The Surgeon
Title: The Surgeon
Rating: T
Warnings: PTSD (trigger), hallucinations, murder
Summary: Mini fill for Sherlockbbc_fic prompt - "When a doctor does go wrong, he is the first of criminals. He has the nerve, and he has the knowledge"
John makes a sacrifice on the altar of his desert demons.
/
His hand is twitching again. It's time.
He pulls on his dull cherry jumper and faded army canvas jacket. He leaves his gun tucked in his pillow. It will not be needed tonight. Not for his purposes.
The dry heat of the desert starts to chafe against his skin. He selects a scalpel(thick handle, solid blade) from the antique surgeon's kit he bartered from a grubby little shop on the outskirts of London. It's cold weight in his palm soothes the tremors for but a moment.
But it does not keep the voices at bay. They hiss and snap at his heels as he leaves his tiny flat.
/...aston-/
His leg smarts impatiently as he descends the stairs. Psychosomatic, his former (useless)therapist had told him. "It's all in your head."
Yes, it is. All in his head. The pain. The heat. The voices. The nightmares. It's not real, but it is.
/..Watson../
A bullet pierces the sand at his feet, the shot rings in his ears. The voices are geting louder; grating in his skull. He reaches the back door of the complex and nearly breaks the handle in his desperation to escape.
London's cold air bites through his clothes, but it does nothing to fend off the cloying, stiffling heat in his brain, on his skin. The wind chases him down the street and through the back alleys, feeding the voices that have now begun to scream from the mouths of his fallen brethren.
/Watson!/
His hand is positively vibrating in his pocket, knuckles clenched tight on the skin-warmed metal of his salvation. There is a hot phantom slickness between his fingers. The ground rumbles beneath his feet as rockets explode in the distance, the sand around him shivers like a living creature.
His leg gives out on him in an alley darkened by the shadow of an abandoned building. Their voices ring at a fever pitch, the heat scalds his flesh, his hand starts to warp the metal. He can't breathe!
/JOHN-/
"Sir?" A hushed voice slices through the cacophony of his mind like a cold blade. "Are you alright?"
Words tumble from his lips unbidden. "My leg. I can't, could you possibly-" come closer? Closer. I need-
"Oh! Of course!" and the trap snaps shut.
-your life
His hand is strong and steady as he cuts off blood flow to the brain. Once consciousness slips from the man's grasp (young, fit, and far too kind) he sinks the blade through cloth and dermal layers to pierce muscle.
Snicker-snack and the fever receeds, the warm blood cooling the searing heat in his brain. His hands are deft and carve the body in textbook diagrams. With every organ dissected and every muscle fileted, his shattered mind pieces itself back together.
At last the heart spills its crimson treasure as he sacrifices this life to his desert demons.
The voices calm, sated by the texture of real blood and the odor of death. The phantoms and ghosts of sensation are replaced with the real thing, and his mind clears like blue skies in spring. The sand blows away with the twilight breeze.
The air is cool. The blood is warm. And John can breathe again.
He cleans his hands and utensil on his jacket and then pulls the garment inside out. The stains from his reversable army jacket hide comfortably in the dull crimson wool of his jumper. The scalpel slides home in his pocket awaiting a good cleaning before returning to sleep its velvet bed.
He walks home surrounded by the masses, wearing some bloke's life under his jacket, on his skin.
His hand is still. His mind is clear and cool. His leg supports him like a brother as his shoes tap against solid concrete.
And the voices are wonderfully silent.
He sleeps that night free from the desert fever.
For tonight.