Fic for arcsupport: Unsaid
Title: Unsaid
Recipient: arcsupport
Author: [to be revealed]
Characters/Pairings: John/Sherlock, Molly/Lestrade
Rating: R
Warnings: mentions of violence, sexual activity
Summary: Two people are waiting in the hospital after an accident nearly takes their lovers away forever. A character study, of sorts.
Unsaid
They had been relegated to the hospital canteen and gravitated to a booth in the far corner where the flickering overhead lights didn't quite reach. Sherlock looked forboding enough to scare away anyone who would even think to come and ask after their welfare, but Molly's blank, red-eyed stare would drive off even the intrepid few who might wish to offer a tissue or condolence. "This coffee is shit," Sherlock finally muttered. "Even by my standards."
"I've had your coffee," Molly replied softly, almost absently. "That's saying something."
There should have been a laugh, a chuckle, but instead silence stretched between them. When it was so thin that it nearly snapped, stinging them both with recoil, Sherlock spoke again. "How long?"
"Greg and I?" Molly shifted, her stare becoming a hooded gaze as she looked down at her cold coffee. "Six months. We met after...after the pool."
"Ah." Sherlock pushed his cup aside and began to make complicated patterns with the sweetener packets. "I thought as much."
"Did you?" Molly was annoyed, wanted to lash out at him, but she knew he would give as good as he got, and more, and she just couldn't handle that. She felt broken and flayed as it was, withut the benefit of Sherlock's vitrolic tongue. Did you deduce how we met, then? What about our first date, when I spilled beer down my jumper and he bought me flowers from one of those stalls near Covent Garden? How about our first time, when I kicked him on accident and he laughed and called me Molly-girl? Did you deduce how I made him shake and beg the first time I went down on him? She took a sip of her awful coffee and raised a brow. "How did you figure it out?"
"Your perfume is distinctive. It lingers on his clothing after he sees you." And he smiles more now. And finds reasons to go to the morgue himself rather than just call or email. And I've heard your name more times in a week than I did immediately after Moriarty tried to kill John. His breath hitched in his chest and he scattered the packets into a random swirl.
"Ah." You don't know anything, Sherlock Holmes. You think you're so clever, damn near omniscient, but you have no idea what it's like to stay up half the night, waiting for him to call and wondering if he just forgot or if you're going to find him waiting on a slab for you in the morning. "You and John...That was a bit of a surprise."
Sherlock knew what she meant, knew how shocked people were that John Watson, incorrigible flirt and admirer of women, had consented to be Sherlock's lover, his partner, his...his everything. But Sherlock knew what most people thought, that it was a lark and he'd tire of John and leave the poor man confused and lost and used, broken. Even you, Molly... You lusted after me and put me on that fucking pedestal of yours but your good opinion only extends so far. I begged him, can you believe it? The great Sherlock Holmes, made of marble and ice, melted for John Watson. I ached, I wanted and finally I broke into pieces. I begged him to kiss me, there on the steps leading to our flat. I wanted him so badly, I burned. I knew his smell, fantasized about his taste, and was ready to throw it all away, all the tiny slivers of him that I could have, the touches friends are allowed, the confidences and fights... But he kissed me, didn't let me finish pleading my case. John Watson, ladies man and lover of women everywhere, kissed me first, told me he was so glad I'd finally said something because he was sure he was going to burst if I hadn't. "Simple minds put constraints on sexuality."
"Hmm." Molly's eyes snapped, anger bubbling up and the words dancing on the tip of her tongue to inform him that was not what she was referring to at all, that the surprise was Sherlock loving anyone at all, no matter what their gender or sex. Instead, the words died and were swallowed, nearly choked her, as she caught sight of a familiar nurse standing in the canteen doorway, searching the room for sight of them. "Oh... Oh, no."
Sherlock followed her gaze and nearly gagged on his heart when it leaped into his throat. His breathing kicked in a moment later, though and he sighed in relief. "It's not bad news. If it were bad news, she would have carried a clipboard or file or some sort of excuse to flee when we became emotional."
"I hope that you're right," she murmured, gathering her bag and rising to her feet as Sherlock strode towards the nurse. "Hell of a time for you to be wrong, otherwise."
