part 3g
Rating: PG-13(ish)
Pairing(s): Implied established H/W
Disclaimer: I'm sorry, ACD. :'C
Summary: AU crossover with Marble Hornets // the Slenderman mythos.
Word Count: 1,113
{compunction}
I pulled myself forward just a bit, slid my sweat-slick palms across the floor, placing them so as to lever myself upright and launched like a runner. Every joint popped and creaked, protesting sudden motion. I made four sloppy strides before my bad leg buckled and I lay prostrate across the floor. I felt so suddenly exposed. I curled in on myself for a half second, covering my head like a mortar round was about to drop. With enough force to bruise, I propelled myself forward with my arms in an army crawl. I could feel every impact of my elbows against the hardwood floor straight through to my teeth. The mahogany desk was within range and I flung my upper body against it with animal ferocity. As I struggled to pull myself upright, I groped wildly in the desk drawer. My fingertips glanced against cold steel and my breath caught.
I hauled my shaking body upright, supporting myself with my left palm pressed flat against the glossy desktop. The sight of my reflection in the window was jarring. My wild eyes, like those of a cornered animal, the blood crusted around my nose and mouth, hair in disarray, chattering teeth. I gripped the gun tight, relishing the solid heft of it, panting with my mouth open and teeth bared in a way that was half bestial snarl and half manic grin.
I staggered to the window, screaming in a voice that was not my own. Words poured out of me, over-loud with an edge of shrill hysteria.
“You goddamn abomination. I’ll put such a hole in you. Gut-shoot you fucking open. Why don’t we just see what colour you bleed?”
I threw open the window, still screaming, eyes half-shut. There was a bitter metallic taste at the back of my mouth. A dark figure against the sick, yellow sodium-light. I had time to fire a single erratic shot that went hurtling into nothingness before a strong set of hands disarmed me and I was restrained with a curiously gentle knee pressed against my chest, pinning me to the floor.
When the haze of terror had subsided and the bell-clear ringing in my ears died down, I became aware of Holmes’ voice repeating my name over and over. He had laid a callused hand across my brow but the other was clasped, talon-like, around my right wrist.
“Good Christ, Watson. What has become of your sensibilities?”
He said this in such a frightened, gravely reverent tone that I could not take offense. Rather, I felt quite ashamed of myself - today had been a litany of poor decisions. Satisfied that I was no longer a threat, Holmes rose to clasp the window shut. The expression on his face as he surveyed me further confirmed the degree of my deterioration. I observed him in kind and realized he was looking rather worse for wear.
His hair was wet and matted, giving him a wild air, and yet, his eyes were so dead. They looked hollow and dull, hooded in shadows. He closed them for a moment and I was utterly stricken by the way his eyelids looked so paper-thin and bruised. Every knotted blue vein stood plain and sharp across the backs of his grubby hands. He had lost far too much weight in his absence. His rain soaked shirt clung to every jutting, too-harsh angle
He dropped down to his knees and we stayed like that for a small eternity, just holding one another on the cold bare floor. For the first time in a very long while, I was not critical. I didn’t think about the awful, acrid reek of adrenaline-laced sweat or the dampness of his clothing seeping into mine. Nor the filth and grit accumulated in the mass of wild hair that I had threaded my fingers through. The world shrunk to a pinpoint that included only Holmes and myself. It was safe here for a time.
“Oh my dear boy,” his voice was raw and tremulous, “what has become of us?”
My need to take care of him was beginning to take hold. I urged him to bathe, to take clean, dry clothes. He shook as he stood, so I let him lean on me for support although it sent jangling notes of pain through my leg and my knee threatened to buckle. We found our way to the bathroom and perched on the edge of the tub. It took the two of us working together with short grunts of assent and too many trembling fingers to divest him of his filthy shirt. My hands were stiff, unwilling, slicked with sweat; his shook violently and, judging by the array of bruises dusted across his knuckles, were too painful to operate deftly.
His skin underneath was ashen, brindled with large stretches of raw, black-violet bruising and stretched far too close over leaping, shivering bones. And those devastated devastating arms - I cannot forget the sight of them - like marsh reeds, the knobby mass of his elbow standing out further than the rest. Needle treads marched up and down the crook of the left elbow, deep, deep bruising, and preliminary signs of vein collapse. I wanted to retch. The unforgiving overhead gaslamp turned each indentation into a chasm, each raised, scarred pucker, a mountain range.
He trembled as if that translucent, too-thin skin was not enough to keep his brittle skeleton inside. I thought it was from the cold, so I took him in my hands, rubbing his arms gently (oh, how I thought they might break) and massaging circles over his shuddering iliac crests. Holmes ducked his head and pressed against me as if he were trying to burrow inside my chest. I passed my fingers over and over him, trying to increase circulation and warm him.
I heard a voice, like the creak of rusted hinges, from somewhere around my collarbone. I dipped my head low to hear him better and he pressed his cracked lips close to my ear and in the most horrid, soul-dead voice, whispered:
“This is all wrong. I came here with all intention of caring for you, but it seems you must tend to me, instead. Terribly sorry, old chap.”
I asked how he came to know that I needed caring for. His response still causes me to shiver.
“Why, Watson, you sent me a telegram, yourself. No less than ten minutes ago.”
I had done no such thing in conscious memory. I trembled violently and told him as much. I asked how it would be possible for me to have done so when I had no record of where he was staying. Holmes shook, too.
