The Doctor Part 3
Title: The Doctor
Rating: R(or M?) (For blood guts, gore, cursing and the like.)
Warnings: Blood, serious injuries, the fixing of injuries. John is a Doctor after all. Violence, I suppose.
Characters: John/Sherlock (No romance, but a strong connection. I hesitate to call it friendship...)
Wordcount: 14,000 (give or take)
Summary: I went to war to save people, and learned how to kill. I left the war because of an accident, but the war didn't leave me.
Beta/Britpick: The lovely lizzlie whom I can't thank enough!
Author's Notes
Part 1
Part 2
John hates his bedsit. He doesn't call it a flat, not even in his head, because that implies that it has space and is livable. It's small, boxy, and the green glow of the wallpaper adds a surrealism to his panted awakenings that make it difficult to pull him out of the grasps of his dreams.
What he hates even more is the look of pity on his sister's face the single time she saw it.
“You could stay with me,” Harry offers. “Until you get on your feet.”
He dreams every night. Some nights he wakes with a silent scream, a red hot knife blazing behind his eyelids. Others, he wakes rejuvenated and ready for his next mission. Each and every time, however, he opens his eyes to sickly pale green walls and a throbbing leg that reminds him his previous life is far beyond his reach.
John pushes the hostage in front of him as they run through the office building.
“Go, go, go!” he whispers harshly. “Just round the corner!”
He turns and shoots at a pursuer without slowing, then glances at his watch.
Five seconds.
“Fuck!”
He springs forward, hauling at the other man and kicks the door open.
“Jump!”
The building explodes behind them, pitching them away from the building-and John from his bed.
He lies on the floor as the sun comes up, not that he can see it in this nearly windowless hole in the wall, his head aching from his fall. His right hand creeps up to probe the bruise on his head, and finds it minor. He lets the appendage fall and his eyes slip shut.
All he sees are the backs of his eyelids.
He can't help but be grateful for the dim and veined view, and admires it for several moments.
Not normal. Not normal. Not normal.
“I have to get out of here,” he murmurs.
His body very reluctantly allows him to sit up, then drag himself up from the floor. He sits stiffly on the single bed, and grips his aching leg with a rough and grasping hand.
“The least useless man you have ever met, huh?” John reaches for his cane and stands with a groan. “Where are you now, Mycroft? Have you forgotten your pretty promises already?”
John knows that he is being unfair. He's been in hospital for many weeks, and in this bedsit for only two. He hasn't seen a psychologist since being discharged, though, for which he's glad. He suspects Mycroft is behind that. Despite his hatred for the profession, he knows what a professional would tell him: That he's got PTSD. That the PTSD is why he has nightmares, a tremor in his left hand, and a psychosomatic limp.
He also knows that's not true.
Not normal. Not normal. Not normal.
He doesn't wake frightened by his “nightmares.” He wakens panting in exhilaration. Excitement. Adrenaline pumps like fire through his veins.
He looks down at his left hand hanging limply at his side, and lifts it to look at it.
It is perfectly steady.
He drops it with a sigh.
“I just...I don't know where to go next.”
He does know, when he locks the door behind him, that he never wants to hear the cheap and sticky sound of that lock ever again.
~~
Boring. Absolutely boring. People are boring, shops are boring, and everything is boring.
John stops in the middle of the sidewalk with a sigh, leaning upon his cane as strangers jostle him and continue blindly on their way along Brompton Road, focused only on their frivolous shopping.
“Stop! Thief!”
Three sets of footsteps thunder down the sidewalk, and, instinctively, John turns to look.
Two masked men barrel towards him, their spoils in their arms, and a red-faced shop keeper bellows from behind.
“Thief!”
John grins, and switches his cane to his left hand.
“Perfect,” he utters, with a vicious glint in his eyes.
The robbers have no idea what hits them.
~~
“You took them down with your cane,” the beat cop says flatly.
“Was that a question?” John asks mildly.