The corridor outside critical care was empty at that time of night. Molly stared at her shoes, mismatched in her haste to reach the hospital after Donovan had called. They had found her number in Greg's phone, marked "ICE" for 'in case of emergency'. She listened to Sherlock pacing a bit further down, closer to the door behind which John and Greg were resting, drugged. We'd never discussed being emergency contacts. We've had sex--a lot of sex. We teased about visiting family together, baby names but nothing serious. Emergency contacts seems to adult, so real. She huffed a mirthless laugh. Sherlock and John are probably listed as next of kin for each other.
I should have proposed last week. It was perfect. We could have gone to the registry office and now I wouldn't be standing in the corridor, on the verge of calling Mycroft. Sherlock chanced a look at Molly when he executed a pivot at the end of the corridor, right before it turned towards the bank of lifts. She was huddled over her knees, pale and drawn, fingers working the hem of her skirt as if it were rosary beads. Moriarty nearly killed her, inside. Her body healed but not the bits inside that John finds so important. Lestrade is good for her. He knows what it's like to be taken apart and put back together wrong way 'round.
Molly felt Sherlock's eyes on her but she didn't look up. A year ago, I'd have cut myself open and handed him my beating heart if he'd asked. I'd have died happy for him to look at me, really me, for just a minute. Oh, Sherlock Holmes, if you knew half the fantasies I'd spun for the two of us, how I believed I could have lived happily for years on just one night with you, you would be running fast and far right now. She pressed her forehead to her knees and exhaled slowly. The nurse had informed them that John and Greg both were out of surgery and in critical care. John had undergone six hours of surgery, Greg five, since arriving at the hospital. John had been removed from the wrecked cab first, the paramedics needing to use the jaws of life to extract Greg. Molly couldn't help but see them as she had countless accident victims over the years. She could visualize their injuries with Technicolor clarity, down to how they would look on her tables in the morgue if it came to that. She worked her skirt between her fingers, missing her old quilt suddenly. "Sherlock," she said softly, her voice almost muffled by her knees. "Sherlock, they'll be fine."
"I know," he returned, low voice carrying down the corridor despite his near-whisper. "You shouldn't worry so." John, John, John... I will kill myself if you die. I have the instruments for it. Heroin overdose is nearly instant, stops the heart. I'll meet you there, if you go first. I've known that since that silly bank case. I can't work without you here. "Worrying gives you wrinkles. You shouldn't fret so."
"Wrinkles give character." Would she see Greg with wrinkles, retired and old? Would they last that long? Would he last that long? She sat up then, smoothing her skirt over her knees. Toby would need to be fed soon, she knew, and work called so she could inform them she was taking some personal time. "How much longer?"
Sherlock wondered if she was being literal or philosophical. How much longer until they were allowed in, when Lestrade and John were declared fit for visits from non-relatives, or how much longer did they have, as living beings? He had never considered life after death much but now, now he was hoping it existed. I can't do forever without you, John. I'd kill myself if you went first and if I found myself in a void, if I found myself without you, it'd be the worst hell I could imagine. Worse than life before you because now I know what it's like to be in the world with you, really with you, and I can't go back. "A few hours, at least." He decided to err on the side of caution and answer as if she had meant time until they could visit. His fingers stroked his phone, that call to Mycroft growing more and more tempting.
Molly nodded and let her head fall back against the wall with a soft thud. She had tried to pull rank and use her status as a doctor to get access to the men earlier, but she had been shot down on the grounds that she had no reason to see Greg or John unless something went horribly wrong during the surgeries. The glimpse she'd had of them, being wheeled past to the different operating theatres, made her wonder if she was going to be needed sooner rather than later. "How did you get here so fast?" She had been called within an hour of the wreck and made it to the hospital within ten minutes thanks to the proximety of her flat. Sherlock was already pacing, a small pyramid of paper coffee cups stacked on a low table nearby, when she arrived.
He looked up sharply, brow furrowed as if he was trying to determn whether or not she was lying or taking the piss out. Finally, he answered, "I was in the cab behind them. They kicked me out of the one they were in because they were annoyed with me."
