Sherlock Fic: The Principle's the Same - Chapter Two
Title: The Principle's the Same
Author: Narcoleptic_ll (Narkito)
Characters: Sherlock, John
Rating: Teen
Category: Gen, AU, World War II
Word Count: 17.000~~ this chapter: 3000~~
Summary: Sherlock gets wounded on the battle field and they leave him for dead. John, who's just escaped from captivity finds him. Together they start their journey out of enemy territory. Written for a prompt.
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Chapter Two: You Look Twelve
The first thing they do, as soon as they get a chance, is leaving the path. They’re walking through fields of wheat, which is excellent for cover, but murder on their collective limping legs. After a couple of hours, John decides it’s time to rest. They stop under a huge oak tree that’s spilling its branches over the division of two fields. A wall of shrubs blocks their vision from and to the road.
The walk there had been silent, punctuated by Sherlock’s and John’s whizzes of pain and the occasional swear word against protruding roots and rocks. The moon is high on the sky and it’s getting colder by the minute. John’s hands are stiff around the strap of his rifle, his fingers numb in the dark of the night.
Sherlock is beat; he can’t control his breathing anymore, so every time he’s short on breath, a stab of pain reminds him of his very broken ribs, yes, that’s plural, it very much feels like a plural. At least his fever seems to have come down a bit. He sits on the nearest branch and welcomes the relief. Who could’ve known, a month ago, that he would be sitting on a tree branch 341 kilometres away from home, playing his part on the Great War, the sequel? Not him, he wouldn’t have known, he couldn’t have. A month ago he was about to get kicked out of school. A month ago he had been sitting at the dean’s office trying to explain why beating a corpse with a ridding crop was not to be considered a profanation of the body, nor an offense against god. Who cared about god anyway?! Not him, that’s for sure! Then again, four weeks ago he hadn’t been in this predicament, a month ago, he didn’t need a god, and now… now he wished he could believe in a god, any god, any deity that might hear his plea, some sort of anchor to this world through the faith and certainty that comes from believing in something greater than life. He sighed rather audibly at that. Sherlock everything-else-is-transport Holmes sighing at his impending doom; he’s blaming this one on the fever, the pain and -of course, who else-, Mycroft.
“Boy, you look gloom!” It’s John’s voice that cuts through the haze of his self-pity. Sherlock looks up straight into his eyes, sending shivers down John’s back. “How’s the pain?”
“Bearable”, John gives him one look and scoffs.
“Liar. From one to ten; ten being the worst pain you could possibly imagine…”
“Seven”. Sherlock seems to barely give this a thought.
“OK, I was saving this for later,” he moves his hand to his jacket’s front pocket, and takes a small leather pouch out, “but it’s seems like now is in fact later.” He opens the pouch to reveal two small syrettes.
“Jesus, what did you find in there, an entire truck of medical supplies?”
“Not exactly, I just rummaged through everyone’s personal first aid kit. One of them was a doctor, so... you know what this is?”. He holds the syrette between his thumb and index finger.
“Yes, of course, morphine.”
“Right. OK, mate, I won’t give you the complete dose, this is only to take the edge off, what with you hitting your head and all,” he takes the plastic cap off and then pulls the loop pin, breaking the seal, “alright, shirts up.” Sherlock does as told and pulls his shirt to reveal a small patch of white skin. John inserts the needle under the skin of his abdomen at a shallow angle and squeezes. Like he said before, he doesn’t push all the liquid in, just about half. He takes the needle out and puts the plastic hood on it again, leaving it to a side for the moment. He then rubs his thumb on Sherlock’s belly. Sherlock first stiffens under the touch and then gradually starts to consciously unclench his muscles until he’s in what could easily pass as a relaxed stance.
“John, can I ask you something?”
“Yeah, sure, just promise me you won’t faint or anything, I can’t let you fall asleep just yet.” He’s putting what’s left of the morphine back into the leather pouch, and the pouch back into his front pocket.
“You weren’t in the same convoy I was. Your uniform is ragged and very well worn, you have an injury on your left shoulder, yet, you inject me with morphine, but not yourself. Your wound is old, but not that old, so what? What are you not telling me? I’m thinking you were detained or imprisoned before, but I have yet to be informed of the circumstances.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“Yet, when I introduced myself to you, you didn’t even bat an eyelash, you knew who I was,” John nods twice and looks to the ground. “So the obvious question right now is: who are you?”
