[fic] Caledonian Road Chapter Three; Sherlock/John; NC-17
Title: Caledonian Road (3/?)
Author: omen1x2
Rating: Eventual NC-17
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Pairing: Sherlock/John, multiple OCs/Sherlock
Disclaimer: Like all fanfic writers, I twist reality to please me. Brit-picked by my very dear friend kdelioncourt. Any remaining issues are entirely my fault and not hers.
Summary: John goes to prison for burglary, and meets a fascinating, broken genius. He wants nothing more than to just keep to himself for the entirety of his sentence, but something about this man gets under his skin.
Warnings: Mentions of non-con, sexual and physical abuse, may have inaccurate info
Caledonian Road
By Omen
Chapter Three
John seriously considered hyperventilating. “Do you… often… choose to thank people this way?”
Sherlock frowned. His eyes darted over his face again, assessing. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Well, hey now, that’s not fair. I just got here two days ago, and it seems to me like you’ve no bloody idea what you’re doing either!”
Giving a noise of disgust, Sherlock threw himself off of the other man and retreated to his side of the cell. “’Thanks,’ John. In prison, this usually means services rendered, whether it be an exchange of privileges, cash, drugs, or sex. You have no interest in drugs, and I have no cash. I could try to have my privileges changed over to you, but I doubt that would be allowed, since they’re set permanently in order to avoid any such exchange. Sexual favours are the only real way for me to express my thanks here.”
“You could just say ‘thank you.’”
The look Sherlock gave him was… odd, and impossible to decipher. “You will learn soon enough how useless words are here.”
John leaned over to grab at Sherlock’s jumpsuit and pretended to ignore Sherlock’s flinch at his sudden movement. “You seem to use them easily enough,” he said casually as he flung the clothing at Sherlock’s head.
“Precisely my point.”
“Well, come here, then.”
After hesitating a moment, Sherlock dropped his clothes to the bed, and stalked, naked, across the cell and onto John’s. “Has anyone ever told you that you give mixed signals? Very interesting. I imagine it has something to do with your untapped, latent homosexuality.”
John rolled his eyes. “I’m not gay.”
“Bisexuality, then.”
“Whatever.” Without addressing the rest of Sherlock’s statement, John reached over and, too tenderly to be clinical, tilted Sherlock’s head to the side to inspect his ear.
“Oh,” Sherlock said softly.
“Do you want me to get your bloody clothes for you again?”
“Please.”
“So you don’t wear any pants, then?” John asked as he cleaned Sherlock’s ear.
“No point.”
John didn’t say anything else. Sherlock didn’t expect him to. He took in the way John’s eyes hardened, and how the man didn’t flinch away from him.
For the first time in months, he relaxed.
He relaxed so much he fell asleep.
“Has anyone ever told you that you talk in your sleep?” John hadn’t bothered to move to the other bunk, so he noticed the moment Sherlock opened his eyes.
Sherlock made a face and rolled to face the wall. “My brother, when we were kids.”
“You were listing all the elements in order. Do you often dream of chemistry?”
“It’s certainly better than those ridiculous nonsensical things most people are subjected to.”
“It just figures that you disciplined your mind to dream about the periodic table instead.”
“At least it’s useful.”
John laughed and slowly raised himself to a sitting position, gingerly twisting his stiffened shoulder. “The dreams don’t have to be useful. It’s the sleep that matters. Nerve regeneration and all that.”
“And I refuse to let random firings of my cerebral cortex allow my rational brain to make utterly ridiculous observations.”
“You’re ridiculous,” John muttered as he stood.
“Childish,” Sherlock spat back.
“Yes, you are,” John said, grinning.
Sherlock stared at him, and then fluidly moved from lying to standing and stalked over to his bunk. Reaching under the mattress, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up, refusing to look back at his cell mate.
John tried not to laugh. He knew a pout when he saw one.
Sherlock refused to go to breakfast, and John didn’t push it. If nothing else, he thought, he could bring back a bit of his own. He rarely finished everything anyway, and it would serve Sherlock right to get the worst of the bad food.
He was receiving more stares this time, which he’d expected. He just ate through his beans, solid and steady, and waited for the crisis to come.
