Sherlock Fanfiction: Afire
Title: Afire
Author: Saki101
Genre: slash
Rating: PG-13 (this section), NC-17 (overall)
Length: ~3200 words
Warning: AU, post The Reichenbach Fall
Disclaimer: I don't own BBC's Sherlock and no money is being made.
Author's notes: This is a continuation of the Other Experiments Series which forms an AU frame for the Experiments Series. Afire follows Haematology.
Excerpt: Sherlock reeled. He fumbled for his mobile, dropped it on the sodden carpet, followed it down onto his knees, capturing it. The burn was sizzling up his arms, his fingers almost numb as he texted Mike.
Bring John, Lestrade. Sherlock included the name of the new high-rise apartments overlooking Hyde Park, the flat number. Worse than the first time. More exposure, he added.
Afire
John placed the long, thin glass rod on the sterile tray next to the microscope. He didn’t want to use a pipette, didn’t want to waste a fraction of a drop. He’d rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows and scrubbed. Purification. Odd thought. He’d switched on the small amber light next to the biohazard sign outside the door. They didn’t think it was a biohazard exactly, but the light would keep others away. Solitude. He wanted solitude for this.
He reached for the sealed vial with his bare hand. No barriers. Wrapped his fingers around it, warmed the glass. Such a fleeting touch. He’d needed more. Needed night vigils surrounded by lilies and silence. He’d had a fleeting touch, a few moments to look. Even the blood had been beautiful. Horrifying. Beautiful against the pale skin. Hardly a chance to search for life. A fleeting touch. No chance to call it back. Strangers’ arms. Holding him back. Supporting him from collapsing into the blood. No chance to feel the heat recede, vanish. Don’t go. No time to kiss cold lips. To bid farewell. Please, don’t go. No time to close the eyes. Clouds over the sun.
John held the vial up to the light. Burgundy. He turned it. Rubies in the wine. John lowered the tube, broke the seal.
***
From time to time, John would remember to breath. The slide had not disappointed. No. Sherlock’s blood swarmed with an additional component, its shape very familiar to John now. Fifty percent at least. What was it? Why did they all have it? Something they had all been exposed to? Sherlock for much longer? Questions. There were so many. Was it something at Bart’s? Mrs Hudson didn’t spend time there, but Sherlock brought equipment and body parts from Bart’s to Baker Street. Had they been wrong about it not being contagious?
John leaned back. The corners of his lips lifted. He shouldn’t be happy. He had far more questions than answers, but he had something of Sherlock’s still. John looked to the small freezer and his eyes narrowed. Perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps it was only something they shared. He snapped on a pair of gloves before he took out the sealed block of frozen tar and wood. Maybe this is why Moriarty chose to say he would burn you, Sherlock.
John pulled the microtome closer. “But whose blood boiled, Jim?” John whispered, a smile still hovering about his lips. The air in the lab was sweet.
***
Sherlock reeled. He fumbled for his mobile, dropped it on the sodden carpet, followed it down onto his knees, capturing it. The burn was sizzling up his arms, his fingers almost numb as he texted Mike.
Bring John, Lestrade. Sherlock included the name of the new high-rise apartments overlooking Hyde Park, the flat number. Worse than the first time. More exposure, he added.
Nausea rose, squeezing his eyes shut. He lost his grip on the phone, heard it land with a faint squelch. Breaking his landing with his hands, Sherlock crawled onto the wooden floor, stretched out a long arm and hit send. He wanted to pull off his trench coat, his jacket, get the sleeves soaked to the elbows away from his skin, but he couldn’t sit up. His arms buckled. His nerve endings buzzed where the side of his hand had settled into the wet wool.
***
John’s phone vibrated.
“Mike?” he said quietly as he stepped into a corridor.
“Where are you?” Mike asked and his voice made John want to run, but he didn’t know in which direction yet.
“Just outside the library,” John answered, his muscles tensed to keep himself still.
“Thank God,” Mike said and John’s pulse picked up more speed. “I’ll be with you in a minute.” John heard the rattle of a door handle. “You’re still in touch with Lestrade, right?” Mike asked. “Can you ask him to come to an address I’m going to send you?” he continued, without waiting for John’s reply.