“I’m a soldier, an army doctor. Nothing else.” Sherlock arches an eyebrow, clearly not buying the whole I’m nothing but an army doctor façade. “Yes, of course you don’t believe me. Here it is; I was posted with the 11th like two weeks before you arrived and I was in charge of the medical area. Then we get word that his great super genius is coming to help develop a plan to take over the north and one week later I’m given orders to take part on the convoy that’ll move him, you. So far so good, then, we are on a reconnaissance mission when everything goes tits up and me and some buddies get captured by the krauts, this is like six days ago. They takes us, rough us up for information, and then everything goes pear-shaped again when some yanks bomb the hell out of the base, so they move us, I escape, my mates don’t, end of story.”
“Hardly. How’s the shoulder?”. John frowns at that.
“Fine.”
“Good, ‘cause we need to keep walking.” John agrees by picking up his bag of goods and strapping it over his shoulder along with the rifle. “According to my calculations if we keep to the road for another eight kilometres and then go west, we should enter friendly territory and eventually find the 3rd. Or the beach.”
“What, you planning on getting a sun-tan?” Sherlock actually stops to look at John’s face.
“Not particularly, no.” He answers slowly, like threading the water, as if not sure of what he’s actually answering.
“That was a joke.”
“Oh. Right. Impossible to get a tan at night.” John suppresses a laugh and in turn, a huge grin spreads over his face.
“You sure you’re genius?” Sherlock doesn’t dignify that with an answer, instead, he pulls his scarf from his back pocket and wraps it tightly around his neck.
John looks at the scarf and suddenly a thought comes to mind. How did this posh kid (‘cause that’s what he is, merely a kid), got himself tangled with this. What could possibly go over that head of his to making him such a pivotal figure to the battle?
“You’re staring.”
“I’m sorry.” John’s head snaps back to looking ahead of the field.
“You have questions. Go ahead it’s only natural.” John gives him a side glance. A dog barks in the distance.
“How old are you?”
“Seriously? I pull out a scarf that probably costs more than what you earn on any given month, and your question is ‘how old are you’? How old do you think I am?”
“Considering how bratty you’re being right now, I’d think twelve.”
Sherlock laughs and immediately after he grabs his ribs and takes quick, short, shallow breaths.
“Jesus, are you alright? Did you jolt something?” John puts the bag on the ground and helps Sherlock keep his standing position with his good arm. Sherlock looks down to him and smiles at the same time he breathes through his teeth. “What? Why are you smiling?”
“I’m waiting for you to ask if it hurts.” John half closes his eyes, not really following him on this one. There’s a three second silence, and when Sherlock recovers enough “so I can tell you it only hurts when I laugh.”
Cheeky bastard, he thinks, and smiles back. At least maintaining good spirits has proven to be beneficial in situations like these, not that he has found himself in such conditions many times before.
“I’m 22 by the way.”
“Alright, but I maintain that you look twelve.”
Both smiling, they restart their way, dodging rocks and other assorted obstacles as best as possible, aided only by the light of the moon and their tired senses.
After walking for approximately two more hours, they take refuge on a small cave on the side of a hill. To say it’s a small space for two grown men is an understatement, especially for Sherlock who has to duck and bend at odd angles to not hit his head every so often.
“’I’ll take first watch and I’ll wake you up in two hours or so.” Sherlock offers.
“You sure you don’t want to rest? We have a great walk ahead and your knee...”
“Bump to the head remember?”, he points to his forehead, “can’t sleep for a solid ten hours or...”
“... you might not wake up, I know. How’s the morphine working for you?”
“As if nonexistent.”
“What?! But even at half-dose, it sure is a strong dose! Give me a number.”
“Six.”John hisses in response.
“Sorry, mate, I can’t give you more...”, he looks apologetic and frazzled. Interesting, Sherlock thinks, and stores it to mull on it later.
“Not a problem, it’s not as if I can enjoy the buzz anyway. Go to sleep, I’ll keep watch, if anything happens I’ll wake you.” John nods and stretches as far as the confined space will let him, falling asleep almost immediately.