It didn’t.
Instead, the young man from the previous day sat with him again. John barely remembered him, but that voice was vaguely familiar, so he figured they must have had a conversation at some point.
“So did you get the cash?” the other man asked eagerly. He didn’t even seem to notice John’s blank stare as he continued, “No, probably not. You were probably too busy shagging your new boy toy all night, weren’t you?”
John sighed and pushed his tray away, but made sure to tuck the bread into his jumpsuit. “Look, I’m not-”
“Gay? Neither are most of us in here. But what else do we have to do? The telly is crap, even when you can afford it, and your little boy toy is one of the best of a bad lot. Did you see those cheekbones?”
His fist clenched tightly under the table, John swallowed and asked roughly, “You’ve had him, then?”
“Well, of course. Almost everyone in here has. Deliciously good lay, isn’t he? I hope you’re the type that likes to share.”
“I’m not.” When John pushed himself away from the table, the bench scraped back a few inches, despite the two dozen inmates sitting on it with him.
John’s fingers were tapping impatiently at his knee as he stared across at Sherlock.
“Oh, honestly, John,” Sherlock said bitingly when he’d had enough. “If you have something to say, then say it. Or better yet, I’ll say it for you. ‘Sherlock, why do you let them do it?’ Well, John, it certainly beats the alternative.”
John flinched, hearing the echo of the young man’s words in Sherlock’s.
“’The alternative, Sherlock?’” he continued. “’Does that mean you like it?’ Of course not. Disgusting cretins, the lot of them. But when I first arrived, I tried to fight back, and you learn quickly not to. ‘Is that why you never shower?’ Why, yes, John, astute observation. I try to avoid the showers whenever possible. I despise feeling so gritty and oily, but I can honestly say that I rarely got a shower beyond just getting wet while I was there anyway. They rarely feel considerate enough to soap your back while they’re gang raping you. Any more questions?”
Starting to shake his head, John paused. He could feel the bile rising up in his throat, and the attack that Sherlock was trying to make this into. He wouldn’t let him. “So how did you know all that stuff about me when we met?”
He felt a small feeling of victory and something else as he saw Sherlock, for once, stuck for words.
“You even knew I was a doctor,” John added, ignoring that feeling spreading in his chest. “How on earth could you do that?”
Sherlock shook himself like a wet cat, and then leaned back against the wall, eyeing John with interest. “When you were cleaning the scrapes on your hand. It was clear from the knowledgeable way you did it, making sure nerves and tendons were still unharmed, as well as how you managed to bandage it with only a rag.”
“You knew I was military. I could have just been a medic.”
“Very true, but with your age and level of education, I thought doctor was more likely. And you were a medic in the military.”
“How…?”
“Well, honestly, John. How else would you have gotten shot?” He rolled his eyes in response to John’s expression. “The way you move and carry your shoulder implies wound. Recent. Clearly ex-military and recently left, from your mannerisms - you haven’t been back in polite society long enough to acclimatise yourself. The nature of your crime is also obvious from your wound. Shot through the shoulder, from the back. You were either running away or protecting someone. Setting aside how unlikely it is that a man trained as a doctor that chose to be a medic would run from a conflict, the high angle suggests the man was standing over you, with you lying on your front.”
“How could you possibly have known that? You hadn’t seen the wound yet.”
“It’s quite easy to determine location and degree of a wound like a gunshot just by watching a person’s actions.”
“I was lying down.”
“And you had your pillow placed under your shoulder and not your head. Lower on your back to keep from aggravating the wound, and leaving your shoulder elevated.” When John didn’t reply, Sherlock continued. “Such a man could possibly have been arrested for illegal proprietorship of a firearm, but you would have likely been sent to a Category A prison as a danger to yourself or others. So, common crime for an entirely uncommon war hero. What on earth kind of crime would he commit? Take in the shoulder wound again. Protective, to the cost of self. In that case, a crime likely to have benefited someone else.” Sherlock ended, dramatic pause in place as if expecting either applause or a blow. John remembered Tattoo’s reaction to Sherlock’s statements in the cafeteria the previous day.
“That… was amazing.”
“Really?” Sherlock probably hadn’t meant for the word to come out in such a breathless rush.