He's replaced his mellow Dr. John Watson persona, and stands patiently, almost amused, as the bobby frowns at him. The back room of the shop is very posh, and he looks around curiously as the policeman tries to stare him down. There are fluffy couches, rugs, hand-carved tables...Not what he was expecting in the back of a watch shop. Must be the neighborhood, he guesses.
“Would you two gentlemen care to sit down?”
John and the cop turn to look at the hovering shop owner and John nods politely, ignoring how the overweight man sweating in his fancy suit stares pointedly at his cane.
“Yes, thank you.”
The nervous man putters off, satisfied with John's civilized response, but pauses long enough to make sure that John does sit down in an armchair. John leans back, spreading his legs in a lazy sprawl designed specifically to irk the policeman, and props his cane between his knees where it's still within his reach. A moment later, John and the cop still locked in a battle of wills, the shop owner returns.
“Excuse me,” he says politely. John looks up to see him carrying a tray of what appears to be a wine bottle and a finely crafted tumbler. “Would you like some water?”
With a grateful smile, John says yes. “That would be wonderful.”
The cop scowls.
John watches curiously as the man cracks the seal and pours the water into the tumbler as though it's a fine art and a wine to be savored. With a flourish, he's handed the glass.
“Thank you,” he repeats.
The man smiles, “No, thank you.”
John can see his nervousness flowing away, utterly comfortable with John sitting in the private sales room. The human mind is a machine of denial, the man will forget the vicious satisfaction on John's face with only minutes of interacting with Mellow John. The doctor in him can only marvel at man's ability to bury his head in the sand and ignore things.
“You'll need to come in and make a statement,” the policeman says eventually, resignedly.
John stands with a smile, the glass loosely cradled in his hand, and looks at the owner of the shop. “Thank you. For the water, I mean.”
“No,” the owner twitters. “Thank you. They would have gotten away with several thousand pounds if you hadn't...” he drops his gaze to the battered metal cane in John's hand, memory obviously flashing back.
“Ahem,” the policeman tucks his notepad into his pocket. “If you could...”
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water.(2)
“Yes, yes,” John agrees, draining the glass. “Thank you,” he says, yet again, as he hands it back.
“George Wilkins,” the owner of the shop replies. “You deserve a reward,” he wheedles.
“No, no,” John adjusts his grip on his cane and moves to follow the policeman. “No need. Right place, right time, that's all.”
“But!”
John waves and steps through the door. “Maybe someday I'll need a watch!” he replies.
The sounds of ticking retreat behind him as the door jangles shut.
“So,” he addresses the other man. “To the Yard, then?”
The policeman looks embarrassed, gaze flicking to a looming man standing next to the colourful police van containing the robbers. He seems to be the superior officer.
“I sorta need to go with...” he waves a hand, ineffectually trying to convey what his words fail at.
John nods sharply. “I'll just take the tube then,” he says as he firmly pushes down his impatience. “Yeah?”
“You'll need your identification,” the policeman responds, snapping back into a businesslike manner. “To get inside. I'll radio ahead and tell them to be expecting you so that you'll be let in. After you go through security, wait in reception and someone will come to collect you.” He waits for John's nod of assent, then strides briskly away.
John sighs.
But his grip is loose on his cane and his stance firm. He turns and walks away. He can give a statement that's worth his steady hand.
~~
The Yard isn't that far from the tube station, which is convenient, because as he takes the stairs out of the station, his leg starts to ache again. Gritting his teeth, he gamely drags himself up them, but has to use his cane much more than he likes. Mostly he's lucky that it's a lull and he isn't being shoved around like a ping pong ball on the stairs. Or smashed like a sardine in a can.
Either way, though, his ascent is dogged, and if anyone shoves or trips him he is going to beat them with a stick. Oh look, he has a cane. How convenient.
John moved steadily up Broadway, and New Scotland Yard was immediately in evidence. The tall steel and glass building entirely dominated the scene, not in height, but in length and grandeur. It stretches sideways across the block, at a different angle than the other buildings, and shines in the thin, gray, London light.