“Yes,” John said. Mike disconnected. John’s head whipped in both directions, unsure which way Mike would be coming and wondering when affable Mike had started behaving like Sherlock. His phone buzzed, John saw the Knightsbridge address and called Lestrade.
***
Streets and intersections flashed through his mind, the digital read-out on his phone, not quite rush-hour. Sherlock dragged the phone closer to his face. The skin on his hands and wrists felt raw. He tried again to move and succeeded in wiggling one arm out of both his coat and jacket. He panted against the polished floorboards, calculating the various travel times from Baker Street, New Scotland Yard and Bart’s, as the blisters formed around his fingernails and his wrists. He thrashed once with his freed arm and flung his coat and jacket over his back. They landed on the phone and his other arm, the belt buckle striking his knuckles. His eyes opened wide, the gleam of the stainless steel refrigerator visible through the kitchen doorway registering through the haze of pain. There would be ice if he could get himself there.
***
They shift restlessly in the elevator. John and Lestrade catching one another’s eyes in the mirrored walls. John narrows his further when he finds his face looking down from the ceiling. The elevator doors slide open on a small lobby overlooking the park. The sky is cloudy. They are ghosts in the plate glass. Lestrade glances at the key card. “Left,” he says and they turn as one down the lily-scented corridor.
Lestrade swipes the card, depresses the door handle silently. The smell of melted plastic and something meatier wafts into the hallway on a wave of heat. Mike covers his mouth and John takes two steps to the left to wrench a fire extinguisher off the wall. Lestrade’s eyes flick towards the movement before he nods and steps over the threshold, John right behind, fire extinguisher held so that he can wield it as a weapon as readily as for its intended purpose. When the smouldering body comes into view, John brushes past Lestrade and leans over it. The man has fallen mostly on his back, one side elevated where an arm is trapped beneath him, his face turned to the side, exposing the long gash in his throat. His clothing and the surrounding carpet are dark with blood. John lets out a long breath, registers the sounds of Lestrade and Mike moving behind him and the warmth penetrating the soles of his shoes.
“John!” Lestrade shouts from another room.
John turns towards the voice, his foot half landing on something firm beneath a pile of scorched fabric. He nudges it aside, sees a mobile, its casing spreading out around its lit screen. He bends down low enough to read the message. Have John. En route. Despite the heat in the room, John shivers.
“John!” Lestrade calls again and his voice has an edge to it.
John peers through a doorway, sees a bit of Lestrade’s coat above a granite countertop, the rest of him hidden by an open refrigerator door. In a few steps, John’s craning his head around it, getting a glimpse of Mike crouched on the other side of the open freezer compartment. John sidles between the corner of the counter and the door, steps behind Lestrade’s bent figure and over the denim-clad legs of another body stretched along the tile floor. John edges nearer to Mike as Lestrade withdraws his fingers from between the shirt collar and the dark blond hair of the body. “I can’t find a pulse,” he says, moving back so John can get a closer look. “The angle’s awkward. Should we move him?”
Mike stands up, pulls back and something crunches under his shoe. He picks up a bag of frozen peas and stares at it, his high colour gone. Bodies in a morgue are different from those at a crime scene. John knows.
“Sit down, Mike,” John says. Mike shakes his head, drawing further away, still clutching the dripping bag of vegetables. Lestrade drags a chair away from the table, puts a hand on Mike’s shoulder and pushes him down into it. With Mike and Lestrade both out of the way, John runs his eyes over the long lines of the body slumped head and chest in the freezer drawer. He takes a breath and doesn’t let it out for a moment.
“I need some warm water,” he says and kneels beside the body, his hand reaching out towards the same place Lestrade’s had been. His fingers slip beneath thick curls. John raises his other hand to his face, pinches the bridge of his nose as the hair slides over his knuckles, the cold skin beneath his fingertips. Muscles in the centre of his chest knot. He winces, opens his mouth to speak. Nothing emerges. John swallows and tries again.
“What time did you get the text, Mike?” he asks, skimming his fingers up beneath the jaw. He doesn’t find what he wants there either.
“You called me thirty-seven minutes ago,” Lestrade replies, glancing from his phone to John, then to Mike. “You got the text a couple minutes before that, yeah?”
