milky quarter-moon.
The coil of tension snapped: John was on his feet and shouting.
"Stop! Stop this! Whoever you are, just stop--" oh Christ, would his voice even carry? There was simply no hearing himself over the ocean in his ears, "--you have us now, just tell us what you want! That's all, just stop this now, and we can--we can call people! We know people who can get things--" fresh pain flooded into his knuckles; through his shoulder; down his hip, "--we fucking know people! Do you hear? If you do not stop--if you hurt him, I swear, I swear to bloody Christ--!"
Sherlock was calling out to him, the only thing to infiltrate the roar. "Yeah," said John immediately, hoarsely, dropping back to his side. Sherlock's eyes were still shuttered, his face hard and flat now like polished limestone.
"He's being given instructions."
The backs of John's hands were tingling. He rubbed them idly along the planes of his thighs. "Yeah?" he repeated, dead certain he didn't want to know how Sherlock knew. "How do you know?"
"He had begun to lift my legs," Sherlock stated, and his tone cohered with his expression; his breathing was far more rebellious, thundering in and out of his nose. "He'd begun, but he released me suddenly. This was followed by a pause. It was a measured pause, deliberate, as though he were listening to someone. Now he's gone on to fondle my genitals. Explanation? There must logically be a second--no. John, no."
Even the vertigo took a minute to register. Sherlock was gripping his wrist, the contact oddly moist.
"Let me just--" John panted. "Maybe I could get them to leave off entirely if I--kept--" His head spun. "I mean, if I've at least got them to not--"
"Irrelevant," Sherlock said for the second time, and for an appalling instant John wanted to strike him. "It's nothing to do with your carryings-on. The inten--heh--mm--"
John's wrist was released and shoved away, Sherlock drilling his front teeth into his lip. It was as John watched the tissue go pink-white there that he realized his own hands were bleeding, the tops of his trousers and Sherlock smudged muddy-red where he'd touched them.
"The...intention," continued Sherlock, after several excruciating moments, "is--to protract the experience. Oh, for God sake, John, I said no, stop it! Not--"
John pushed his forehead into the panel. Palms and elbows and fingernails and fists, then back to palms when his fists had clearly been in no condition to serve him.
"--not--" ground out Sherlock, "--not helpful."
Not helpful. Irrelevant. Unable to suppress enemy fire.
John turned, dropped to his belly, and low-crawled away from the wall. His face was inches off the carpet. He didn't bother to breathe in.
**
"John?"
"Yeah. Here, I'm right here."
"The torch on my mobile. W-would you turn it off for me, please."
John did.
**
Suppress enemy fire. Transport casualty to cover.
One of John's blood-smeared hands was on Sherlock's chest, the other between his shoulder blades, as Sherlock came off the floor with a shout.
"Index finger," gasped Sherlock, as John eased him back to the jumper, "left hand, the right never having regained full dexterity. He's using a water-based lubricant to--prepare me."
"Romantic one," the darkness seemed to coax John to say, and the next exhalation from Sherlock contained trace elements of laughter. Love slammed through John like a wrecking ball; he flinched and fought to hold himself fast.
Transport casualty to cover. His mind boiled and churned. Cover. Transport. ...Irrelevant.
"Rather boring, this," John observed, even as he could hear his own voice shaking. "Don't you think?"
"Oh." Sherlock swallowed audibly. "Oh, yes. In-insipid."
"Insipid. Exactly. Just...dull, just...dreadfully, dreadfully dull. So many more interesting things you could be doing."
Hair scrubbed against cloth and cloth scrubbed against carpet. Sherlock let out a whimper, muffled and aimed away from John.
"The body's just transport, Sherlock." John spoke swiftly and low, and as firmly as he reasonably could. "You told me that once. All this--this irrelevant stuff. Go to your mind palace, go do your work. The blind twins and the guide dog--haven't got that one solved yet, have you?"
"I--I would have done, days ago--but--"
"Right. Off you go then. No real reason for you to be here." With tremendous effort John shifted backward, opening up a narrow strip of air in between them.
He had seen Sherlock retire to his brain in the middle of a crime scene--in the middle of a sentence--and once in the middle of cleaning his teeth. But John didn't know the mechanics, the range and fidelity of those mental controls. He was guessing. Sherlock was being--and John was guessing.
