Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/349267.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M, Other
  Fandom:
      Sherlock_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Sherlock_Holmes_&_John_Watson
  Character:
      Sherlock_Holmes, John_Watson, Mummy_(Sherlock), Mycroft_Holmes, Holmes'
      Father_(Sherlock)
  Additional Tags:
      Parent/Child_Incest, Sibling_Incest
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-03-01 Words: 5197
****** Nor Ever Chaste ******
by celestialskiff
Summary
     The skull belongs to his father. But it's not his father's skull.
     Written for a prompt on the kink meme, which requested that Sherlock
     and Mycroft had both been sexually abused by their parents. They
     respond in different ways, and with John's encouragement, Sherlock
     beings to change his perspective.
Notes
     Warning for graphic parent/child incest and some sibling incest.
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
-John Donne, 'Batter My Heart'
 
The skull belongs to his father. But it's not his father's skull, and that's an
important distinction. His father is still alive, and needs his skull.
Sherlock likes bones. Without bones, you are nothing. Without skin, you are
muscle. Without muscle, you are a soup of organs. Without bones, you vanish.
It's a hot day in July. His father likes hot weather. He sings a song that
Sherlock likes: In July the sun is hot. Is it shining? No it's not! Sherlock
sings it over and over and gets in trouble, because doing that is annoying. But
it is hot today, so he doesn't have to sing it, so he won't get in trouble.
Father's in his study, with his skull. He has human vertebrae too, and some
greyhound skulls and a horse's mandible. Father's interested in bones, and he
shows them to Sherlock. He says he'll buy Sherlock a microscope of his own when
he's bigger.
“These are lumbar vertebrae,” his Father says, and Sherlock nods, tracing his
fingers over the irregular shapes. Father was working on one of his files, but
he pushes it aside. Brown paper, brown desk. Outside, Mummy and Mycroft are
cutting dead flowers off the dog roses. Father's looking at Sherlock. He pushes
Sherlock's hair off his forehead, and his hand is strangely cool for such a hot
day.
“Aren't you a good boy?” his father says, and Sherlock presses up, into the
hand, the cool hand on his skin. He slides his hand slowly down Sherlock's
face, and to his neck.
There are things Sherlock minds and things Sherlock doesn't mind. He doesn't
mind his Mummy or his Father touching him anywhere. He likes it, and they
always tell him what a good boy he is. He doesn't like touching them so much
because they have parts that don't taste nice and it makes him feel funny, but
he knows he has to.
“If you don't touch me back how will I ever know you love me?” they say.
Sherlock wants them to know. He loves the feeling of vertebrae under his
fingers. He loves the shape of his father's skull on the shelf. He loves
learning about structure: the shape of the body, the anatomy of a piece of
music. He loves the way his Mummy always smells like roses. Sometimes he loves
them so much it almost seems to hurt.
He wants to make sure they know.
*
His parents' bedroom is messy, the floor covered in socks and books and bits of
string. Sherlock likes sitting on the floor and finding things: the back of an
earring, the wrapper of a chocolate bar, a fragment of blue eggshell. He and
Mycroft have their own rooms, but often they spend more time in this room.
Sherlock's shoes are by the door, and his special blue alarm clock is on one of
bedside tables.
He doesn't really need an alarm clock. He doesn't go to school, because Mummy
and Father teach him, and Father works at home. They're always together in the
warm house with all the secrets on the floor.
Father says he's too clever for school. Sherlock likes it when people say he's
clever.
Sometimes Mummy doesn't cook for days, and then she cooks lots of meals all at
once: spaghetti carbonara, roast beef, French toast, carrot salad, scones,
toffee, fruit cake. They don't eat them quickly enough, and the scones turn
into hard rocks. Usually Mummy and Father are friends, but sometimes they start
shouting. They shout at Mycroft too, but not often at Sherlock.
When they're cross he and Mycroft go into Mycroft's room and hide under the bed
or they go out for a walk, depending on whether it's raining or not. They live
near the coast, but far away enough from it that they hardly ever see it
because they have to walk for a long time to get there. Once Mummy said
something to Mycroft that made him walk with Sherlock all the way to the coast.
There's a beach there, and sand dunes, and they sit at the edge and watch
oystercatchers, and Mycroft talks about stealing a boat and sailing away.