A police officer stands in front of the visitors entrance, garish in her yellow and orange vest, but John smiles at her politely nonetheless.
“Good afternoon,” he greets her.
“Your ID and letter please, sir,” she answers
He smiles. “I was a witness to a robbery this afternoon, on Brompton Road.” He fumbles his wallet out of his back pocket and thumbs out his license. “I've got this, but no letter.”
She checks it, checks her list, then hands back the card. “You were called in,” she says curtly, stepping to the side. “Go ahead and go inside.”
Her suspicious eyes follow him inside, but John only smiles. He thinks fiery and cranky women are interesting, even if they aren't exactly his type. He slowly walks down the short hall, his cane adding a third step, and pulls open the door. Inside is the security checkpoint, which he submits to in relatively good humor, his leg aching only a little bit. Once past the metal detectors he goes through a door into another room.
Footsteps sound out from another corridor.
“Honestly, Lestrade,” a deep voice rings out stridently. “You're cleverer than Anderson, you should be able to connect the dots.”
John slows a little bit, delaying the arrival at his destination that's on the other side of the next door.
A slower set of steps plod along behind the man quickly catching up to John. The doctor can tell that he is the one who speaks next, because his voice is low and slow, like his footsteps. “You tire me, Sherlock. Arsenic in the tea? That's how he died?”
“Tea service set out, man dead in arm chair, two tea cups.” The man billows past John, but the doctor continues with his ponderous and nearly nonexistent steps. The bobby at the door into the actual Yard eyes him with caution, but he ignores him. Instead, he sneaks a peek at the excitable man. He's tall, with dark curly hair, a purple scarf, and a long dark coat that swirls when he whirls around to look back at the man he's calling Lestrade.
“The girlfriend, though? She was in tears when she found out about him. Sherlock, come on, tell me what you know.”
John stops altogether and looks directly at the manic man hovering on the balls of his feet as though he might leap straight into the air for flight.
“Wrong. Nothing was girly, the whole tea set was all man, all his.”
“A boyfriend on the side?” Lestrade asks.
The man named Sherlock inflates, just about ready to burst, a smug and excited look on his face.
“The sister,” John blurts.
“What?” Sherlock demands sharply, intense eyes flickering over the plain doctor.
“No fripperies? It was a guest. Who would I trust to serve me tea? My sister.” John shrugs, standing steadfastly in front of the scarecrow standing thunderstruck in the middle of the room.
“Oh...my...” Sherlock breathes.
John steps around him, now intent on his destination.
“Wait!” The other man calls out.
John pauses, cane in midair.
Not normal. Not normal. Not normal.
“How did you know that?” the other man, Lestrade, demands.
John rolls his shoulders in a stiff shrug and takes another slow step. “Anyone would be able to figure it out...Detective Inspector...Lestrade, is it? I'm nothing special.” He reaches for the door and pauses again. “If you don't have this man on retainer already, you should,” he advises. “He's not nearly as stupid as the rest of the world, even if he is arrogant as a direct result.”
“Afghanistan or Iraq?” Sherlock calls out as John pulls the door open.
“Ta,” he replies, and leaves them behind.
He's disturbed to realize that he has a warm smile on his face, and had one that whole time, without realizing it. He lets it slip away as he approaches the reception desk. “Hullo, I'm here to provide my statement about a robbery I witnessed?”
“Name?”
“I'm the Doctor,” he smiles, shaking his head. “I mean, I'm Doctor John Watson.”
Normal. Normal. Normal.
“Righto.”
As his temporary identification tag is printed out and hung on a lanyard, he pictures the manic detective eying John as though he was soaking up everything about him and chuckles ruefully. He grips his cane tightly in his right hand for a moment, then clenches left hand into a fist.
It's as steady as a rock.
He doesn't expect to see the man ever again, but he can always hope.
“You will find one, John. I'm sure of it.”