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Pairing(s): Implied established H/W
Disclaimer: I'm sorry, ACD. :'C
Summary: AU crossover with Marble Hornets // the Slenderman mythos.
Word Count: 1,113
{compunction}
I pulled myself forward just a bit, slid my sweat-slick palms across the floor, placing them so as to lever myself upright and launched like a runner. Every joint popped and creaked, protesting sudden motion. I made four sloppy strides before my bad leg buckled and I lay prostrate across the floor. I felt so suddenly exposed. I curled in on myself for a half second, covering my head like a mortar round was about to drop. With enough force to bruise, I propelled myself forward with my arms in an army crawl. I could feel every impact of my elbows against the hardwood floor straight through to my teeth. The mahogany desk was within range and I flung my upper body against it with animal ferocity. As I struggled to pull myself upright, I groped wildly in the desk drawer. My fingertips glanced against cold steel and my breath caught.
I hauled my shaking body upright, supporting myself with my left palm pressed flat against the glossy desktop. The sight of my reflection in the window was jarring. My wild eyes, like those of a cornered animal, the blood crusted around my nose and mouth, hair in disarray, chattering teeth. I gripped the gun tight, relishing the solid heft of it, panting with my mouth open and teeth bared in a way that was half bestial snarl and half manic grin.
I staggered to the window, screaming in a voice that was not my own. Words poured out of me, over-loud with an edge of shrill hysteria.
“You goddamn abomination. I’ll put such a hole in you. Gut-shoot you fucking open. Why don’t we just see what colour you bleed?”
I threw open the window, still screaming, eyes half-shut. There was a bitter metallic taste at the back of my mouth. A dark figure against the sick, yellow sodium-light. I had time to fire a single erratic shot that went hurtling into nothingness before a strong set of hands disarmed me and I was restrained with a curiously gentle knee pressed against my chest, pinning me to the floor.
When the haze of terror had subsided and the bell-clear ringing in my ears died down, I became aware of Holmes’ voice repeating my name over and over. He had laid a callused hand across my brow but the other was clasped, talon-like, around my right wrist.
“Good Christ, Watson. What has become of your sensibilities?”
He said this in such a frightened, gravely reverent tone that I could not take offense. Rather, I felt quite ashamed of myself - today had been a litany of poor decisions. Satisfied that I was no longer a threat, Holmes rose to clasp the window shut. The expression on his face as he surveyed me further confirmed the degree of my deterioration. I observed him in kind and realized he was looking rather worse for wear.
His hair was wet and matted, giving him a wild air, and yet, his eyes were so dead. They looked hollow and dull, hooded in shadows. He closed them for a moment and I was utterly stricken by the way his eyelids looked so paper-thin and bruised. Every knotted blue vein stood plain and sharp across the backs of his grubby hands. He had lost far too much weight in his absence. His rain soaked shirt clung to every jutting, too-harsh angle
He dropped down to his knees and we stayed like that for a small eternity, just holding one another on the cold bare floor. For the first time in a very long while, I was not critical. I didn’t think about the awful, acrid reek of adrenaline-laced sweat or the dampness of his clothing seeping into mine. Nor the filth and grit accumulated in the mass of wild hair that I had threaded my fingers through. The world shrunk to a pinpoint that included only Holmes and myself. It was safe here for a time.
“Oh my dear boy,” his voice was raw and tremulous, “what has become of us?”
My need to take care of him was beginning to take hold. I urged him to bathe, to take clean, dry clothes. He shook as he stood, so I let him lean on me for support although it sent jangling notes of pain through my leg and my knee threatened to buckle. We found our way to the bathroom and perched on the edge of the tub. It took the two of us working together with short grunts of assent and too many trembling fingers to divest him of his filthy shirt. My hands were stiff, unwilling, slicked with sweat; his shook violently and, judging by the array of bruises dusted across his knuckles, were too painful to operate deftly.
His skin underneath was ashen, brindled with large stretches of raw, black-violet bruising and stretched far too close over leaping, shivering bones. And those devastated devastating arms - I cannot forget the sight of them - like marsh reeds, the knobby mass of his elbow standing out further than the rest. Needle treads marched up and down the crook of the left elbow, deep, deep bruising, and preliminary signs of vein collapse. I wanted to retch. The unforgiving overhead gaslamp turned each indentation into a chasm, each raised, scarred pucker, a mountain range.
He trembled as if that translucent, too-thin skin was not enough to keep his brittle skeleton inside. I thought it was from the cold, so I took him in my hands, rubbing his arms gently (oh, how I thought they might break) and massaging circles over his shuddering iliac crests. Holmes ducked his head and pressed against me as if he were trying to burrow inside my chest. I passed my fingers over and over him, trying to increase circulation and warm him.
I heard a voice, like the creak of rusted hinges, from somewhere around my collarbone. I dipped my head low to hear him better and he pressed his cracked lips close to my ear and in the most horrid, soul-dead voice, whispered:
“This is all wrong. I came here with all intention of caring for you, but it seems you must tend to me, instead. Terribly sorry, old chap.”
I asked how he came to know that I needed caring for. His response still causes me to shiver.
“Why, Watson, you sent me a telegram, yourself. No less than ten minutes ago.”
I had done no such thing in conscious memory. I trembled violently and told him as much. I asked how it would be possible for me to have done so when I had no record of where he was staying. Holmes shook, too.
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