Sherlock knows it's a joke, but when they go back it's nearly dark, and Mummy
isn't cross: she just looks scared.
They share a bed that night, all of them, Sherlock tucked in between Mycroft
and Father. It's nice and cosy and safe.
*
He and Mycroft are in the car, coming back from violin lessons. They're sitting
in the back, even thought Mycroft is old enough to sit in the front next to
Mummy.
Mycroft is sad. Sherlock can see it in his face and in his eyes and the way he
holds himself. Mycroft's not very musical—Sherlock knows it and so does their
teacher—but he wants to be, very badly, because Mummy wants him to be.
Last night they both played their practice pieces for Mummy, and Sherlock's
piece was harder than Mycroft's, and he did it much better even though he's
younger. Mummy said he was her little star and sat him on her knee on the sofa
and ran her cool hands over his neck and chest and over his trousers and kissed
him gently on the mouth with her warm lips and he loved how soft she felt and
the attention she gave him. She didn't touch Mycroft at all.
Sherlock reaches across the back of the car seat. It's raining outside, swish
swish swish, and Mummy's looking at the road. His violin is on his knees, and
the day is dark against the windows, and he knows Mummy's flowers will be
beaten wide by rain and that will put her in a bad mood. He reaches across the
back of the car seat and finds Mycroft's hand with its broad, fleshy palm and
its familiar fingers and squeezes gently. Mycroft squeezes back.
He loves Mycroft even if Mycroft isn't any good at the violin, so he puts his
violin case on the floor between his feet and reaches over for Mycroft. First
he hugs him, pressing his body against Mycroft's chest, and Mycroft hugs him
back, and then he thinks that Mummy and Father always say hugging isn't enough,
so he kisses Mycroft too. Mycroft tastes like milk and Brussels paste
sandwiches.
“What are you doing?” Mummy says, her voice harsh and sudden.
“Showing Mycroft I love him,” Sherlock says, with the confidence of someone who
knows the right answer.
Mummy sighs. She slows the car. She's looking out the window, but there's not
much out the window except rain and hedgerows, and she takes one of her hands
off the wheel and presses it against her eye and then her upper lip. Sherlock
is tense, surprised by her reaction, unsure of his next move.
“Don't, Sherlock,” Mummy says, but she says it gently.
Sherlock pulls away from Mycroft. He looks at Mycroft as he sits back on his
own side of the car. Mycroft's blushing. Why is he blushing? Sherlock knows he
did something wrong, but he doesn't understand what it was.
*
He and Mycroft and Father are looking for barn owls, because someone said there
was a nest nearby. Barn owls, barn owls, barn owls, Sherlock says over and over
in his head. Tyto alba is their proper name, and they're one of the most
widespread of all birds. He's never seen one, but he's heard their low cry,
when he's in bed alone, in his little bed next to the window, and when he hears
it he rolls over away from the curtains because sometimes he's afraid that it's
not just a barn owl outside.
He likes it better if he's with Mummy or Father when he hears them, safe
between their warm bodies in bed. You could be scared of nothing then.
Sometimes Father comes to share his bed with him, because he's had a fight with
Mummy, and he lies next to him in the warmth, and they're too close, but
Sherlock doesn't mind. Sometimes Father's penis swells against Sherlock's hip
when they're lying together, but Sherlock doesn't mind that either, because
usually Father just rubs his cock between Sherlock's thighs, and that doesn't
feel bad at all.
But tonight he and Father and Mycroft are out looking for barn owls in the cool
night, their feet crunching through the grass. All the stars are up and they
can look at them above their heads. Sherlock knows the names of constellations,
but he doesn't think they're very important. Names don't really mean anything.
Besides, the moon is full tonight and in that glare the stars aren't very
clear. He's looking for the owl's silhouette against the night sky, or the
strange uneven flight of a bat.
They walk until he's tired, and then they sit down between some oak trees,
bundled up in coats, Sherlock on Father's left and Mycroft on his right.
Sherlock snuggles up against Father, but Mycroft stays aloof, keeping his back
very straight.
“Why doesn't Mycroft want a cuddle?” Sherlock says.
“He thinks grown-ups don't want cuddles,” Father says. “Or maybe he doesn't
love me anymore.”
“I love you,” Sherlock says. He reaches up and kisses Father, Father's lips
warm against his cool ones. Afterwards, he looks at Mycroft, but Mycroft is
looking at his hands, and in the moonlight his face looks tight and strained.