And Sherlock was trying--John could hear and feel it from the first. Each heave of his chest stretched out subtly longer until his respiration, still rough, had nonetheless slowed down considerably. When after a time (and to John's ruthlessly stifled horror) he murmured "second finger" beneath his breath, it was strained but approaching distant, with no accompanying whimper or jolt from the floor.
John held his position, rigid with concentration and prayer.
"...legs..." he heard Sherlock say, softly.
"--Sherlock!" One of Sherlock's hands was scrabbling at the panel, the other scraping the crown of John's knee, as his body twisted upward and seized. "All right, it's all right, easy! Easy."
"Oh," wheezed Sherlock, "oh God."
"Listen--all right! Listen to me now." John could feel his own pulse thudding against every wall of every cavern of his body. "I need you--to try to relax, and breathe. Relax and breathe for me, okay?"
"Fuck--off!" Sherlock was sputtering for air. Pain. Can't sit up properly. Pain. Diaphragm constricted. Pain--
"Relax," John repeated helplessly, guiding Sherlock to the ground again, "breathe."
Then John was following him down--unfolding himself back onto his belly, angling his lower body out, pushing his chin into a place on the carpet where he could feel the heat of Sherlock's ear upon his lips.
"John, he...." A ragged inhalation. "He's...."
John knew. He wrapped an arm loosely around Sherlock's chest, taking care not to constrain him.
"All right," he choked. "You're all right."
John knew, too, what it meant when he heard Sherlock bite off his first and his only sob. Trying not to echo the sound, John closed his eyes and tucked his head and was useless as Sherlock was invaded with monstrous precision. He rested his forehead against Sherlock's temple, drove his hand into Sherlock's hair. With his other hand he kneaded around the bend of Sherlock's elbow, up his forearm; over the knuckles of the fist that Sherlock had pressed against his mouth.
"Shh," he said to Sherlock, though Sherlock was making frightfully little noise now, "shh shh. It's all right. You're all right, just hang on. Can you do that for me? Just hang on for me, Sherlock. Shh."
It was the only cover he would be able to provide.
**
When Sherlock's voice re-emerged, it was rumbly like a vinyl but calm. His pulse was thrumming like a hummingbird's wing. "John."
"Yeah--Sherlock?"
"John," Sherlock said again. "Oh, John. Yes. I think. I think that I--well. It would seem as though I may be somewhat injured? I'm afraid I may need to ask you to--oh," he breathed it out, "oh, no. Wrong. You're quite incapable of assisting me, so I.... Hm."
Hm. John was already sat up and making quick work of his shirt buttons. He would worry about reassembling his heart once this whole thing was through. "Has he--has it stopped? Please tell me what's happening."
"What? Oh. No. No, I mean, yes--he's stopped. But...but he didn't finish. Why? Why wouldn't he finish? I--I can't think. I can't bloody think, John!"
"I know. It's okay." John shucked his button-down, did the same with his vest. Gently he tugged the jumper out from underneath Sherlock's head ("Give that back," said Sherlock vaguely; John made equally vague soothing sounds), tucking it into his armpit and shifting around on his knees. "I'm just coming round behind you now, Sherlock. Can you feel if you're bleeding? Try to concentrate, it's important."
"Bleeding?" echoed Sherlock. "I--I've no idea. It hurts. It's wet. How am I meant to know if.... Well, and regardless, Doctor Watson!" He tittered. "What precisely could you do about it if I was?"
John tasted copper, speaking of bleeding. Once he had eased Sherlock forward, then back against his sternum, John focused on getting him sheathed in the jumper with no cooperation whatsoever. At the very least the absurdly poor fit would be beneficial: too broad to constrict Sherlock at the chest, too short to bunch much where he came to an end--
John sniffed and hummed and swallowed against the panic. He crushed his mouth to Sherlock's skin: clammy, but not stiff. Diagnostically fucking inconclusive. If he was hypovolemic--
Well, and regardless, Doctor Watson!
Regardless, John realized, he had best lay Sherlock down again.
**
"...definitely Asda," Sherlock mumbled, his head rolling to and fro on John's clothes. "Vest from a three-pack. Your perspiration.... It smells."
John was on his side now, molding himself as tightly to Sherlock as he could. The industrial carpet prickled the skin over his ribs. "Sorry," he said.
"No, it's...fine."