John doesn’t turn, assumes Mike has nodded. He reaches for the wrist buried amidst the thawing packages. Sees the pinkness of the water gathered in the bottom of the drawer as he pushes plastic bags aside and eases out a hand. “Christ,” he says, taking in the peeling, red skin.
“Find some scissors, Greg.” John unbuttons the cuff, eases the bloodied cloth higher, exposing the band of blisters, the forearm streaked with red and pink lines. He feels a tap at his shoulder.
Greg holds out a pair of cooking shears, sucks in a breath when he sees the arm. “Acid?” he asks.
John shakes his head and balances the forearm, palm up, on a tub of ice cream. He takes the scissors, cuts from the open cuff to the elbow and around, holds the scissors up to Greg.
“I’ve got the water,” Greg says. “I boiled it, added cold.”
John nods as he peels the wet cloth from the arm, one hand curved under the elbow. He thinks he feels a throb beneath one finger, tries to find it again, finds nothing. He looks up at Greg and reaches for the kettle.
“Do the same to the other arm,” John says and Greg moves away. John stretches up on his knees, pours some water on his hand before leaning over the head. He trickles the warm water into the curly hair, directing the flow between the head and the freezing surfaces surrounding it. He presses with his fingers, easing them between the forehead and the wire rack against which it rests. His palms are tingling. John lifts the head, its weight supported on one set of spread fingers. When he meets resistance as skin begins to tear, he pours more water with his other hand.
There’s a plop of wet cloth on stone. Greg exhales. “Done,” he says. “I think this hand’s worse.”
“Find some towels, a blanket,” John says. “See if there’s a hot water bottle or some thermal packs.”
He hears the rustle of Greg’s raincoat, feels a tea towel land on his shoulder before Greg’s footsteps move off slate onto carpet and disappear. John puts down the kettle, half rises, lifting one leg over the narrow hips, slipping one arm under the chest and pulling back until the torso is nearly upright. The knees slide forward and apart under the weight, meet the front of the freezer drawer and stop. John lowers himself to his knees, guides the head back until it rests on his shoulder. He takes a breath and begins blotting the dripping hair with the tea towel.
“Not much in the bedroom or bathroom. Got towels though,” Lestrade announces from the hallway, a couple bath towels over one arm, a wadded up duvet under the other. John looks up in time to see the duvet drop.
“Christ,” Greg says as he stumbles over it and half falls next to John. He puts a hand up to the face lolling against John’s shoulder.
John tugs one of the towels away from Lestrade, starts drying the wet hair in earnest. For a moment, Lestrade tracks the efficient motion of John’s hands.
“John,” Lestrade says. His eyes are bright under the halogen lights.
John glances at him, makes a small noise behind closed lips and shifts the weight of the body slumped against him. He pulls the other towel away from Greg and across the chest of the body, sets to rubbing circles over the towel, mindful not to touch the forearms.
“Tuck the duvet around him,” John says, eyes fixed on his hand. The friction heats his palm.
“John,” Lestrade insists. “Look at me.”
John can feel ribs through the towel and the shirt. He rubs harder.
“John!” Lestrade repeats. “You haven’t seen the face, have you?”
John leans his cheek against the towel-draped head, brings his hand up to the chin, over the cheekbone; he rubs the side of his face once against the back of the head while his index finger traces arcs along the cheekbone. “I don’t need to,” John says.
Lestrade sits down on the floor, pushes the heels of his hands against his closed eyes.
“Mike?” John says and there is a muffled sound that isn’t any word from Mike. “Can you shut the fridge?” There are scraping sounds as Mike gets up, shoves the freezer drawer in and nudges the refrigerator door past the man’s knees. “Can you straighten his legs?” John asks and Mike crouches, unbends one leg and then the other. “Get the shoes off. Cover him. Rub his feet.”
John moves a hand, pats Lestrade’s knee and Lestrade mutters something John can’t hear. John looks from Greg’s bowed head to Mike who has one shoe off already and is untying the other. “You knew, didn’t you?” John asks and Mike stops, the shoe half off and nods.
Lestrade’s hands drop from his face. He turns to stare at Mike. Mike keeps his head down, slips off the second shoe and reaches for the duvet. Lestrade shifts a bit so he isn’t sitting on any of it.