*
One day Sherlock wakes up because he can hear someone crying.
It's late in the morning. Mummy and Father don't like to get up early, so
Sherlock doesn't either. He puts his feet down on the rug by his bed and finds
his dressing-gown hanging over the back of his chair. It's warm and thick and
he wraps himself up in it.
He goes down the hall, looking for the crying. He thinks it's Mycroft. Mummy
cries in a different pitch and Father doesn't cry. Mycroft's not in Father and
Mummy's room, so he looks in Mycroft's bedroom.
Mycroft's lying on his bed on his back with his forearm over his face. He's
crying, but not like he wants anyone to hear. He's crying like he can't stop,
like he's tried everything else, and this is the only option he's left with.
Mummy's on top of him. Sherlock looks but doesn't need to look. He knows what
Mummy's doing. He's seen her do it to Mycroft before, and Father. She doesn't
do it to him. She says he's not old enough.
Sherlock turns away. He loves Mummy but he doesn't know if he wants to do that
to her. He definitely doesn't like to lick her there, but sometimes she makes
him.
He knows why Mycroft's crying and he can't comfort him. He goes downstairs.
Father's not in the kitchen or the dining room or the sitting room. Sherlock
can still hear Mycroft crying in all of those rooms so he goes into the garden
and sits near the dog roses and puts his hands over his ears.
He doesn't know how much later it is when Mummy comes downstairs and kisses him
and asks him what he would like for breakfast. She smells strange and he isn't
hungry but he tells her he wants scrambled eggs.
*
Mycroft's always saying he wants to go to school. Sherlock doesn't—he's read
about it in books and it sounds scary. Mummy and Father teach him things, and
he's much farther ahead than he would be if he'd been in school. He's happy the
way things are. He has music lessons and a nice lady comes to teach him French
twice a week. She smells like coffee and he tried to kiss her once, but later
Mummy explained that you weren't allowed to love teachers like that.
School sounds lonely and Sherlock doesn't want to go, but when Mycroft's
sixteen, Mycroft goes. He spends months looking through brochures, and insists
on going to a school far away, where he'll have to board. The house is quiet
without him and feels strange and small, and Mummy and Father need lots of
extra cuddles and attention because they're missing Mycroft. Sherlock misses
him too, and he starts sleeping in bed with Mummy and Father most nights so he
won't have to be on his own.
Mummy and Father doesn't have sex with each other very often. They say they
know they love each other so they don't need to. They touch him though, on his
face and on his chest and between his legs, and it feels strange and
uncomfortable sometimes but he knows it's because they love him. He touches
them back because it's the rules.
They fight a lot and call each other bad names, and their voices are loud and
harsh and Sherlock hides under the bed.
Sometimes after they fight they love him even more and they want to touch and
hold him. But sometimes they don't like him and they call him ugly and
worthless and say they wish he wasn't there. That's the worst thing, Father
standing in front of him and not wanting him, locking himself in his study with
his bones and skulls and books and leaving Sherlock outside, lost.
Sherlock doesn't have anyone to go to then, because now Mycroft is only home
for holidays. Even then he spends all his time in his room or out on long walks
in the country, and he won't let anyone touch him. He backs away when Mummy
tries to kiss his cheek or Father tries to hug him. It makes Sherlock feel
strange and sad.
Once he says Sherlock can go with him when he's going for a walk towards the
sea. Sherlock's pleased about that, and he races ahead of Mycroft and then
slows down, and then races ahead again. He's puffed and hot by the time they
stop.
He sits next to Mycroft. Mycroft takes out half a packet of Tuc biscuits from
his pocket, but they're salty and they don't have anything to drink, so
Sherlock doesn't want any.
Mycroft says, “Sherlock, listen to me.”
Then he bites his lip for ages and doesn't say anything. He fiddles with the
yellow wrapper. He starts to say something and then he stops. Sherlock isn't
sure how to encourage him. Mummy and Father never seem uncertain of what they
say.
Then he clears his throat and says, “Sherlock, the way Mummy and Father touch
you, does it make you uncomfortable?”
Sherlock's surprised Mycroft asked. They don't talk about it. No one ever says
it's a rule, but Sherlock knows it's a rule. “Sometimes,” Sherlock says.