**
None of John's screams, it would seem, were punching all the way through to the open. His head was pounding unremittingly. When had his head started pounding?
"Oh, but this is a posh one." Sherlock's voice had sunk deep into a strange and wondering purr. "Soft hands, exquisitely manicured, so unaccustomed to any sort of manual labor. Approximately 5'7 or 5'8, not to mention a surprisingly slight build given what I can feel of his phallus thus far. Good Lord," Sherlock sighed, "I was right, the man can't even be bothered to hold my legs up himself, he's had the underling do it for him...ah! Oh--oh, his touch is so different, John! He's almost--tender. Almost--caressing or petting me, as if...."
He fell silent for several long moments then, and a small part of John found itself glad (okay shut up Sherlock shut up). But the greater and more animate part of him, petrified at just such a loss, slackened so dramatically when Sherlock spoke again that the edict itself held no meaning:
"Leave me alone," Sherlock said.
John massaged Sherlock's arm, shoulder to elbow and back again. Fuck was his fucking head pounding--
"John," Sherlock said.
John.
Turn around and walk back the way you came.
"...Sherlock? Sherlock, no. No! Absolutely not, I am not going to--no."
Just do as I ask. Please.
"No." John severed his body from Sherlock's. He started to rise onto his knees.
"I am sorry. I am." Sherlock's voice cracked ever so slightly. "But John, do you see? I needed to...."
John greyed out briefly, clawing his way to his feet.
...on my own.
"I won't leave you," John insisted, and staggered away from him, trailing reinforced concrete with his palms to what could only be the dimmest, the dullest, the most godforsaken corner of London. He had trekked punishing miles to arrive here, his muscles used-up and limp, his world made of bleak, hollow sounds. He tucked his bad shoulder into a crease where one wall kissed another.
Stay exactly where you are, John heard as he slipped down, and down. Don't move. Keep your eyes fixed on me.
"Sherlock, no," John whispered, and what he really needed was to shout, because Sherlock was too far away to hear--
No--don't--
Sherlock was already screaming.
John shut his eyes and screamed over him. He ground his shoulder savagely into the crease of the wall.
**
The wall itself was hardly extraordinary, windowless and some permutation of beige. Reinforced concrete most likely, given the state of John's shoulder. Partition presumably, given the state of Sherlock Holmes.
"Well done, John," Sherlock muttered as John rocked back and slurred curses, cradling his shoulder with his hand. John muttered in return, scrunched his face against the light. Sherlock was twisted toward him as far as his encasement would allow, his mobile aimed in the vicinity of John's forehead.
"Sherlock." John attempted to breathe in and coughed shallowly, having taken a hit off the fumes from the carpet. Heat billowed into his eyes, already itchy and damp, as he began stumbling his way to Sherlock's side. “I--Sherlock, did I--what--”
"Small favor, though,” Sherlock went on, “do try to stay at least semi-conscious for the remainder of our abduction." The admonishment was not entirely steady, Sherlock's voice rough. He twisted flat onto his back again, dragging the light with him.
John's head hurt. His shoulder hurt. Everything fucking hurt. And Sherlock was still--
"But you're not--" He swallowed hard, licked his lips.
"I'm not whatever it was you were yowling about, probably, no." Sherlock glanced at him. "You know, amusing as your penchant for attacking inanimate objects may ofttimes be, it isn't indicative of a spectacular intellect. The drug is still in your system, there is minimal ventilation in this room, and the carpet reeks of formaldehyde and TBT. Exerting yourself in this environment is dangerous and accomplishes nothing."
"R-right. Okay," was all John could answer. His voice was breaking. Everything was fucking breaking.
Sherlock’s eyes flicked skyward. "Pull yourself together," he murmured, tone and expression both strained.
...Right. Okay. As soon as he'd got his breath back, John wriggled out of his jumper, furled it, and had it stuffed beneath Sherlock's head before he could get half a syllable into his pique.
But Sherlock just exhaled--a quiet, easier rush. "Thank you," he said, his gaze prowling the ceiling. The false light from the mobile built shine and shadow in his eyes.
Foggy and raw, still, John chewed the inside of his cheek. "So, um." Your legs. Please tell me about your legs. He is dead, Sherlock, isn't he? God I'm so fucking frightened. "Neo-Nazis, is it?"
"No," Sherlock said.
**
Now John was just waiting.