2. “next to of course god America i” by E.E. Cummings
Part 4
Rating: R(or M?) (For blood guts, gore, cursing and the like.)
Warnings: Blood, serious injuries, the fixing of injuries. John is a Doctor after all. Violence, I suppose.
Characters: John/Sherlock (No romance, but a strong connection. I hesitate to call it friendship...)
Wordcount: 14,000 (give or take)
Summary: I went to war to save people, and learned how to kill. I left the war because of an accident, but the war didn't leave me.
Beta/Britpick: The lovely lizzlie whom I can't thank enough!
Author's Notes
Part 1
Part 2
John hates his bedsit. He doesn't call it a flat, not even in his head, because that implies that it has space and is livable. It's small, boxy, and the green glow of the wallpaper adds a surrealism to his panted awakenings that make it difficult to pull him out of the grasps of his dreams.
What he hates even more is the look of pity on his sister's face the single time she saw it.
“You could stay with me,” Harry offers. “Until you get on your feet.”
He dreams every night. Some nights he wakes with a silent scream, a red hot knife blazing behind his eyelids. Others, he wakes rejuvenated and ready for his next mission. Each and every time, however, he opens his eyes to sickly pale green walls and a throbbing leg that reminds him his previous life is far beyond his reach.
John pushes the hostage in front of him as they run through the office building.
“Go, go, go!” he whispers harshly. “Just round the corner!”
He turns and shoots at a pursuer without slowing, then glances at his watch.
Five seconds.
“Fuck!”
He springs forward, hauling at the other man and kicks the door open.
“Jump!”
The building explodes behind them, pitching them away from the building-and John from his bed.
He lies on the floor as the sun comes up, not that he can see it in this nearly windowless hole in the wall, his head aching from his fall. His right hand creeps up to probe the bruise on his head, and finds it minor. He lets the appendage fall and his eyes slip shut.
All he sees are the backs of his eyelids.
He can't help but be grateful for the dim and veined view, and admires it for several moments.
Not normal. Not normal. Not normal.
“I have to get out of here,” he murmurs.
His body very reluctantly allows him to sit up, then drag himself up from the floor. He sits stiffly on the single bed, and grips his aching leg with a rough and grasping hand.
“The least useless man you have ever met, huh?” John reaches for his cane and stands with a groan. “Where are you now, Mycroft? Have you forgotten your pretty promises already?”
John knows that he is being unfair. He's been in hospital for many weeks, and in this bedsit for only two. He hasn't seen a psychologist since being discharged, though, for which he's glad. He suspects Mycroft is behind that. Despite his hatred for the profession, he knows what a professional would tell him: That he's got PTSD. That the PTSD is why he has nightmares, a tremor in his left hand, and a psychosomatic limp.
He also knows that's not true.
Not normal. Not normal. Not normal.
He doesn't wake frightened by his “nightmares.” He wakens panting in exhilaration. Excitement. Adrenaline pumps like fire through his veins.
He looks down at his left hand hanging limply at his side, and lifts it to look at it.
It is perfectly steady.
He drops it with a sigh.
“I just...I don't know where to go next.”
He does know, when he locks the door behind him, that he never wants to hear the cheap and sticky sound of that lock ever again.
~~
Boring. Absolutely boring. People are boring, shops are boring, and everything is boring.
John stops in the middle of the sidewalk with a sigh, leaning upon his cane as strangers jostle him and continue blindly on their way along Brompton Road, focused only on their frivolous shopping.
“Stop! Thief!”
Three sets of footsteps thunder down the sidewalk, and, instinctively, John turns to look.
Two masked men barrel towards him, their spoils in their arms, and a red-faced shop keeper bellows from behind.
“Thief!”
John grins, and switches his cane to his left hand.
“Perfect,” he utters, with a vicious glint in his eyes.
The robbers have no idea what hits them.
~~
“You took them down with your cane,” the beat cop says flatly.
“Was that a question?” John asks mildly.