“You don't have to let them,” Mycroft says. “I won't let them touch me again.”
Not letting them touch him again sounds impossibly lonely. Sherlock looks down
at his feet, at the leaf mulch on the ground, at the insects crawling in the
mulch. “They love me,” Sherlock says.
Mycroft sighs. It's a big, shaky sort of sigh, like the kind of sigh you let
out before you start crying. “I know,” Mycroft says, and he puts his wrist
against his lips and presses down, and he doesn't say anything else.
They walk back. It's almost dark by the time they get back and Mummy says she
was worried about them. She hugs Sherlock to her chest and Sherlock relaxes
against her, glad she's holding him. Being Mycroft sounds too difficult.
*
Sherlock gets older and Mycroft goes to university. Some of the things Mummy
and Father do with him hurt him now, but it's better than not being touched at
all. Sometimes he wants to fight them off him, sometimes their hands feel so
intrusive, sometimes he wants to stamp on their feet and thrust his knees up
into their groins, but he hardly ever makes a fuss.
When he makes a fuss they tell him he's being unreasonable and acting like the
rude teenagers they see in town. He doesn't want to be unreasonable, he doesn't
want to be like them. He wants to make his parents happy.
He reads books. He reads a lot of books. He wonders if everyone's parents love
them like his parents do and they just don't talk about it in books ever, or if
there's something different. If some families aren't like his.
It doesn't mater. He has what he has, and he loves Mummy and Father.
He does his A levels early, and his results are impressive. A levels are
easy—sitting in the exam hall with hundreds of people he doesn't know feels
very strange. That part is difficult. He does them because he wants everyone to
know how clever he is.
Mycroft comes home at Christmas.
“You can go to university now,” he says.
“He's only a baby,” Mummy says.
“He's seventeen,” Mycroft says.
“He's not like you,” Father says.
Sherlock looks at them, and thinks that all of them are right and so he doesn't
know what to do. He stays at home and looks at his father's ancient skull. It's
large, it must be a man's skull, and the two back teeth are broken. He's never
asked whose skull it is. Somehow he doesn't want to know because knowing whose
brain it had contained would make it feel less like his. Less like it's his own
skull, set safely on the mantelpiece.
It doesn't have a brain any more, so Sherlock fills it up with music instead.
He plays it Prokofiev, the overture from the Fiery Angel, and the skull grins
and accepts it.
*
He decides to leave home at Easter. Mycroft doesn't come home for Easter.
Mycroft hadly ever comes home.
It's a warm morning and he goes for a run. A run round the house, down the
road, past the old cow shed where the barn owls used to be, through the copse,
and back again. It's early, still, Mummy and Father don't get up early, but he
does, and the sky is pink and gold, and the ground vanishes under his feet.
He's a fast runner, he likes to feel his muscles stretch, his feet light and
silent.
Afterwards he goes up and has a shower in their little, green-tiled bathroom,
warm water cascading down his body, warm light combing through his hair. He
feels good.
When he opens the curtain, Mummy's there, leaning against the sink. She smiles
at him. His hair is wet and warm around his face. She reaches down and strokes
his pubic hair, his soft nest of pubic hair. It's wiry and almost dry despite
the shower, and she pats it gently, like it's a pet. His cock twitches. She
catches it in her hands.
He doesn't know if he wants to. He doesn't think he wants to. He wants only the
cleanness of the shower, the clean ache in his muscles after the run. She
strokes him and strokes him. He rests his forehead against her shoulder. He
comes on her shirt.
“Good boy,” she says. “Beautiful boy.”
He thinks: I need to leave.
*
University is lonely, and Sherlock thinks he's not as strong as Mycroft. He
wants to go home, he wants his little bed by the window. The little bed he's
grown too tall for.
Then he learns that other people can love him too.
It's hard talking to people because it seems like his frame of reference is
completely different from theirs. Then he joins the university orchestra and
speaks to other people about music, and that's easier than talking to people
after his chemistry lectures. He knows about music, but he doesn't know much
about films or current affairs or TV.
He goes to cafes with the people from the orchestra, and they're nice to him.
They say he's a good player and he loves praise. They go to concerts together,
him and the other people. At first it's strange and he always feels like he has
to be on guard and he doesn't know how to talk properly and then it's good, and
then he learns that they can love him too. His voice comes more easily and he
learns the right times to smile.