Rating: R
Word count: ~3700
Spoilers: 2x03 - "The Reichenbach Fall"
Other formats: AO3
Disclaimer: This is an amateur, not-for-profit work of fiction. No attempt has been made to copyright characters and/or concepts owned by the Sherlock people, nor is any infringement intended on existing copyrights.
A/N: Thanks to the OP and/or the Gently Nagging Nonny.
Warnings: Rape/Non-con, kidnapping
Summary: A fill for the following Kink Meme prompt (excerpted): "Sherlock and John are captured by Bad Guy. They're drugged, and when they wake up they're in an unusual situation: they're in a small room, and Sherlock is halfway through the wall. Seriously. He's lying flat on his back, and is through a hole in the wall up to his waist. . . . John and Sherlock are talking, trying to figure out how to get out, when Sherlock suddenly tells John that on the other side of the wall someone is touching his legs. John realizes what's going to happen before Sherlock does. First he tries to save him, but when he realizes he can't he just tries to get Sherlock through it. . . .
"Super bonus points if Sherlock gets taken more than once. . . .
"Possibly save my soul from Hell (because I am going to hell for this prompt, no questions asked): if it turns out it never really happened. It was a dream, or they were drugged, or something."
Ensconced
The wall itself was hardly extraordinary, windowless and some permutation of beige. Reinforced concrete most likely, given the state of John's knuckles. Partition presumably, given the state of Sherlock Holmes.
"Well done, John," Sherlock muttered as John rocked back and huffed curses, cradling his hand to his chest. For what distinguished this particular wall was the upper body of Sherlock Holmes protruding from it like an upside-down mouse from its mousehole. (An exceptionally clever, stroppy upside-down mouse. From an experiment gone terribly, terribly wrong.)
"Partition presumably. Not load-bearing," Sherlock had catalogued. "Relatively little difference in surface texture or temperature between this side and the other."
This side: a cellar, small and squat, maybe eight square meters all told, the ceiling not two meters from the floor. No doors or vents of any kind, and empty but for them--no furniture, no fixtures, no light source anywhere.
The other: the place on the opposite side of the wall into which Sherlock's middle and lower body disappeared.
Amusing mouse imagery aside, the conditions weren't exactly agreeable. John had used the torch app on Sherlock's mobile to do his initial reconnaissance. "Can't move laterally either?"
"Hardly at all," Sherlock had answered, his tone close to neutral. "John, below my sternum. The materials--"
"Got it." John's fingertips brushed Sherlock's shirt sleeve as the two of them felt along a stainless steel panel. It was embedded somehow in the wall, impounding Sherlock, locking him down at the chest and pinning him onto his back.
John hissed softly. He set the mobile on Sherlock's chest, went at the panel with palms and elbows and fists. It was impossible to come at the thing from the proper angle or with any degree of momentum: it was too low and too narrow and God, fit far too snugly to Sherlock's frame.
(He would not think of IED's and severed men and rockets of blood. He would breathe in the chemicals in the industrial carpet and he would stay put.)
John began to dig about with more urgency, seeking out any fraction of wiggle room. Sherlock lay back, lacing his fingers behind his head.
"Clearly the hole in the wall itself was gouged out prior to my placement here--that would be how the kidnappers got us in. The steel, that was cut to size and installed around me afterward. Given the nature of such an effort it mustn't have been chloroform we were drugged with. Something longer lasting, more stable, but still readily obtainable. High-dose flunitrazepam? Mm. My configuration would be reminiscent--" Sherlock released a high, painful giggle when John grazed a spot under his arm, "--reminiscent of a guillotine, if not for the obvious discrepancies in positioning. No, no, not a guillotine, a Fallbeil, the Mannhardt or the Tegel--oh! Neo-Nazis! John, check to see if--"
It was at this point that John had had his go at the actual wall. He rocked back and huffed curses, cradling his hand to his chest.
"Ah. Reinforced concrete, most likely," muttered Sherlock. "Well done, John."
John muttered in return and sucked at his knuckles. He retrieved the mobile with his other hand, quadruple-checked for a signal. Then he set it back down, this time on the ground at Sherlock's side.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked Sherlock, earning him a dry sidelong glare. "Right, well. Aside from the obvious. Your legs, they're all right?"
Sherlock turned his head to glare more directly but otherwise said nothing.