“Absolutely.”
“That’s not what people normally say.”
“Well, I’m hardly going to bite your ear for it.”
When he saw the minute way Sherlock’s hands relaxed and eyes cleared (he doubted such sharp eyes could ever soften), John made his decision.
“Hey, can I cop a couple fags?” he asked.
Sherlock frowned, but his eyes sharpened. A puzzle. “You don’t smoke.”
“That’s right,” John replied as he held out a hand.
John suggested that Sherlock stay behind for dinner as well. As he queued with his tray, he looked around, trying to observe the way Sherlock did, but all he saw was a sea of orange jumpsuits. People. He wondered how Sherlock did it.
He ate most of his food and didn’t notice. His eyes kept flicking over each face. He couldn’t find the man he’d spoken to earlier, but that was all right. He’d just find something similar.
Ah, there. Smaller, ratty looking with the shifty eyes, yellow teeth. Perfect.
After disposing of his tray, he made his way over to the man and sat across from him. From the way the man tensed and tried not to stare at him, John figured he’d made the right choice. He’d seen plenty of this type in the military, and he knew exactly how to work with them. He set his hands on the table, one cigarette held carefully between the fingers of each. “I need a favour.”
The man flicked his tongue against his teeth, eyes fixed on John’s hands. “Oh?”
“My cell mate. Sherlock Holmes.”
“What about him?”
“He’s mine. I want you to tell everyone that if they touch him, they’ll have to answer to me.”
Ratty laughed, a high, breathy squeak of air between his teeth. “Why should that stop them?”
“Because unlike every other convict in here, I’ve killed men. Several of them.”
When he flicked his eyes up to meet John’s, Ratty flinched. John smirked. Caught.
“One cigarette now. The second when I know word has spread.” He held up his left hand.
The man reached to take it, then paused. “It won’t stop some of them.”
“I know.”
~to be continued…~
A/N: Mmmm, BAMF!John makes his first appearance. *fans self* Oh! Sorry, distracted for a moment. Anyway, interpretation of John’s military history borrowed from abundantlyqueer’s excellent, detailed meta on the subject.
...Previous chapter | Next chapter...
Author: omen1x2
Rating: Eventual NC-17
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Pairing: Sherlock/John, multiple OCs/Sherlock
Disclaimer: Like all fanfic writers, I twist reality to please me. Brit-picked by my very dear friend kdelioncourt. Any remaining issues are entirely my fault and not hers.
Summary: John goes to prison for burglary, and meets a fascinating, broken genius. He wants nothing more than to just keep to himself for the entirety of his sentence, but something about this man gets under his skin.
Warnings: Mentions of non-con, sexual and physical abuse, may have inaccurate info
Caledonian Road
By Omen
Chapter Three
John seriously considered hyperventilating. “Do you… often… choose to thank people this way?”
Sherlock frowned. His eyes darted over his face again, assessing. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Well, hey now, that’s not fair. I just got here two days ago, and it seems to me like you’ve no bloody idea what you’re doing either!”
Giving a noise of disgust, Sherlock threw himself off of the other man and retreated to his side of the cell. “’Thanks,’ John. In prison, this usually means services rendered, whether it be an exchange of privileges, cash, drugs, or sex. You have no interest in drugs, and I have no cash. I could try to have my privileges changed over to you, but I doubt that would be allowed, since they’re set permanently in order to avoid any such exchange. Sexual favours are the only real way for me to express my thanks here.”
“You could just say ‘thank you.’”
The look Sherlock gave him was… odd, and impossible to decipher. “You will learn soon enough how useless words are here.”
John leaned over to grab at Sherlock’s jumpsuit and pretended to ignore Sherlock’s flinch at his sudden movement. “You seem to use them easily enough,” he said casually as he flung the clothing at Sherlock’s head.
“Precisely my point.”
“Well, come here, then.”
After hesitating a moment, Sherlock dropped his clothes to the bed, and stalked, naked, across the cell and onto John’s. “Has anyone ever told you that you give mixed signals? Very interesting. I imagine it has something to do with your untapped, latent homosexuality.”
John rolled his eyes. “I’m not gay.”