He used to look at people when he went shopping with Mummy, groups of people
who were friends. He read about them in books. Friendship seemed like an alien
state, a ship passing silently by which he could never touch, but then he finds
he's doing it. He can talk to people too.
Sometimes he has sex and sometimes he doesn't. Sex comes easily to him. Some of
the other people he knows are awkward, uncertain, but Sherlock doesn't mind
being naked. He doesn't mind pressing his mouth to skin. He loves to feel so
accepted and it feels good to share that warmth with other people.
Sometimes people don't want to have sex with him, and he learns that that
doesn't always mean they don't like him. A girl calls Sophie looks at him
carefully and says, “You're a bit broken, aren't you?”
He doesn't know how to answer that. He feels alone and strange.
He has sex and sometimes he likes it and sometimes he doesn't. But it makes him
feel loved, and that's better than being alone. Sometimes sex hurts and
sometimes it's boring and sometimes it's lovely, but it's better to have sex
and be loved than not to be loved. It's the best he's felt since leaving his
parents.
He knows he has to grown up and leave them. He knows he's too big to lie next
to them in bed.
He's lonely. A nice boy from the percussion section gives him cocaine for the
first time. He likes the way it feels. He reads everything he can about it, and
learns about solutions and raising a vein. He's good at chemistry. Changing his
chemical content comes naturally to him.
*
Later (much later, eons later, through hours made as bright and constant as
trout hanging suspended in the river by the cocaine in his veins, through dark
moth-eaten hours in withdrawal) he gets used to being alone.
He goes home occasionally. Mummy and Father fight more now, and seem to love
him less. Mycroft almost never goes with him, and when he does he fights with
Mummy and Father. Once, when Sherlock came down the stairs after having sex
with Father, Mycroft shouted at him, “Why are you so broken?”
Sherlock wasn't sure what he meant. Mycroft didn't apologise.
Being at home makes him feels strange and trapped, and he doesn't really know
why. Being alone is better than that. Being alone is difficult. He forgets what
he's doing and lets experiments burn and forgets to eat and forgets to lock the
door. He has the skull for company. He feels alone and strange and he plays
overtures from operas.
He plays and no one hears. His veins are empty and his head is empty and he can
see everyone's past written on their face.
Crime is interesting. Legwork takes his mind off things. (He leaves the door
unlocked one time too many, and ends up in need of a flat share. Thank God
petty criminals don't know the value of violins.)
*
He makes lists of the things he likes about John.
The set of his jaw. The colour of his eyes. The shape of his ears. The way he
pronounced certain words. The way he walks. They way he sits down in a chair.
Then he stops making lists, because he realises it's everything.
*
John doesn't love him. He runs next to Sherlock when they're playing their part
in the game, the chase, the brilliant, most vital part of Sherlock's world, and
he listens when Sherlock talks, and he praises him. He sleeps in the same flat
as Sherlock and he makes Sherlock less lonely, and he makes tea and buys food
and keeps the bathroom clean. But he doesn't love him, and Sherlock's almost
glad.
He'd like to hug John. He'd like to lie next to him in bed. He wouldn't mind
sucking John's penis. He wouldn't like to shout at John like his parents shout
at each other. Love has made Sherlock feel frightened and uncomfortable often
and Sherlock wouldn't want John to feel like that. It's safer if they don't
love each other.
One day when they're sitting next to the fire Sherlock tells John that. The
fire reminds him of home, because Mummy always built up a big fire when it was
cold, and she taught Sherlock how to lay one too. Sherlock likes a fire
crackling next to him, it makes him feel like he has a friend. He rests his
head on his knees and watches the flames, and John comes in and says how nice
the fire is and stretches his fingers out in front of it to warm them.
That's just exactly how you get chilblains but Sherlock doesn't tell him so.
Instead he tells him that it's alright that he doesn't love him.
“What do you mean, Sherlock?” John says. He says it slowly—he has a way of
speaking to Sherlock like Sherlock's stupid. Mycroft does it too, and Sherlock
doesn't like it.
“Just that,” Sherlock says. “Loving people is difficult. Sometimes sex makes
you uncomfortable, and I don't like all that fighting.”
“We fight,” John says, smiling. “You can be bloody frustrating sometimes.”
“Not like people in love fight,” Sherlock says, and suddenly he's itching for
his violin. “I'd hate to call you names, like Mummy and Father call each
other.”