"Oh." Molly felt her heart break in a new way for Sherlock. If John died, and the last thing that had passed between them was an argument... She swallowed thickly. Greg, I promise to tell you I love you as soon as you open your eyes. And every time you open your eyes afterwards, every morning if I can.
"Mr. Holmes? Doctor Hooper?" The nurse from earlier was stepping out of the critical care unit doorway, an odd look on her face. "We have permission from administration to allow you to visit your, ah, partners. But only for five minutes."
Sherlock sent a silent prayer of thanks up that Mycroft's meddling had, for once, been helpful. Without thanking, he took Molly by the hand and pulled her after him, ignoring her stumbling as they crossed the long line of mostly empty beds in the ward to reach the two at the far end. Molly pulled free to veer right but Sherlock did not stop until he reached John's bedside. John was still drugged, out of it, tubes down his throat and nose, wires reaching out like extensions of his nervous system, feeding into mechanical brains. Hesitantly, he reached out and found two of John's fingers, those not covered by bandages and sensors, and held them carefully with two of his own. I love you, John. He squeezed very gently and fancied that, just maybe, there was a flutter of response.
Molly dabbed at the dried blood on Greg's cheek, flaking away the brownish red to reveal the pale skin beneath. He looked terrible, she admitted to herself, but he was alive. "You can't go yet, Gregory Lestrade. I'm not nearly done with you yet..." Please please please please...
They found themselves in the canteen again, neither wanting to be alone and both loathe to admit it. Morning was creeping closer and more people were trickling through, on their way to early shifts of from late ones. Neither spoke as they stirred the shit coffee and smelled the sickening, oily fug of industrial scrambled eggs being shoved under heat lamps for purchase by starving med students. Molly glanced up in time to see Sherlock close his eyes and vent a shuddering, soundless breath. So Sherlock Holmes has a heart after all, she mused, no trace of pain at the knowledge it was not her.
Sherlock opened his eyes to find Molly giving him a fond look. He rolled his eyes and proceeded to dump far too much sugar into his cup. "Don't."
"I didn't say a thing."
Recipient: arcsupport
Author: [to be revealed]
Characters/Pairings: John/Sherlock, Molly/Lestrade
Rating: R
Warnings: mentions of violence, sexual activity
Summary: Two people are waiting in the hospital after an accident nearly takes their lovers away forever. A character study, of sorts.
Unsaid
They had been relegated to the hospital canteen and gravitated to a booth in the far corner where the flickering overhead lights didn't quite reach. Sherlock looked forboding enough to scare away anyone who would even think to come and ask after their welfare, but Molly's blank, red-eyed stare would drive off even the intrepid few who might wish to offer a tissue or condolence. "This coffee is shit," Sherlock finally muttered. "Even by my standards."
"I've had your coffee," Molly replied softly, almost absently. "That's saying something."
There should have been a laugh, a chuckle, but instead silence stretched between them. When it was so thin that it nearly snapped, stinging them both with recoil, Sherlock spoke again. "How long?"
"Greg and I?" Molly shifted, her stare becoming a hooded gaze as she looked down at her cold coffee. "Six months. We met after...after the pool."
"Ah." Sherlock pushed his cup aside and began to make complicated patterns with the sweetener packets. "I thought as much."
"Did you?" Molly was annoyed, wanted to lash out at him, but she knew he would give as good as he got, and more, and she just couldn't handle that. She felt broken and flayed as it was, withut the benefit of Sherlock's vitrolic tongue. Did you deduce how we met, then? What about our first date, when I spilled beer down my jumper and he bought me flowers from one of those stalls near Covent Garden? How about our first time, when I kicked him on accident and he laughed and called me Molly-girl? Did you deduce how I made him shake and beg the first time I went down on him? She took a sip of her awful coffee and raised a brow. "How did you figure it out?"
"Your perfume is distinctive. It lingers on his clothing after he sees you." And he smiles more now. And finds reasons to go to the morgue himself rather than just call or email. And I've heard your name more times in a week than I did immediately after Moriarty tried to kill John. His breath hitched in his chest and he scattered the packets into a random swirl.