“And he came to the library?” John says and Mike nods as he tucks the duvet around the legs. “You’d drug me,” John continues. “Or he would.”
“Him mostly,” Mike says.
Lestrade swivels towards Mike. “You knew he wasn’t dead?” Greg says.
Mike nods again, slips his hand under the duvet and begins rubbing a foot. “You weren’t to know. He insisted,” Mike says, flashing a look at John, before looking down again.
John sighs. “I know what Sherlock can convince people to do.”
“What?” Greg says and it isn’t clear if he's addressing Mike or John. “All this time?”
“Do you know who’s in the other room?” John asks. Mike shakes his head.
Lestrade gets up. “I should go have a closer look,” he sighs.
Mike slowly gets to his feet. “I’ll go help him,” Mike murmurs and is gone.
John rubs his cheek against the terrycloth-covered head again. His arm tightens across the chest and his hand tucks into the armpit on the other side searching for warmth. He closes his eyes. “Don’t be dead,” he whispers and shifts a little further back on his heels. “Not now.” John slides his other hand along the towel and under the duvet, leaning slightly forward once more. “Not ever, really.” His hand curves from the top of the thigh into the groin. He leans back a bit, then forward again, shivers under the cold weight and keeps rocking.
Lestrade’s voice carries from the sitting room. “A favour, Jean-Pierre.” There is the scrape of furniture dragging over wood. “In London, yeah…glad I could help. How quickly can you get an ID on these.” A pause. “Thanks. Yeah, I’ll wait.”
“Was he the one for me?” John whispers. He moves his head, pushes the towel aside with his chin, settles his cheek against a cold ear and keeps rocking.
“What the hell is happening to the carpet? His clothes…Christ,” John can hear Lestrade asking, feet stamping. “We’re not going to have much evidence soon.” There’s a murmur from Mike. “You know what this is? How fast does it work?”
“They weren’t dreams,” John says quietly, his fingers flexing. “You promised not to drug me again.” John curls forward. “No. You promised not to be wrong again. I knew it.” John shifts his knees apart, drops the couple inches to the floor, slowly straightens his legs and presses in with them from either side. “I know I’ve threatened to kill you.” John takes a deep breath. “Don’t let me have done it.” He frees his left hand, begins rubbing circles again. “Don’t.” John hunches his right shoulder and rocks more to the left as he leans forward. “I don’t care what you’ve done. To me, to anyone. I don’t care. I forgive it all, everything. Just don’t be dead.”
There’s a vibration under his hand. John’s fingers dig in. Against his cheek, there is movement.
“Ev’rything?” The sound is more croak than word, but John understands it.
His whole body clenches to keep his voice even. “Everything,” John repeats and pauses to breath. “So far,” he adds, lifting his head slightly. “It’s not carte blanche for the future,” John clarifies. His voice fails on the last word, the final syllable scraping over his lips. He had almost relegated that concept to fantasy. Future.
He can feel the muscles work against his cheek.
“Oh.”
John knows that tone, disappointment. “What? You want me to forgive you in advance?” He breathes, but it isn't easy. His hands move, scrabbling a little ways, clutching wherever they stop, moving again. John pulls his head back a bit and turns to look into an eye whose colours are brighter than he remembered, the white tinged with pink, the iris iridescent.
There’s a cramp in John's chest. His eyes squeeze shut as it twists. It makes him gasp.
“John!” The voice is a harsh whisper.
John opens his eyes, blows air out of his rounded mouth in a long huff. The eye he sees is wide. The sound of his name echoes in his ears. He pulls air back into his lungs as the pain recedes, exhales through narrowly parted lips. It almost whistles.
“Fine. You’re forgiven. Past, present and future. There,” he finishes and ignores the odd crackles in his voice. “I won’t stop threatening to kill you for some of it.” John feels the shift of muscles, sees the wince and then the hand held up in front of him. “Yes, well. I wasn’t trying to kill you with that,” he says, grimacing. The blisters are weeping. “That may take a while to heal.”
“Don’t have time.”
“This isn’t the end of it?” John asks, jerking his head towards the sitting room.
“No.”
John’s fingers tighten on whichever parts of Sherlock are under his hands.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next part, Haploid, may be read here.