“Bisexuality, then.”
“Whatever.” Without addressing the rest of Sherlock’s statement, John reached over and, too tenderly to be clinical, tilted Sherlock’s head to the side to inspect his ear.
“Oh,” Sherlock said softly.
“Do you want me to get your bloody clothes for you again?”
“Please.”
“So you don’t wear any pants, then?” John asked as he cleaned Sherlock’s ear.
“No point.”
John didn’t say anything else. Sherlock didn’t expect him to. He took in the way John’s eyes hardened, and how the man didn’t flinch away from him.
For the first time in months, he relaxed.
He relaxed so much he fell asleep.
“Has anyone ever told you that you talk in your sleep?” John hadn’t bothered to move to the other bunk, so he noticed the moment Sherlock opened his eyes.
Sherlock made a face and rolled to face the wall. “My brother, when we were kids.”
“You were listing all the elements in order. Do you often dream of chemistry?”
“It’s certainly better than those ridiculous nonsensical things most people are subjected to.”
“It just figures that you disciplined your mind to dream about the periodic table instead.”
“At least it’s useful.”
John laughed and slowly raised himself to a sitting position, gingerly twisting his stiffened shoulder. “The dreams don’t have to be useful. It’s the sleep that matters. Nerve regeneration and all that.”
“And I refuse to let random firings of my cerebral cortex allow my rational brain to make utterly ridiculous observations.”
“You’re ridiculous,” John muttered as he stood.
“Childish,” Sherlock spat back.
“Yes, you are,” John said, grinning.
Sherlock stared at him, and then fluidly moved from lying to standing and stalked over to his bunk. Reaching under the mattress, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up, refusing to look back at his cell mate.
John tried not to laugh. He knew a pout when he saw one.
Sherlock refused to go to breakfast, and John didn’t push it. If nothing else, he thought, he could bring back a bit of his own. He rarely finished everything anyway, and it would serve Sherlock right to get the worst of the bad food.
He was receiving more stares this time, which he’d expected. He just ate through his beans, solid and steady, and waited for the crisis to come.
It didn’t.
Instead, the young man from the previous day sat with him again. John barely remembered him, but that voice was vaguely familiar, so he figured they must have had a conversation at some point.
“So did you get the cash?” the other man asked eagerly. He didn’t even seem to notice John’s blank stare as he continued, “No, probably not. You were probably too busy shagging your new boy toy all night, weren’t you?”
John sighed and pushed his tray away, but made sure to tuck the bread into his jumpsuit. “Look, I’m not-”
“Gay? Neither are most of us in here. But what else do we have to do? The telly is crap, even when you can afford it, and your little boy toy is one of the best of a bad lot. Did you see those cheekbones?”
His fist clenched tightly under the table, John swallowed and asked roughly, “You’ve had him, then?”
“Well, of course. Almost everyone in here has. Deliciously good lay, isn’t he? I hope you’re the type that likes to share.”
“I’m not.” When John pushed himself away from the table, the bench scraped back a few inches, despite the two dozen inmates sitting on it with him.
John’s fingers were tapping impatiently at his knee as he stared across at Sherlock.
“Oh, honestly, John,” Sherlock said bitingly when he’d had enough. “If you have something to say, then say it. Or better yet, I’ll say it for you. ‘Sherlock, why do you let them do it?’ Well, John, it certainly beats the alternative.”
John flinched, hearing the echo of the young man’s words in Sherlock’s.
“’The alternative, Sherlock?’” he continued. “’Does that mean you like it?’ Of course not. Disgusting cretins, the lot of them. But when I first arrived, I tried to fight back, and you learn quickly not to. ‘Is that why you never shower?’ Why, yes, John, astute observation. I try to avoid the showers whenever possible. I despise feeling so gritty and oily, but I can honestly say that I rarely got a shower beyond just getting wet while I was there anyway. They rarely feel considerate enough to soap your back while they’re gang raping you. Any more questions?”
Starting to shake his head, John paused. He could feel the bile rising up in his throat, and the attack that Sherlock was trying to make this into. He wouldn’t let him. “So how did you know all that stuff about me when we met?”
He felt a small feeling of victory and something else as he saw Sherlock, for once, stuck for words.