He dreams, or not exactly; he remembers in his dreams, and then he loses control and everything starts to blur in itself. He was eleven, it was his birthday, his mother and father had been arguing in soft hushes in the kitchen, his sister had stomped downstairs, taken one look at the situation and bolted right through the front door. His guests hadn’t arrived yet, but he knew, deep in his soul, this birthday was going to stink. Then, with the speed of light, it’s cake-time and everybody is laughing or singing along, he blows the candles and his mother and grandmother start hugging and kissing him, but they won’t let go, and he needs air, pronto, he’s starting to suffocate. His childhood memories jump forward and he sees himself at school, being kicked on the gut by a classmate, his sister leaving the house for good, his first kiss, which had totally grossed him out, and then, suddenly, his training, his combat boots at the end of the bed. Then, an injured faceless soldier on the ground, his blood rushing out of his neck, mixing with the dirt, making a brownish slush. He needs to breath, he’s gasping, but he can’t get enough air inside and...
He wakes with a startle to piercing blue eyes that are staring him right back. The shock is enough to prevent the shout in his throat from coming out. Sherlock takes his hand from John’s mouth and keeps on staring at him. John’s sweating and he’s acutely aware of it, he’s about to say something, but Sherlock puts his finger to his lips and shushes him. Something’s wrong. He sharpens his ear and listens, and there, on the background there’s indistinct chatter. John looks up at Sherlock, who mouths “Germans” for him. Then, he hands him the rifle.
Their quarters are a bit changed from before. The entrance is covered with what looks like foliage, and little specks of light filter in. It must be very sunny outside. The voices are coming closer and it becomes pretty obvious they’re of German origin; John prays they don’t find them as Sherlock mentally goes over what he did outside and the odds of them finding him; albeit he doesn’t have the clarity of mind to think about what would happen after they find them. The voices are a few meters away, six metres, give or take. One set of steps coming closer. John’s mind mantra rises to a deafening volume inside his head and Sherlock’s odds of survival are quickly reaching zero. There’s the distinct sound of a zip being opened and then the wet trickle of liquid against dirt. A fraction of a second later, the well known smell of piss reaches their nostrils. One of the farther voices says something loud and a few others laugh. The pissing-soldier zips up and trots back to where he came from, in a few minutes the roar of engines driving away allows them to remember how to breathe again.
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Notes: Morphine syrettes on Wikipedia and WW2 US Medical Research Centre.
Author: Narcoleptic_ll (Narkito)
Characters: Sherlock, John
Rating: Teen
Category: Gen, AU, World War II
Word Count: 17.000~~ this chapter: 3000~~
Summary: Sherlock gets wounded on the battle field and they leave him for dead. John, who's just escaped from captivity finds him. Together they start their journey out of enemy territory. Written for a prompt.
--------------------------------------
Chapter Two: You Look Twelve
The first thing they do, as soon as they get a chance, is leaving the path. They’re walking through fields of wheat, which is excellent for cover, but murder on their collective limping legs. After a couple of hours, John decides it’s time to rest. They stop under a huge oak tree that’s spilling its branches over the division of two fields. A wall of shrubs blocks their vision from and to the road.
The walk there had been silent, punctuated by Sherlock’s and John’s whizzes of pain and the occasional swear word against protruding roots and rocks. The moon is high on the sky and it’s getting colder by the minute. John’s hands are stiff around the strap of his rifle, his fingers numb in the dark of the night.
Sherlock is beat; he can’t control his breathing anymore, so every time he’s short on breath, a stab of pain reminds him of his very broken ribs, yes, that’s plural, it very much feels like a plural. At least his fever seems to have come down a bit. He sits on the nearest branch and welcomes the relief. Who could’ve known, a month ago, that he would be sitting on a tree branch 341 kilometres away from home, playing his part on the Great War, the sequel? Not him, he wouldn’t have known, he couldn’t have. A month ago he was about to get kicked out of school. A month ago he had been sitting at the dean’s office trying to explain why beating a corpse with a ridding crop was not to be considered a profanation of the body, nor an offense against god. Who cared about god anyway?! Not him, that’s for sure! Then again, four weeks ago he hadn’t been in this predicament, a month ago, he didn’t need a god, and now… now he wished he could believe in a god, any god, any deity that might hear his plea, some sort of anchor to this world through the faith and certainty that comes from believing in something greater than life. He sighed rather audibly at that. Sherlock everything-else-is-transport Holmes sighing at his impending doom; he’s blaming this one on the fever, the pain and -of course, who else-, Mycroft.