John pursed his lips, tried a different point of entry. "What about the other room, then? Anything more on that? Anything at all you can deduce from, um, say...testing your range of motion?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Nope," he asserted, popping the final "p" unnecessarily. He pulled his hands out from behind his head and steepled them against his chin.
"Right. Okay. ...Egh," John said, having taken a hit off the fumes from the carpet. Coughing shallowly, he glanced over at Sherlock--at the slight flare of white-rimmed nostrils, the tight spire of long hands.
Right. Okay. As soon as he'd got his breath back, John wriggled out of his jumper, furled it, and had it stuffed beneath Sherlock's head before Sherlock could get half a syllable into his pique.
"What in God's name are you doing. I have no wish to lie here for the rest of eternity on one of your nubby Asda jumpers!"
"Come on, that one's from Mark's!" Oh, Mark's, Sherlock mouthed extravagantly to the ceiling. "Look, it's either my nubby jumper or the nubbier carpeting, and carcinogenic inhalants aside, you can't possibly be comfortable."
"My system is quite inured to carcinogenic inhalants, thank you. And I did not ask for nor do I require your coddling."
John snorted and set to turning up the cuffs of his button-down. Sherlock blew out harshly through his teeth but left the jumper alone.
"Anyway, I'm not sure if you've noticed, Sherlock, but you've been stuck. In a wall. Forgive me for trying to make the situation the tiniest bit more bearable."
Sherlock didn't answer, his gaze prowling the ceiling. The false light from the mobile built shine and shadow in his eyes.
"So, um." John chewed the inside of his cheek. "Neo-Nazis, is it?"
"No," Sherlock said.
John hadn't thought so. He fiddled erratically with the shirt cuffs, tension coiling in his stomach.
**
Now John was just waiting. He was waiting for something to happen. He was waiting with his best friend for something to happen, in the dark and the lull and the swelling heat of some unknown cavity, as the tension in his stomach coiled tighter and tighter.
(He breathed in deeply. His sinuses caught fire, but he anticipated the cough and subdued it.)
A short fff sound escaped Sherlock--he had started severely. John was crouched beside him at once, his calves touching Sherlock's arm. "What?"
"Ah. There's," Sherlock said. He cleared his throat. "There would appear to be," he said.
John reached instinctively for the mobile. He launched the torch app again and performed a rapid sweep: the perimeter of the room, then the perimeter of Sherlock. Sherlock winced into the light, threw his hand up to his cheek.
"Sorry, sorry." John put the mobile down but left the torch app running. "Sherlock, what's happening? There would appear to be--what?"
"My legs. They are being...handled," said Sherlock, slowly.
"Handled," repeated John.
Sherlock cleared his throat again. "Thick fingers, though not ungainly. Large palms. A man, medium height, sturdy build, an athletic sort. Calloused, dry skin, so not posh--a tradesman. Right wrist broken in a violent manner three, perhaps four years ago, never properly healed."
"What exactly is he doing? Is he hurting you?" John would re-break the man's wrist. Then he would break his other wrist. Then his neck.
"Not.... No. No, he--" The rest went missing into the back of Sherlock's hand. John reached out, stiff with care, to maneuver it down and off his cheek.
"He's what? Sherlock. What?"
"He is--fondling--" Sherlock worked his jaw viciously, "--my skin. The skin of my legs."
John would break the man's wrists all right, and his neck, but first he would do more, oh so much more. "Your skin under--" his voice lurched, "--under your trousers?"
"No trousers," Sherlock said.
"What?"
"I've not had--" Sherlock inhaled sharply, his face squeezing, squeezing. "No trousers," he repeated, "and no pants."
"You--this whole time?" John gasped. "This whole time?"
"He's wrapping his hands round my knees."
John's stomach shuddered in warning. "Kick out," he said urgently, leaning forward. "Sherlock, kick out at him. Now, kick out now!"
"Not feasible. Knees and ankles are bound."
"What--what the fuck--you didn't say--"
"Irrelevant," managed Sherlock, "for your purposes. What could you have...." Sherlock's eyes narrowed briefly--then blew wide--then shuttered, his lips fusing into a thin line that twisted to a grimace almost instantly.
"No. Sherlock, no, don't--don't do.... Just, tell me. Tell. Me. Sherlock!"
John saw the thin lips flutter, then pull another notch down. He saw them pull and pull until pocks formed on Sherlock's chin, a clump of tiny craters upon a milky quarter-moon.