“You even knew I was a doctor,” John added, ignoring that feeling spreading in his chest. “How on earth could you do that?”
Sherlock shook himself like a wet cat, and then leaned back against the wall, eyeing John with interest. “When you were cleaning the scrapes on your hand. It was clear from the knowledgeable way you did it, making sure nerves and tendons were still unharmed, as well as how you managed to bandage it with only a rag.”
“You knew I was military. I could have just been a medic.”
“Very true, but with your age and level of education, I thought doctor was more likely. And you were a medic in the military.”
“How…?”
“Well, honestly, John. How else would you have gotten shot?” He rolled his eyes in response to John’s expression. “The way you move and carry your shoulder implies wound. Recent. Clearly ex-military and recently left, from your mannerisms - you haven’t been back in polite society long enough to acclimatise yourself. The nature of your crime is also obvious from your wound. Shot through the shoulder, from the back. You were either running away or protecting someone. Setting aside how unlikely it is that a man trained as a doctor that chose to be a medic would run from a conflict, the high angle suggests the man was standing over you, with you lying on your front.”
“How could you possibly have known that? You hadn’t seen the wound yet.”
“It’s quite easy to determine location and degree of a wound like a gunshot just by watching a person’s actions.”
“I was lying down.”
“And you had your pillow placed under your shoulder and not your head. Lower on your back to keep from aggravating the wound, and leaving your shoulder elevated.” When John didn’t reply, Sherlock continued. “Such a man could possibly have been arrested for illegal proprietorship of a firearm, but you would have likely been sent to a Category A prison as a danger to yourself or others. So, common crime for an entirely uncommon war hero. What on earth kind of crime would he commit? Take in the shoulder wound again. Protective, to the cost of self. In that case, a crime likely to have benefited someone else.” Sherlock ended, dramatic pause in place as if expecting either applause or a blow. John remembered Tattoo’s reaction to Sherlock’s statements in the cafeteria the previous day.
“That… was amazing.”
“Really?” Sherlock probably hadn’t meant for the word to come out in such a breathless rush.
“Absolutely.”
“That’s not what people normally say.”
“Well, I’m hardly going to bite your ear for it.”
When he saw the minute way Sherlock’s hands relaxed and eyes cleared (he doubted such sharp eyes could ever soften), John made his decision.
“Hey, can I cop a couple fags?” he asked.
Sherlock frowned, but his eyes sharpened. A puzzle. “You don’t smoke.”
“That’s right,” John replied as he held out a hand.
John suggested that Sherlock stay behind for dinner as well. As he queued with his tray, he looked around, trying to observe the way Sherlock did, but all he saw was a sea of orange jumpsuits. People. He wondered how Sherlock did it.
He ate most of his food and didn’t notice. His eyes kept flicking over each face. He couldn’t find the man he’d spoken to earlier, but that was all right. He’d just find something similar.
Ah, there. Smaller, ratty looking with the shifty eyes, yellow teeth. Perfect.
After disposing of his tray, he made his way over to the man and sat across from him. From the way the man tensed and tried not to stare at him, John figured he’d made the right choice. He’d seen plenty of this type in the military, and he knew exactly how to work with them. He set his hands on the table, one cigarette held carefully between the fingers of each. “I need a favour.”
The man flicked his tongue against his teeth, eyes fixed on John’s hands. “Oh?”
“My cell mate. Sherlock Holmes.”
“What about him?”
“He’s mine. I want you to tell everyone that if they touch him, they’ll have to answer to me.”
Ratty laughed, a high, breathy squeak of air between his teeth. “Why should that stop them?”
“Because unlike every other convict in here, I’ve killed men. Several of them.”
When he flicked his eyes up to meet John’s, Ratty flinched. John smirked. Caught.
“One cigarette now. The second when I know word has spread.” He held up his left hand.
The man reached to take it, then paused. “It won’t stop some of them.”
“I know.”
~to be continued…~
A/N: Mmmm, BAMF!John makes his first appearance. *fans self* Oh! Sorry, distracted for a moment. Anyway, interpretation of John’s military history borrowed from abundantlyqueer’s excellent, detailed meta on the subject.
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