“Your parents fought a lot?” John says. He says it gently.
And then Sherlock begins to tell him, because though he knows somehow,
implicitly, that it's meant to be kept a secret, it's hard not to say it
anyway. He wants to talk about it because it's on his mind so much. He wants to
talk about it because he wants to know if everyone feels as lonely as he does.
He talks about Mummy and Father and the things they said and being lonely and
Mycroft leaving and cuddling and having sex and how strange and terrible it all
felt but how it was better than not being loved. And how he doesn't know why
love is like that.
John watches him while he speaks, and then he looks away, at the fire. When he
looks away Sherlock feels terribly alone. He wants to be contained by those
eyes, those eyes are the only way he can be unlocked.
But he keeps talking.
*
John begins to explain to him, later. It takes a long time. John explains over
them embers of the fire. John explains the next morning, over papers. John
explains outside, under the heavy London sky. John says things that Mycroft
began to say but Sherlock could never hear. Sherlock listens when John speaks,
because John's voice is steady, and John hasn't lied to him.
Sherlock listens, but he doesn't believe it all.
He listens, and then he says, “But they love me, but they love me, but they
love me.”
John tries to say something, but Sherlock hides under his bed with the skull
Father gave him, with the skull whose dry sockets have watched him for years,
because he can't bear to do anything else. Something inside him hurts, it hurts
so much he can't feel it. He won't listen to John. He can't stop listening to
John. He loves John, John doesn't tell lies.
He hurts so much he can't feel anything at all.
*
He gets a train home. He hasn't booked a ticket and he's squeezed next to a
girl who has The Observer spread out all over her lap and all over the seat
next to her. He keeps reading headlines even though he doesn't want to. He puts
his wrist against his mouth. Warm skin, hard teeth. He remembers Mycroft with
his wrist against his mouth.
Mummy makes lemon sole because he's visiting and it's his favourite, and Father
shows him a badger skull he found in the garden. They drink wine and talk. They
talk about constellations, anatomy, music, Sherlock's work, Mycroft's work.
Sherlock doesn't mention John. He thinks about how he can talk to about things
with his parents that he can't say to anyone else.
He thinks about French lessons, music lessons, and how his parents taught him
everything else important. He thinks about maths text books and barn owls.
Mummy tells him to go upstairs with them. He thinks about the cool bedsheets
growing hot in their shared warmth, about sleeplessness and warm breaths and
how much he didn't want them to touch him. He's full of wine and lemon sole and
he says no, he says that he has to get back.
They argue with him, but he's firm. Their faces are sad, sunk in on themselves,
when he leaves. He never wanted to make his parents look like that. He loves
them. He sits in the station for hours. His feet hurt. His eyes hurt. He
thought he felt too much to hurt at all, but already he hurts, already
everything hurts.
He gets the first train back to London. He's alone in the seat this time but
somehow against his eyes he can see the headlines from last night's Observer.
He remembers fighting Father off him once, when he was fourteen and wanted to
be left alone. He remembers finding surprising strength in his arms, he
remembers the hurt look in Father's face.
He remembers all the times he didn't resist. He thinks he knew all along. He
thinks he never knew. He thinks he doesn't know now. He thinks his parents are
wonderful and kind and loving and he's brutal and cruel. He think it's the
other way around. He thinks a lot of things are true at once.
*
In the end, he goes back to John. John looks like he hasn't slept all night,
but then neither has Sherlock. They sit opposite each other in familiar arm
chairs.
Sherlock says that a lot of things are true at once. He says he loves them. He
thinks perhaps he should cry to show he's normal, but his eyes are as dry as
the skull's.
John doesn't try and hold him, but later, perhaps, he will. Sherlock thinks he
would like that. That that's something he would really like.
He tells John, “I don't know how to feel.”
“I don't either,” John says, but he doesn't go away. Sherlock is glad to sit
there, held by the warmth in John's voice and eyes.
“You should go to sleep now,” John says. “You're exhausted.”
Sherlock asks a question to which he thinks he knows the answer. “Will I feel
better when I wake up?”
“No,” John says. He sighs. “Probably worse. But I'll be here. We'll figure it
out together.”
Sherlock lies in his bed and remembers hiding from the curtains when he heard
barn owls. But now he can only hear London traffic, and he's not afraid.
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