John's blood ran cold at Sherlock's description of the event they were to attend that evening. He had heard of these private parties, though he had never attended one himself (obviously). They were infamous, and intensely hated in his circles. Though there were many different kinds of resistance groups to be found in the Commonwealth, they were all equally disgusted by the way most of the upper-class saw slavery as it was today; too soft, too kind, treating the slaves too much like humans and not enough like possession, like things to use and abuse until it was too broken and you had to throw it out... only to buy another one, new and shiny and uncorrupted. John had to briefly close his eyes to repress the hot spike of rage he felt; he was going to have to be more than collected tonight. He would need to be submissive, subdued, next to invisible. He would be useless to Sherlock if he attracted too much attention to himself, and he would ruin this chance for himself. He had to do well. He had to do better than that; this would have to
( ... )
Sherlock could certainly see just how the idea of the party they were attending bothered John, wishing himself that they didn't have to go at all. He met John's eyes when he opened them, his lip twitching as he suppressed all the meaningless apologies he wished he could say. He didn't understand this urge at all, having never apologized for his actions before, and especially not for anything he did involving casework. Part of him wanted to let John stay here even though it wasn't feasible, unsure where this feeling came from regarding someone who was still a stranger. He stood and shook his head, trying to rid himself of these distracting and disconcerting thoughts because there was a strong likelihood that John would take his offer to leave him after this case. He wasn't sure why it bothered him, he'd never craved anyone's presence before and certainly didn't mean to start with someone he'd bought
( ... )
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