Author: Saki101
Genre: slash
Rating: PG-13 (this section), NC-17 (overall)
Length: ~3200 words
Warning: AU, post The Reichenbach Fall
Disclaimer: I don't own BBC's Sherlock and no money is being made.
Author's notes: This is a continuation of the Other Experiments Series which forms an AU frame for the Experiments Series. Afire follows Haematology.
Excerpt: Sherlock reeled. He fumbled for his mobile, dropped it on the sodden carpet, followed it down onto his knees, capturing it. The burn was sizzling up his arms, his fingers almost numb as he texted Mike.
Bring John, Lestrade. Sherlock included the name of the new high-rise apartments overlooking Hyde Park, the flat number. Worse than the first time. More exposure, he added.
Afire
John placed the long, thin glass rod on the sterile tray next to the microscope. He didn’t want to use a pipette, didn’t want to waste a fraction of a drop. He’d rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows and scrubbed. Purification. Odd thought. He’d switched on the small amber light next to the biohazard sign outside the door. They didn’t think it was a biohazard exactly, but the light would keep others away. Solitude. He wanted solitude for this.
He reached for the sealed vial with his bare hand. No barriers. Wrapped his fingers around it, warmed the glass. Such a fleeting touch. He’d needed more. Needed night vigils surrounded by lilies and silence. He’d had a fleeting touch, a few moments to look. Even the blood had been beautiful. Horrifying. Beautiful against the pale skin. Hardly a chance to search for life. A fleeting touch. No chance to call it back. Strangers’ arms. Holding him back. Supporting him from collapsing into the blood. No chance to feel the heat recede, vanish. Don’t go. No time to kiss cold lips. To bid farewell. Please, don’t go. No time to close the eyes. Clouds over the sun.
John held the vial up to the light. Burgundy. He turned it. Rubies in the wine. John lowered the tube, broke the seal.
***
From time to time, John would remember to breath. The slide had not disappointed. No. Sherlock’s blood swarmed with an additional component, its shape very familiar to John now. Fifty percent at least. What was it? Why did they all have it? Something they had all been exposed to? Sherlock for much longer? Questions. There were so many. Was it something at Bart’s? Mrs Hudson didn’t spend time there, but Sherlock brought equipment and body parts from Bart’s to Baker Street. Had they been wrong about it not being contagious?
John leaned back. The corners of his lips lifted. He shouldn’t be happy. He had far more questions than answers, but he had something of Sherlock’s still. John looked to the small freezer and his eyes narrowed. Perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps it was only something they shared. He snapped on a pair of gloves before he took out the sealed block of frozen tar and wood. Maybe this is why Moriarty chose to say he would burn you, Sherlock.
John pulled the microtome closer. “But whose blood boiled, Jim?” John whispered, a smile still hovering about his lips. The air in the lab was sweet.
***
Sherlock reeled. He fumbled for his mobile, dropped it on the sodden carpet, followed it down onto his knees, capturing it. The burn was sizzling up his arms, his fingers almost numb as he texted Mike.
Bring John, Lestrade. Sherlock included the name of the new high-rise apartments overlooking Hyde Park, the flat number. Worse than the first time. More exposure, he added.
Nausea rose, squeezing his eyes shut. He lost his grip on the phone, heard it land with a faint squelch. Breaking his landing with his hands, Sherlock crawled onto the wooden floor, stretched out a long arm and hit send. He wanted to pull off his trench coat, his jacket, get the sleeves soaked to the elbows away from his skin, but he couldn’t sit up. His arms buckled. His nerve endings buzzed where the side of his hand had settled into the wet wool.
***
John’s phone vibrated.
“Mike?” he said quietly as he stepped into a corridor.
“Where are you?” Mike asked and his voice made John want to run, but he didn’t know in which direction yet.
“Just outside the library,” John answered, his muscles tensed to keep himself still.
“Thank God,” Mike said and John’s pulse picked up more speed. “I’ll be with you in a minute.” John heard the rattle of a door handle. “You’re still in touch with Lestrade, right?” Mike asked. “Can you ask him to come to an address I’m going to send you?” he continued, without waiting for John’s reply.