The coil of tension snapped: John was on his feet and shouting.
"Stop! Stop this! Whoever you are, just stop--" oh Christ, would his voice even carry? There was simply no hearing himself over the ocean in his ears, "--you have us now, just tell us what you want! That's all, just stop this now, and we can--we can call people! We know people who can get things--" fresh pain flooded into his knuckles; through his shoulder; down his hip, "--we fucking know people! Do you hear? If you do not stop--if you hurt him, I swear, I swear to bloody Christ--!"
Sherlock was calling out to him, the only thing to infiltrate the roar. "Yeah," said John immediately, hoarsely, dropping back to his side. Sherlock's eyes were still shuttered, his face hard and flat now like polished limestone.
"He's being given instructions."
The backs of John's hands were tingling. He rubbed them idly along the planes of his thighs. "Yeah?" he repeated, dead certain he didn't want to know how Sherlock knew. "How do you know?"
"He had begun to lift my legs," Sherlock stated, and his tone cohered with his expression; his breathing was far more rebellious, thundering in and out of his nose. "He'd begun, but he released me suddenly. This was followed by a pause. It was a measured pause, deliberate, as though he were listening to someone. Now he's gone on to fondle my genitals. Explanation? There must logically be a second--no. John, no."
Even the vertigo took a minute to register. Sherlock was gripping his wrist, the contact oddly moist.
"Let me just--" John panted. "Maybe I could get them to leave off entirely if I--kept--" His head spun. "I mean, if I've at least got them to not--"
"Irrelevant," Sherlock said for the second time, and for an appalling instant John wanted to strike him. "It's nothing to do with your carryings-on. The inten--heh--mm--"
John's wrist was released and shoved away, Sherlock drilling his front teeth into his lip. It was as John watched the tissue go pink-white there that he realized his own hands were bleeding, the tops of his trousers and Sherlock smudged muddy-red where he'd touched them.
"The...intention," continued Sherlock, after several excruciating moments, "is--to protract the experience. Oh, for God sake, John, I said no, stop it! Not--"
John pushed his forehead into the panel. Palms and elbows and fingernails and fists, then back to palms when his fists had clearly been in no condition to serve him.
"--not--" ground out Sherlock, "--not helpful."
Not helpful. Irrelevant. Unable to suppress enemy fire.
John turned, dropped to his belly, and low-crawled away from the wall. His face was inches off the carpet. He didn't bother to breathe in.
**
"John?"
"Yeah. Here, I'm right here."
"The torch on my mobile. W-would you turn it off for me, please."
John did.
**
Suppress enemy fire. Transport casualty to cover.
One of John's blood-smeared hands was on Sherlock's chest, the other between his shoulder blades, as Sherlock came off the floor with a shout.
"Index finger," gasped Sherlock, as John eased him back to the jumper, "left hand, the right never having regained full dexterity. He's using a water-based lubricant to--prepare me."
"Romantic one," the darkness seemed to coax John to say, and the next exhalation from Sherlock contained trace elements of laughter. Love slammed through John like a wrecking ball; he flinched and fought to hold himself fast.
Transport casualty to cover. His mind boiled and churned. Cover. Transport. ...Irrelevant.
"Rather boring, this," John observed, even as he could hear his own voice shaking. "Don't you think?"
"Oh." Sherlock swallowed audibly. "Oh, yes. In-insipid."
"Insipid. Exactly. Just...dull, just...dreadfully, dreadfully dull. So many more interesting things you could be doing."
Hair scrubbed against cloth and cloth scrubbed against carpet. Sherlock let out a whimper, muffled and aimed away from John.
"The body's just transport, Sherlock." John spoke swiftly and low, and as firmly as he reasonably could. "You told me that once. All this--this irrelevant stuff. Go to your mind palace, go do your work. The blind twins and the guide dog--haven't got that one solved yet, have you?"
"I--I would have done, days ago--but--"
"Right. Off you go then. No real reason for you to be here." With tremendous effort John shifted backward, opening up a narrow strip of air in between them.
He had seen Sherlock retire to his brain in the middle of a crime scene--in the middle of a sentence--and once in the middle of cleaning his teeth. But John didn't know the mechanics, the range and fidelity of those mental controls. He was guessing. Sherlock was being--and John was guessing.