“Boy, you look gloom!” It’s John’s voice that cuts through the haze of his self-pity. Sherlock looks up straight into his eyes, sending shivers down John’s back. “How’s the pain?”
“Bearable”, John gives him one look and scoffs.
“Liar. From one to ten; ten being the worst pain you could possibly imagine…”
“Seven”. Sherlock seems to barely give this a thought.
“OK, I was saving this for later,” he moves his hand to his jacket’s front pocket, and takes a small leather pouch out, “but it’s seems like now is in fact later.” He opens the pouch to reveal two small syrettes.
“Jesus, what did you find in there, an entire truck of medical supplies?”
“Not exactly, I just rummaged through everyone’s personal first aid kit. One of them was a doctor, so... you know what this is?”. He holds the syrette between his thumb and index finger.
“Yes, of course, morphine.”
“Right. OK, mate, I won’t give you the complete dose, this is only to take the edge off, what with you hitting your head and all,” he takes the plastic cap off and then pulls the loop pin, breaking the seal, “alright, shirts up.” Sherlock does as told and pulls his shirt to reveal a small patch of white skin. John inserts the needle under the skin of his abdomen at a shallow angle and squeezes. Like he said before, he doesn’t push all the liquid in, just about half. He takes the needle out and puts the plastic hood on it again, leaving it to a side for the moment. He then rubs his thumb on Sherlock’s belly. Sherlock first stiffens under the touch and then gradually starts to consciously unclench his muscles until he’s in what could easily pass as a relaxed stance.
“John, can I ask you something?”
“Yeah, sure, just promise me you won’t faint or anything, I can’t let you fall asleep just yet.” He’s putting what’s left of the morphine back into the leather pouch, and the pouch back into his front pocket.
“You weren’t in the same convoy I was. Your uniform is ragged and very well worn, you have an injury on your left shoulder, yet, you inject me with morphine, but not yourself. Your wound is old, but not that old, so what? What are you not telling me? I’m thinking you were detained or imprisoned before, but I have yet to be informed of the circumstances.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“Yet, when I introduced myself to you, you didn’t even bat an eyelash, you knew who I was,” John nods twice and looks to the ground. “So the obvious question right now is: who are you?”
“I’m a soldier, an army doctor. Nothing else.” Sherlock arches an eyebrow, clearly not buying the whole I’m nothing but an army doctor façade. “Yes, of course you don’t believe me. Here it is; I was posted with the 11th like two weeks before you arrived and I was in charge of the medical area. Then we get word that his great super genius is coming to help develop a plan to take over the north and one week later I’m given orders to take part on the convoy that’ll move him, you. So far so good, then, we are on a reconnaissance mission when everything goes tits up and me and some buddies get captured by the krauts, this is like six days ago. They takes us, rough us up for information, and then everything goes pear-shaped again when some yanks bomb the hell out of the base, so they move us, I escape, my mates don’t, end of story.”
“Hardly. How’s the shoulder?”. John frowns at that.
“Fine.”
“Good, ‘cause we need to keep walking.” John agrees by picking up his bag of goods and strapping it over his shoulder along with the rifle. “According to my calculations if we keep to the road for another eight kilometres and then go west, we should enter friendly territory and eventually find the 3rd. Or the beach.”
“What, you planning on getting a sun-tan?” Sherlock actually stops to look at John’s face.
“Not particularly, no.” He answers slowly, like threading the water, as if not sure of what he’s actually answering.
“That was a joke.”
“Oh. Right. Impossible to get a tan at night.” John suppresses a laugh and in turn, a huge grin spreads over his face.
“You sure you’re genius?” Sherlock doesn’t dignify that with an answer, instead, he pulls his scarf from his back pocket and wraps it tightly around his neck.
John looks at the scarf and suddenly a thought comes to mind. How did this posh kid (‘cause that’s what he is, merely a kid), got himself tangled with this. What could possibly go over that head of his to making him such a pivotal figure to the battle?
“You’re staring.”
“I’m sorry.” John’s head snaps back to looking ahead of the field.
“You have questions. Go ahead it’s only natural.” John gives him a side glance. A dog barks in the distance.
“How old are you?”
“Seriously? I pull out a scarf that probably costs more than what you earn on any given month, and your question is ‘how old are you’? How old do you think I am?”
“Considering how bratty you’re being right now, I’d think twelve.”