“Yes,” John said. Mike disconnected. John’s head whipped in both directions, unsure which way Mike would be coming and wondering when affable Mike had started behaving like Sherlock. His phone buzzed, John saw the Knightsbridge address and called Lestrade.
***
Streets and intersections flashed through his mind, the digital read-out on his phone, not quite rush-hour. Sherlock dragged the phone closer to his face. The skin on his hands and wrists felt raw. He tried again to move and succeeded in wiggling one arm out of both his coat and jacket. He panted against the polished floorboards, calculating the various travel times from Baker Street, New Scotland Yard and Bart’s, as the blisters formed around his fingernails and his wrists. He thrashed once with his freed arm and flung his coat and jacket over his back. They landed on the phone and his other arm, the belt buckle striking his knuckles. His eyes opened wide, the gleam of the stainless steel refrigerator visible through the kitchen doorway registering through the haze of pain. There would be ice if he could get himself there.
***
They shift restlessly in the elevator. John and Lestrade catching one another’s eyes in the mirrored walls. John narrows his further when he finds his face looking down from the ceiling. The elevator doors slide open on a small lobby overlooking the park. The sky is cloudy. They are ghosts in the plate glass. Lestrade glances at the key card. “Left,” he says and they turn as one down the lily-scented corridor.
Lestrade swipes the card, depresses the door handle silently. The smell of melted plastic and something meatier wafts into the hallway on a wave of heat. Mike covers his mouth and John takes two steps to the left to wrench a fire extinguisher off the wall. Lestrade’s eyes flick towards the movement before he nods and steps over the threshold, John right behind, fire extinguisher held so that he can wield it as a weapon as readily as for its intended purpose. When the smouldering body comes into view, John brushes past Lestrade and leans over it. The man has fallen mostly on his back, one side elevated where an arm is trapped beneath him, his face turned to the side, exposing the long gash in his throat. His clothing and the surrounding carpet are dark with blood. John lets out a long breath, registers the sounds of Lestrade and Mike moving behind him and the warmth penetrating the soles of his shoes.
“John!” Lestrade shouts from another room.
John turns towards the voice, his foot half landing on something firm beneath a pile of scorched fabric. He nudges it aside, sees a mobile, its casing spreading out around its lit screen. He bends down low enough to read the message. Have John. En route. Despite the heat in the room, John shivers.
“John!” Lestrade calls again and his voice has an edge to it.
John peers through a doorway, sees a bit of Lestrade’s coat above a granite countertop, the rest of him hidden by an open refrigerator door. In a few steps, John’s craning his head around it, getting a glimpse of Mike crouched on the other side of the open freezer compartment. John sidles between the corner of the counter and the door, steps behind Lestrade’s bent figure and over the denim-clad legs of another body stretched along the tile floor. John edges nearer to Mike as Lestrade withdraws his fingers from between the shirt collar and the dark blond hair of the body. “I can’t find a pulse,” he says, moving back so John can get a closer look. “The angle’s awkward. Should we move him?”
Mike stands up, pulls back and something crunches under his shoe. He picks up a bag of frozen peas and stares at it, his high colour gone. Bodies in a morgue are different from those at a crime scene. John knows.
“Sit down, Mike,” John says. Mike shakes his head, drawing further away, still clutching the dripping bag of vegetables. Lestrade drags a chair away from the table, puts a hand on Mike’s shoulder and pushes him down into it. With Mike and Lestrade both out of the way, John runs his eyes over the long lines of the body slumped head and chest in the freezer drawer. He takes a breath and doesn’t let it out for a moment.
“I need some warm water,” he says and kneels beside the body, his hand reaching out towards the same place Lestrade’s had been. His fingers slip beneath thick curls. John raises his other hand to his face, pinches the bridge of his nose as the hair slides over his knuckles, the cold skin beneath his fingertips. Muscles in the centre of his chest knot. He winces, opens his mouth to speak. Nothing emerges. John swallows and tries again.
“What time did you get the text, Mike?” he asks, skimming his fingers up beneath the jaw. He doesn’t find what he wants there either.
“You called me thirty-seven minutes ago,” Lestrade replies, glancing from his phone to John, then to Mike. “You got the text a couple minutes before that, yeah?”