"Ah." You don't know anything, Sherlock Holmes. You think you're so clever, damn near omniscient, but you have no idea what it's like to stay up half the night, waiting for him to call and wondering if he just forgot or if you're going to find him waiting on a slab for you in the morning. "You and John...That was a bit of a surprise."
Sherlock knew what she meant, knew how shocked people were that John Watson, incorrigible flirt and admirer of women, had consented to be Sherlock's lover, his partner, his...his everything. But Sherlock knew what most people thought, that it was a lark and he'd tire of John and leave the poor man confused and lost and used, broken. Even you, Molly... You lusted after me and put me on that fucking pedestal of yours but your good opinion only extends so far. I begged him, can you believe it? The great Sherlock Holmes, made of marble and ice, melted for John Watson. I ached, I wanted and finally I broke into pieces. I begged him to kiss me, there on the steps leading to our flat. I wanted him so badly, I burned. I knew his smell, fantasized about his taste, and was ready to throw it all away, all the tiny slivers of him that I could have, the touches friends are allowed, the confidences and fights... But he kissed me, didn't let me finish pleading my case. John Watson, ladies man and lover of women everywhere, kissed me first, told me he was so glad I'd finally said something because he was sure he was going to burst if I hadn't. "Simple minds put constraints on sexuality."
"Hmm." Molly's eyes snapped, anger bubbling up and the words dancing on the tip of her tongue to inform him that was not what she was referring to at all, that the surprise was Sherlock loving anyone at all, no matter what their gender or sex. Instead, the words died and were swallowed, nearly choked her, as she caught sight of a familiar nurse standing in the canteen doorway, searching the room for sight of them. "Oh... Oh, no."
Sherlock followed her gaze and nearly gagged on his heart when it leaped into his throat. His breathing kicked in a moment later, though and he sighed in relief. "It's not bad news. If it were bad news, she would have carried a clipboard or file or some sort of excuse to flee when we became emotional."
"I hope that you're right," she murmured, gathering her bag and rising to her feet as Sherlock strode towards the nurse. "Hell of a time for you to be wrong, otherwise."
The corridor outside critical care was empty at that time of night. Molly stared at her shoes, mismatched in her haste to reach the hospital after Donovan had called. They had found her number in Greg's phone, marked "ICE" for 'in case of emergency'. She listened to Sherlock pacing a bit further down, closer to the door behind which John and Greg were resting, drugged. We'd never discussed being emergency contacts. We've had sex--a lot of sex. We teased about visiting family together, baby names but nothing serious. Emergency contacts seems to adult, so real. She huffed a mirthless laugh. Sherlock and John are probably listed as next of kin for each other.
I should have proposed last week. It was perfect. We could have gone to the registry office and now I wouldn't be standing in the corridor, on the verge of calling Mycroft. Sherlock chanced a look at Molly when he executed a pivot at the end of the corridor, right before it turned towards the bank of lifts. She was huddled over her knees, pale and drawn, fingers working the hem of her skirt as if it were rosary beads. Moriarty nearly killed her, inside. Her body healed but not the bits inside that John finds so important. Lestrade is good for her. He knows what it's like to be taken apart and put back together wrong way 'round.
Molly felt Sherlock's eyes on her but she didn't look up. A year ago, I'd have cut myself open and handed him my beating heart if he'd asked. I'd have died happy for him to look at me, really me, for just a minute. Oh, Sherlock Holmes, if you knew half the fantasies I'd spun for the two of us, how I believed I could have lived happily for years on just one night with you, you would be running fast and far right now. She pressed her forehead to her knees and exhaled slowly. The nurse had informed them that John and Greg both were out of surgery and in critical care. John had undergone six hours of surgery, Greg five, since arriving at the hospital. John had been removed from the wrecked cab first, the paramedics needing to use the jaws of life to extract Greg. Molly couldn't help but see them as she had countless accident victims over the years. She could visualize their injuries with Technicolor clarity, down to how they would look on her tables in the morgue if it came to that. She worked her skirt between her fingers, missing her old quilt suddenly. "Sherlock," she said softly, her voice almost muffled by her knees. "Sherlock, they'll be fine."