And Sherlock was trying--John could hear and feel it from the first. Each heave of his chest stretched out subtly longer until his respiration, still rough, had nonetheless slowed down considerably. When after a time (and to John's ruthlessly stifled horror) he murmured "second finger" beneath his breath, it was strained but approaching distant, with no accompanying whimper or jolt from the floor.
John held his position, rigid with concentration and prayer.
"...legs..." he heard Sherlock say, softly.
"--Sherlock!" One of Sherlock's hands was scrabbling at the panel, the other scraping the crown of John's knee, as his body twisted upward and seized. "All right, it's all right, easy! Easy."
"Oh," wheezed Sherlock, "oh God."
"Listen--all right! Listen to me now." John could feel his own pulse thudding against every wall of every cavern of his body. "I need you--to try to relax, and breathe. Relax and breathe for me, okay?"
"Fuck--off!" Sherlock was sputtering for air. Pain. Can't sit up properly. Pain. Diaphragm constricted. Pain--
"Relax," John repeated helplessly, guiding Sherlock to the ground again, "breathe."
Then John was following him down--unfolding himself back onto his belly, angling his lower body out, pushing his chin into a place on the carpet where he could feel the heat of Sherlock's ear upon his lips.
"John, he...." A ragged inhalation. "He's...."
John knew. He wrapped an arm loosely around Sherlock's chest, taking care not to constrain him.
"All right," he choked. "You're all right."
John knew, too, what it meant when he heard Sherlock bite off his first and his only sob. Trying not to echo the sound, John closed his eyes and tucked his head and was useless as Sherlock was invaded with monstrous precision. He rested his forehead against Sherlock's temple, drove his hand into Sherlock's hair. With his other hand he kneaded around the bend of Sherlock's elbow, up his forearm; over the knuckles of the fist that Sherlock had pressed against his mouth.
"Shh," he said to Sherlock, though Sherlock was making frightfully little noise now, "shh shh. It's all right. You're all right, just hang on. Can you do that for me? Just hang on for me, Sherlock. Shh."
It was the only cover he would be able to provide.
**
When Sherlock's voice re-emerged, it was rumbly like a vinyl but calm. His pulse was thrumming like a hummingbird's wing. "John."
"Yeah--Sherlock?"
"John," Sherlock said again. "Oh, John. Yes. I think. I think that I--well. It would seem as though I may be somewhat injured? I'm afraid I may need to ask you to--oh," he breathed it out, "oh, no. Wrong. You're quite incapable of assisting me, so I.... Hm."
Hm. John was already sat up and making quick work of his shirt buttons. He would worry about reassembling his heart once this whole thing was through. "Has he--has it stopped? Please tell me what's happening."
"What? Oh. No. No, I mean, yes--he's stopped. But...but he didn't finish. Why? Why wouldn't he finish? I--I can't think. I can't bloody think, John!"
"I know. It's okay." John shucked his button-down, did the same with his vest. Gently he tugged the jumper out from underneath Sherlock's head ("Give that back," said Sherlock vaguely; John made equally vague soothing sounds), tucking it into his armpit and shifting around on his knees. "I'm just coming round behind you now, Sherlock. Can you feel if you're bleeding? Try to concentrate, it's important."
"Bleeding?" echoed Sherlock. "I--I've no idea. It hurts. It's wet. How am I meant to know if.... Well, and regardless, Doctor Watson!" He tittered. "What precisely could you do about it if I was?"
John tasted copper, speaking of bleeding. Once he had eased Sherlock forward, then back against his sternum, John focused on getting him sheathed in the jumper with no cooperation whatsoever. At the very least the absurdly poor fit would be beneficial: too broad to constrict Sherlock at the chest, too short to bunch much where he came to an end--
John sniffed and hummed and swallowed against the panic. He crushed his mouth to Sherlock's skin: clammy, but not stiff. Diagnostically fucking inconclusive. If he was hypovolemic--
Well, and regardless, Doctor Watson!
Regardless, John realized, he had best lay Sherlock down again.
**
"...definitely Asda," Sherlock mumbled, his head rolling to and fro on John's clothes. "Vest from a three-pack. Your perspiration.... It smells."
John was on his side now, molding himself as tightly to Sherlock as he could. The industrial carpet prickled the skin over his ribs. "Sorry," he said.
"No, it's...fine."