He's replaced his mellow Dr. John Watson persona, and stands patiently, almost amused, as the bobby frowns at him. The back room of the shop is very posh, and he looks around curiously as the policeman tries to stare him down. There are fluffy couches, rugs, hand-carved tables...Not what he was expecting in the back of a watch shop. Must be the neighborhood, he guesses.
“Would you two gentlemen care to sit down?”
John and the cop turn to look at the hovering shop owner and John nods politely, ignoring how the overweight man sweating in his fancy suit stares pointedly at his cane.
“Yes, thank you.”
The nervous man putters off, satisfied with John's civilized response, but pauses long enough to make sure that John does sit down in an armchair. John leans back, spreading his legs in a lazy sprawl designed specifically to irk the policeman, and props his cane between his knees where it's still within his reach. A moment later, John and the cop still locked in a battle of wills, the shop owner returns.
“Excuse me,” he says politely. John looks up to see him carrying a tray of what appears to be a wine bottle and a finely crafted tumbler. “Would you like some water?”
With a grateful smile, John says yes. “That would be wonderful.”
The cop scowls.
John watches curiously as the man cracks the seal and pours the water into the tumbler as though it's a fine art and a wine to be savored. With a flourish, he's handed the glass.
“Thank you,” he repeats.
The man smiles, “No, thank you.”
John can see his nervousness flowing away, utterly comfortable with John sitting in the private sales room. The human mind is a machine of denial, the man will forget the vicious satisfaction on John's face with only minutes of interacting with Mellow John. The doctor in him can only marvel at man's ability to bury his head in the sand and ignore things.
“You'll need to come in and make a statement,” the policeman says eventually, resignedly.
John stands with a smile, the glass loosely cradled in his hand, and looks at the owner of the shop. “Thank you. For the water, I mean.”
“No,” the owner twitters. “Thank you. They would have gotten away with several thousand pounds if you hadn't...” he drops his gaze to the battered metal cane in John's hand, memory obviously flashing back.
“Ahem,” the policeman tucks his notepad into his pocket. “If you could...”
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water.(2)
“Yes, yes,” John agrees, draining the glass. “Thank you,” he says, yet again, as he hands it back.
“George Wilkins,” the owner of the shop replies. “You deserve a reward,” he wheedles.
“No, no,” John adjusts his grip on his cane and moves to follow the policeman. “No need. Right place, right time, that's all.”
“But!”
John waves and steps through the door. “Maybe someday I'll need a watch!” he replies.
The sounds of ticking retreat behind him as the door jangles shut.
“So,” he addresses the other man. “To the Yard, then?”
The policeman looks embarrassed, gaze flicking to a looming man standing next to the colourful police van containing the robbers. He seems to be the superior officer.
“I sorta need to go with...” he waves a hand, ineffectually trying to convey what his words fail at.
John nods sharply. “I'll just take the tube then,” he says as he firmly pushes down his impatience. “Yeah?”
“You'll need your identification,” the policeman responds, snapping back into a businesslike manner. “To get inside. I'll radio ahead and tell them to be expecting you so that you'll be let in. After you go through security, wait in reception and someone will come to collect you.” He waits for John's nod of assent, then strides briskly away.
John sighs.
But his grip is loose on his cane and his stance firm. He turns and walks away. He can give a statement that's worth his steady hand.
~~
The Yard isn't that far from the tube station, which is convenient, because as he takes the stairs out of the station, his leg starts to ache again. Gritting his teeth, he gamely drags himself up them, but has to use his cane much more than he likes. Mostly he's lucky that it's a lull and he isn't being shoved around like a ping pong ball on the stairs. Or smashed like a sardine in a can.
Either way, though, his ascent is dogged, and if anyone shoves or trips him he is going to beat them with a stick. Oh look, he has a cane. How convenient.
John moved steadily up Broadway, and New Scotland Yard was immediately in evidence. The tall steel and glass building entirely dominated the scene, not in height, but in length and grandeur. It stretches sideways across the block, at a different angle than the other buildings, and shines in the thin, gray, London light.