"I know," he returned, low voice carrying down the corridor despite his near-whisper. "You shouldn't worry so." John, John, John... I will kill myself if you die. I have the instruments for it. Heroin overdose is nearly instant, stops the heart. I'll meet you there, if you go first. I've known that since that silly bank case. I can't work without you here. "Worrying gives you wrinkles. You shouldn't fret so."
"Wrinkles give character." Would she see Greg with wrinkles, retired and old? Would they last that long? Would he last that long? She sat up then, smoothing her skirt over her knees. Toby would need to be fed soon, she knew, and work called so she could inform them she was taking some personal time. "How much longer?"
Sherlock wondered if she was being literal or philosophical. How much longer until they were allowed in, when Lestrade and John were declared fit for visits from non-relatives, or how much longer did they have, as living beings? He had never considered life after death much but now, now he was hoping it existed. I can't do forever without you, John. I'd kill myself if you went first and if I found myself in a void, if I found myself without you, it'd be the worst hell I could imagine. Worse than life before you because now I know what it's like to be in the world with you, really with you, and I can't go back. "A few hours, at least." He decided to err on the side of caution and answer as if she had meant time until they could visit. His fingers stroked his phone, that call to Mycroft growing more and more tempting.
Molly nodded and let her head fall back against the wall with a soft thud. She had tried to pull rank and use her status as a doctor to get access to the men earlier, but she had been shot down on the grounds that she had no reason to see Greg or John unless something went horribly wrong during the surgeries. The glimpse she'd had of them, being wheeled past to the different operating theatres, made her wonder if she was going to be needed sooner rather than later. "How did you get here so fast?" She had been called within an hour of the wreck and made it to the hospital within ten minutes thanks to the proximety of her flat. Sherlock was already pacing, a small pyramid of paper coffee cups stacked on a low table nearby, when she arrived.
He looked up sharply, brow furrowed as if he was trying to determn whether or not she was lying or taking the piss out. Finally, he answered, "I was in the cab behind them. They kicked me out of the one they were in because they were annoyed with me."
"Oh." Molly felt her heart break in a new way for Sherlock. If John died, and the last thing that had passed between them was an argument... She swallowed thickly. Greg, I promise to tell you I love you as soon as you open your eyes. And every time you open your eyes afterwards, every morning if I can.
"Mr. Holmes? Doctor Hooper?" The nurse from earlier was stepping out of the critical care unit doorway, an odd look on her face. "We have permission from administration to allow you to visit your, ah, partners. But only for five minutes."
Sherlock sent a silent prayer of thanks up that Mycroft's meddling had, for once, been helpful. Without thanking, he took Molly by the hand and pulled her after him, ignoring her stumbling as they crossed the long line of mostly empty beds in the ward to reach the two at the far end. Molly pulled free to veer right but Sherlock did not stop until he reached John's bedside. John was still drugged, out of it, tubes down his throat and nose, wires reaching out like extensions of his nervous system, feeding into mechanical brains. Hesitantly, he reached out and found two of John's fingers, those not covered by bandages and sensors, and held them carefully with two of his own. I love you, John. He squeezed very gently and fancied that, just maybe, there was a flutter of response.
Molly dabbed at the dried blood on Greg's cheek, flaking away the brownish red to reveal the pale skin beneath. He looked terrible, she admitted to herself, but he was alive. "You can't go yet, Gregory Lestrade. I'm not nearly done with you yet..." Please please please please...
They found themselves in the canteen again, neither wanting to be alone and both loathe to admit it. Morning was creeping closer and more people were trickling through, on their way to early shifts of from late ones. Neither spoke as they stirred the shit coffee and smelled the sickening, oily fug of industrial scrambled eggs being shoved under heat lamps for purchase by starving med students. Molly glanced up in time to see Sherlock close his eyes and vent a shuddering, soundless breath. So Sherlock Holmes has a heart after all, she mused, no trace of pain at the knowledge it was not her.
Sherlock opened his eyes to find Molly giving him a fond look. He rolled his eyes and proceeded to dump far too much sugar into his cup. "Don't."
"I didn't say a thing."