John doesn’t turn, assumes Mike has nodded. He reaches for the wrist buried amidst the thawing packages. Sees the pinkness of the water gathered in the bottom of the drawer as he pushes plastic bags aside and eases out a hand. “Christ,” he says, taking in the peeling, red skin.
“Find some scissors, Greg.” John unbuttons the cuff, eases the bloodied cloth higher, exposing the band of blisters, the forearm streaked with red and pink lines. He feels a tap at his shoulder.
Greg holds out a pair of cooking shears, sucks in a breath when he sees the arm. “Acid?” he asks.
John shakes his head and balances the forearm, palm up, on a tub of ice cream. He takes the scissors, cuts from the open cuff to the elbow and around, holds the scissors up to Greg.
“I’ve got the water,” Greg says. “I boiled it, added cold.”
John nods as he peels the wet cloth from the arm, one hand curved under the elbow. He thinks he feels a throb beneath one finger, tries to find it again, finds nothing. He looks up at Greg and reaches for the kettle.
“Do the same to the other arm,” John says and Greg moves away. John stretches up on his knees, pours some water on his hand before leaning over the head. He trickles the warm water into the curly hair, directing the flow between the head and the freezing surfaces surrounding it. He presses with his fingers, easing them between the forehead and the wire rack against which it rests. His palms are tingling. John lifts the head, its weight supported on one set of spread fingers. When he meets resistance as skin begins to tear, he pours more water with his other hand.
There’s a plop of wet cloth on stone. Greg exhales. “Done,” he says. “I think this hand’s worse.”
“Find some towels, a blanket,” John says. “See if there’s a hot water bottle or some thermal packs.”
He hears the rustle of Greg’s raincoat, feels a tea towel land on his shoulder before Greg’s footsteps move off slate onto carpet and disappear. John puts down the kettle, half rises, lifting one leg over the narrow hips, slipping one arm under the chest and pulling back until the torso is nearly upright. The knees slide forward and apart under the weight, meet the front of the freezer drawer and stop. John lowers himself to his knees, guides the head back until it rests on his shoulder. He takes a breath and begins blotting the dripping hair with the tea towel.
“Not much in the bedroom or bathroom. Got towels though,” Lestrade announces from the hallway, a couple bath towels over one arm, a wadded up duvet under the other. John looks up in time to see the duvet drop.
“Christ,” Greg says as he stumbles over it and half falls next to John. He puts a hand up to the face lolling against John’s shoulder.
John tugs one of the towels away from Lestrade, starts drying the wet hair in earnest. For a moment, Lestrade tracks the efficient motion of John’s hands.
“John,” Lestrade says. His eyes are bright under the halogen lights.
John glances at him, makes a small noise behind closed lips and shifts the weight of the body slumped against him. He pulls the other towel away from Greg and across the chest of the body, sets to rubbing circles over the towel, mindful not to touch the forearms.
“Tuck the duvet around him,” John says, eyes fixed on his hand. The friction heats his palm.
“John,” Lestrade insists. “Look at me.”
John can feel ribs through the towel and the shirt. He rubs harder.
“John!” Lestrade repeats. “You haven’t seen the face, have you?”
John leans his cheek against the towel-draped head, brings his hand up to the chin, over the cheekbone; he rubs the side of his face once against the back of the head while his index finger traces arcs along the cheekbone. “I don’t need to,” John says.
Lestrade sits down on the floor, pushes the heels of his hands against his closed eyes.
“Mike?” John says and there is a muffled sound that isn’t any word from Mike. “Can you shut the fridge?” There are scraping sounds as Mike gets up, shoves the freezer drawer in and nudges the refrigerator door past the man’s knees. “Can you straighten his legs?” John asks and Mike crouches, unbends one leg and then the other. “Get the shoes off. Cover him. Rub his feet.”
John moves a hand, pats Lestrade’s knee and Lestrade mutters something John can’t hear. John looks from Greg’s bowed head to Mike who has one shoe off already and is untying the other. “You knew, didn’t you?” John asks and Mike stops, the shoe half off and nods.
Lestrade’s hands drop from his face. He turns to stare at Mike. Mike keeps his head down, slips off the second shoe and reaches for the duvet. Lestrade shifts a bit so he isn’t sitting on any of it.