**
None of John's screams, it would seem, were punching all the way through to the open. His head was pounding unremittingly. When had his head started pounding?
"Oh, but this is a posh one." Sherlock's voice had sunk deep into a strange and wondering purr. "Soft hands, exquisitely manicured, so unaccustomed to any sort of manual labor. Approximately 5'7 or 5'8, not to mention a surprisingly slight build given what I can feel of his phallus thus far. Good Lord," Sherlock sighed, "I was right, the man can't even be bothered to hold my legs up himself, he's had the underling do it for him...ah! Oh--oh, his touch is so different, John! He's almost--tender. Almost--caressing or petting me, as if...."
He fell silent for several long moments then, and a small part of John found itself glad (okay shut up Sherlock shut up). But the greater and more animate part of him, petrified at just such a loss, slackened so dramatically when Sherlock spoke again that the edict itself held no meaning:
"Leave me alone," Sherlock said.
John massaged Sherlock's arm, shoulder to elbow and back again. Fuck was his fucking head pounding--
"John," Sherlock said.
John.
Turn around and walk back the way you came.
"...Sherlock? Sherlock, no. No! Absolutely not, I am not going to--no."
Just do as I ask. Please.
"No." John severed his body from Sherlock's. He started to rise onto his knees.
"I am sorry. I am." Sherlock's voice cracked ever so slightly. "But John, do you see? I needed to...."
John greyed out briefly, clawing his way to his feet.
...on my own.
"I won't leave you," John insisted, and staggered away from him, trailing reinforced concrete with his palms to what could only be the dimmest, the dullest, the most godforsaken corner of London. He had trekked punishing miles to arrive here, his muscles used-up and limp, his world made of bleak, hollow sounds. He tucked his bad shoulder into a crease where one wall kissed another.
Stay exactly where you are, John heard as he slipped down, and down. Don't move. Keep your eyes fixed on me.
"Sherlock, no," John whispered, and what he really needed was to shout, because Sherlock was too far away to hear--
No--don't--
Sherlock was already screaming.
John shut his eyes and screamed over him. He ground his shoulder savagely into the crease of the wall.
**
The wall itself was hardly extraordinary, windowless and some permutation of beige. Reinforced concrete most likely, given the state of John's shoulder. Partition presumably, given the state of Sherlock Holmes.
"Well done, John," Sherlock muttered as John rocked back and slurred curses, cradling his shoulder with his hand. John muttered in return, scrunched his face against the light. Sherlock was twisted toward him as far as his encasement would allow, his mobile aimed in the vicinity of John's forehead.
"Sherlock." John attempted to breathe in and coughed shallowly, having taken a hit off the fumes from the carpet. Heat billowed into his eyes, already itchy and damp, as he began stumbling his way to Sherlock's side. “I--Sherlock, did I--what--”
"Small favor, though,” Sherlock went on, “do try to stay at least semi-conscious for the remainder of our abduction." The admonishment was not entirely steady, Sherlock's voice rough. He twisted flat onto his back again, dragging the light with him.
John's head hurt. His shoulder hurt. Everything fucking hurt. And Sherlock was still--
"But you're not--" He swallowed hard, licked his lips.
"I'm not whatever it was you were yowling about, probably, no." Sherlock glanced at him. "You know, amusing as your penchant for attacking inanimate objects may ofttimes be, it isn't indicative of a spectacular intellect. The drug is still in your system, there is minimal ventilation in this room, and the carpet reeks of formaldehyde and TBT. Exerting yourself in this environment is dangerous and accomplishes nothing."
"R-right. Okay," was all John could answer. His voice was breaking. Everything was fucking breaking.
Sherlock’s eyes flicked skyward. "Pull yourself together," he murmured, tone and expression both strained.
...Right. Okay. As soon as he'd got his breath back, John wriggled out of his jumper, furled it, and had it stuffed beneath Sherlock's head before he could get half a syllable into his pique.
But Sherlock just exhaled--a quiet, easier rush. "Thank you," he said, his gaze prowling the ceiling. The false light from the mobile built shine and shadow in his eyes.
Foggy and raw, still, John chewed the inside of his cheek. "So, um." Your legs. Please tell me about your legs. He is dead, Sherlock, isn't he? God I'm so fucking frightened. "Neo-Nazis, is it?"
"No," Sherlock said.
**
Now John was just waiting.