Sherlock laughs and immediately after he grabs his ribs and takes quick, short, shallow breaths.
“Jesus, are you alright? Did you jolt something?” John puts the bag on the ground and helps Sherlock keep his standing position with his good arm. Sherlock looks down to him and smiles at the same time he breathes through his teeth. “What? Why are you smiling?”
“I’m waiting for you to ask if it hurts.” John half closes his eyes, not really following him on this one. There’s a three second silence, and when Sherlock recovers enough “so I can tell you it only hurts when I laugh.”
Cheeky bastard, he thinks, and smiles back. At least maintaining good spirits has proven to be beneficial in situations like these, not that he has found himself in such conditions many times before.
“I’m 22 by the way.”
“Alright, but I maintain that you look twelve.”
Both smiling, they restart their way, dodging rocks and other assorted obstacles as best as possible, aided only by the light of the moon and their tired senses.
After walking for approximately two more hours, they take refuge on a small cave on the side of a hill. To say it’s a small space for two grown men is an understatement, especially for Sherlock who has to duck and bend at odd angles to not hit his head every so often.
“’I’ll take first watch and I’ll wake you up in two hours or so.” Sherlock offers.
“You sure you don’t want to rest? We have a great walk ahead and your knee...”
“Bump to the head remember?”, he points to his forehead, “can’t sleep for a solid ten hours or...”
“... you might not wake up, I know. How’s the morphine working for you?”
“As if nonexistent.”
“What?! But even at half-dose, it sure is a strong dose! Give me a number.”
“Six.”John hisses in response.
“Sorry, mate, I can’t give you more...”, he looks apologetic and frazzled. Interesting, Sherlock thinks, and stores it to mull on it later.
“Not a problem, it’s not as if I can enjoy the buzz anyway. Go to sleep, I’ll keep watch, if anything happens I’ll wake you.” John nods and stretches as far as the confined space will let him, falling asleep almost immediately.
He dreams, or not exactly; he remembers in his dreams, and then he loses control and everything starts to blur in itself. He was eleven, it was his birthday, his mother and father had been arguing in soft hushes in the kitchen, his sister had stomped downstairs, taken one look at the situation and bolted right through the front door. His guests hadn’t arrived yet, but he knew, deep in his soul, this birthday was going to stink. Then, with the speed of light, it’s cake-time and everybody is laughing or singing along, he blows the candles and his mother and grandmother start hugging and kissing him, but they won’t let go, and he needs air, pronto, he’s starting to suffocate. His childhood memories jump forward and he sees himself at school, being kicked on the gut by a classmate, his sister leaving the house for good, his first kiss, which had totally grossed him out, and then, suddenly, his training, his combat boots at the end of the bed. Then, an injured faceless soldier on the ground, his blood rushing out of his neck, mixing with the dirt, making a brownish slush. He needs to breath, he’s gasping, but he can’t get enough air inside and...
He wakes with a startle to piercing blue eyes that are staring him right back. The shock is enough to prevent the shout in his throat from coming out. Sherlock takes his hand from John’s mouth and keeps on staring at him. John’s sweating and he’s acutely aware of it, he’s about to say something, but Sherlock puts his finger to his lips and shushes him. Something’s wrong. He sharpens his ear and listens, and there, on the background there’s indistinct chatter. John looks up at Sherlock, who mouths “Germans” for him. Then, he hands him the rifle.
Their quarters are a bit changed from before. The entrance is covered with what looks like foliage, and little specks of light filter in. It must be very sunny outside. The voices are coming closer and it becomes pretty obvious they’re of German origin; John prays they don’t find them as Sherlock mentally goes over what he did outside and the odds of them finding him; albeit he doesn’t have the clarity of mind to think about what would happen after they find them. The voices are a few meters away, six metres, give or take. One set of steps coming closer. John’s mind mantra rises to a deafening volume inside his head and Sherlock’s odds of survival are quickly reaching zero. There’s the distinct sound of a zip being opened and then the wet trickle of liquid against dirt. A fraction of a second later, the well known smell of piss reaches their nostrils. One of the farther voices says something loud and a few others laugh. The pissing-soldier zips up and trots back to where he came from, in a few minutes the roar of engines driving away allows them to remember how to breathe again.
-------------------------
Notes: Morphine syrettes on Wikipedia and WW2 US Medical Research Centre.