A police officer stands in front of the visitors entrance, garish in her yellow and orange vest, but John smiles at her politely nonetheless.
“Good afternoon,” he greets her.
“Your ID and letter please, sir,” she answers
He smiles. “I was a witness to a robbery this afternoon, on Brompton Road.” He fumbles his wallet out of his back pocket and thumbs out his license. “I've got this, but no letter.”
She checks it, checks her list, then hands back the card. “You were called in,” she says curtly, stepping to the side. “Go ahead and go inside.”
Her suspicious eyes follow him inside, but John only smiles. He thinks fiery and cranky women are interesting, even if they aren't exactly his type. He slowly walks down the short hall, his cane adding a third step, and pulls open the door. Inside is the security checkpoint, which he submits to in relatively good humor, his leg aching only a little bit. Once past the metal detectors he goes through a door into another room.
Footsteps sound out from another corridor.
“Honestly, Lestrade,” a deep voice rings out stridently. “You're cleverer than Anderson, you should be able to connect the dots.”
John slows a little bit, delaying the arrival at his destination that's on the other side of the next door.
A slower set of steps plod along behind the man quickly catching up to John. The doctor can tell that he is the one who speaks next, because his voice is low and slow, like his footsteps. “You tire me, Sherlock. Arsenic in the tea? That's how he died?”
“Tea service set out, man dead in arm chair, two tea cups.” The man billows past John, but the doctor continues with his ponderous and nearly nonexistent steps. The bobby at the door into the actual Yard eyes him with caution, but he ignores him. Instead, he sneaks a peek at the excitable man. He's tall, with dark curly hair, a purple scarf, and a long dark coat that swirls when he whirls around to look back at the man he's calling Lestrade.
“The girlfriend, though? She was in tears when she found out about him. Sherlock, come on, tell me what you know.”
John stops altogether and looks directly at the manic man hovering on the balls of his feet as though he might leap straight into the air for flight.
“Wrong. Nothing was girly, the whole tea set was all man, all his.”
“A boyfriend on the side?” Lestrade asks.
The man named Sherlock inflates, just about ready to burst, a smug and excited look on his face.
“The sister,” John blurts.
“What?” Sherlock demands sharply, intense eyes flickering over the plain doctor.
“No fripperies? It was a guest. Who would I trust to serve me tea? My sister.” John shrugs, standing steadfastly in front of the scarecrow standing thunderstruck in the middle of the room.
“Oh...my...” Sherlock breathes.
John steps around him, now intent on his destination.
“Wait!” The other man calls out.
John pauses, cane in midair.
Not normal. Not normal. Not normal.
“How did you know that?” the other man, Lestrade, demands.
John rolls his shoulders in a stiff shrug and takes another slow step. “Anyone would be able to figure it out...Detective Inspector...Lestrade, is it? I'm nothing special.” He reaches for the door and pauses again. “If you don't have this man on retainer already, you should,” he advises. “He's not nearly as stupid as the rest of the world, even if he is arrogant as a direct result.”
“Afghanistan or Iraq?” Sherlock calls out as John pulls the door open.
“Ta,” he replies, and leaves them behind.
He's disturbed to realize that he has a warm smile on his face, and had one that whole time, without realizing it. He lets it slip away as he approaches the reception desk. “Hullo, I'm here to provide my statement about a robbery I witnessed?”
“Name?”
“I'm the Doctor,” he smiles, shaking his head. “I mean, I'm Doctor John Watson.”
Normal. Normal. Normal.
“Righto.”
As his temporary identification tag is printed out and hung on a lanyard, he pictures the manic detective eying John as though he was soaking up everything about him and chuckles ruefully. He grips his cane tightly in his right hand for a moment, then clenches left hand into a fist.
It's as steady as a rock.
He doesn't expect to see the man ever again, but he can always hope.
“You will find one, John. I'm sure of it.”
2. “next to of course god America i” by E.E. Cummings
Part 4