“And he came to the library?” John says and Mike nods as he tucks the duvet around the legs. “You’d drug me,” John continues. “Or he would.”
“Him mostly,” Mike says.
Lestrade swivels towards Mike. “You knew he wasn’t dead?” Greg says.
Mike nods again, slips his hand under the duvet and begins rubbing a foot. “You weren’t to know. He insisted,” Mike says, flashing a look at John, before looking down again.
John sighs. “I know what Sherlock can convince people to do.”
“What?” Greg says and it isn’t clear if he's addressing Mike or John. “All this time?”
“Do you know who’s in the other room?” John asks. Mike shakes his head.
Lestrade gets up. “I should go have a closer look,” he sighs.
Mike slowly gets to his feet. “I’ll go help him,” Mike murmurs and is gone.
John rubs his cheek against the terrycloth-covered head again. His arm tightens across the chest and his hand tucks into the armpit on the other side searching for warmth. He closes his eyes. “Don’t be dead,” he whispers and shifts a little further back on his heels. “Not now.” John slides his other hand along the towel and under the duvet, leaning slightly forward once more. “Not ever, really.” His hand curves from the top of the thigh into the groin. He leans back a bit, then forward again, shivers under the cold weight and keeps rocking.
Lestrade’s voice carries from the sitting room. “A favour, Jean-Pierre.” There is the scrape of furniture dragging over wood. “In London, yeah…glad I could help. How quickly can you get an ID on these.” A pause. “Thanks. Yeah, I’ll wait.”
“Was he the one for me?” John whispers. He moves his head, pushes the towel aside with his chin, settles his cheek against a cold ear and keeps rocking.
“What the hell is happening to the carpet? His clothes…Christ,” John can hear Lestrade asking, feet stamping. “We’re not going to have much evidence soon.” There’s a murmur from Mike. “You know what this is? How fast does it work?”
“They weren’t dreams,” John says quietly, his fingers flexing. “You promised not to drug me again.” John curls forward. “No. You promised not to be wrong again. I knew it.” John shifts his knees apart, drops the couple inches to the floor, slowly straightens his legs and presses in with them from either side. “I know I’ve threatened to kill you.” John takes a deep breath. “Don’t let me have done it.” He frees his left hand, begins rubbing circles again. “Don’t.” John hunches his right shoulder and rocks more to the left as he leans forward. “I don’t care what you’ve done. To me, to anyone. I don’t care. I forgive it all, everything. Just don’t be dead.”
There’s a vibration under his hand. John’s fingers dig in. Against his cheek, there is movement.
“Ev’rything?” The sound is more croak than word, but John understands it.
His whole body clenches to keep his voice even. “Everything,” John repeats and pauses to breath. “So far,” he adds, lifting his head slightly. “It’s not carte blanche for the future,” John clarifies. His voice fails on the last word, the final syllable scraping over his lips. He had almost relegated that concept to fantasy. Future.
He can feel the muscles work against his cheek.
“Oh.”
John knows that tone, disappointment. “What? You want me to forgive you in advance?” He breathes, but it isn't easy. His hands move, scrabbling a little ways, clutching wherever they stop, moving again. John pulls his head back a bit and turns to look into an eye whose colours are brighter than he remembered, the white tinged with pink, the iris iridescent.
There’s a cramp in John's chest. His eyes squeeze shut as it twists. It makes him gasp.
“John!” The voice is a harsh whisper.
John opens his eyes, blows air out of his rounded mouth in a long huff. The eye he sees is wide. The sound of his name echoes in his ears. He pulls air back into his lungs as the pain recedes, exhales through narrowly parted lips. It almost whistles.
“Fine. You’re forgiven. Past, present and future. There,” he finishes and ignores the odd crackles in his voice. “I won’t stop threatening to kill you for some of it.” John feels the shift of muscles, sees the wince and then the hand held up in front of him. “Yes, well. I wasn’t trying to kill you with that,” he says, grimacing. The blisters are weeping. “That may take a while to heal.”
“Don’t have time.”
“This isn’t the end of it?” John asks, jerking his head towards the sitting room.
“No.”
John’s fingers tighten on whichever parts of Sherlock are under his hands.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next part, Haploid, may be read here.