[fic] Caledonian Road Chapter Four; Sherlock BBC; Sherlock x John
Title: Caledonian Road (4/?)
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 Four
Sherlock’s eyes were on him the moment he returned, and for some reason, John wasn’t ready for the man to learn what he’d just done. Perhaps he was afraid of questions, because truly, he had no idea why he was doing this himself. The military doctor in Afghanistan may have protected anyone who needed it, but the prison inmate had no real reason to choose this one broken man out of hundreds to safeguard.
In order to distract himself from Sherlock’s deductions, he grinned and said suddenly, “You never asked if you got anything wrong.”
Blinking, Sherlock shook his head roughly and then narrowed his eyes at John. “Unnecessary. You validated everything.”
“No, not everything. You said I had no close friends or family, so who would I have been protecting?”
“I-” He paused, and then his mouth twisted into a scowl. “Oh, fine. Yes. I suppose.”
“Hmmm?” John inquired innocently. “You suppose what?”
Sherlock’s scowl deepened into something almost demonic as he mumbled. “I may have misspoken. But I wasn’t wrong.”
John chuckled, but decided not to push it. “It was for my sister.”
“Well, your estranged sister, I imagine. Familial ties can be ridiculously binding in the most annoying of ways, and you would have likely been guilted into helping her. So, depending on how one would interpret ‘close,’ I most certainly was not wrong.”
“You are bloody impossible. Do you want to hear this or don’t you?”
“No need. I think I can gather most of the relevant information just from what you have said and what I have deduced. Your sister, likely estranged due to some moral issues that have driven you from her…” His eyes sharpened as they moved from John’s face to his shoes and then his wrists. “Drugs? No, alcohol.”
“How-”
“She clearly thought enough to get you a lawyer, but wasn’t able to consider the idea you might need decent shoes or other paraphernalia in prison. Also, there’s a fleck of vomit on one of your shoelaces, recent enough that it likely occurred either during or just before your incarceration.”
“And goodness knows I couldn’t have binged a bit the night before I committed a crime.”
“Possible, but unlikely. You would have wanted to keep your wits about you and would certainly never have broken into a house drunk. Besides, the angle is all wrong.”
“And of course you somehow deduced that I broke into a house.”
“What other kind of crime could you have possibly done for a loved one? Clearly not a violent one, and drugs are certainly out of the question. Breaking and entering would be the most logical conclusion. Either she lost something of value while on one of her indulgences that you needed to reacquire for her, or she was being blackmailed and you had broken into the blackmailer’s home to steal back the evidence.” John’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, blackmail, then. Most likely scenario then is that she is married and had an extramarital affair which was then photographed or videotaped, and when the blackmailer contacted her for payment, she turned to her ex-military brother and convinced him to try and help her. She clearly couldn’t turn to her husband, as that would inform him of the existence of said material, and she wouldn’t trust her friends with such a delicate problem… What?”
John simply couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore, and it bubbled out of him in the middle of Sherlock’s diatribe, causing Sherlock to pout petulantly at him.
“What, John? If I got something wrong, do tell me instead of laughing in that idiotic way.”
Shaking his head and trying to control himself, John grinned across the cell at Sherlock. “Let me just tell you the story, instead of trying to deduce it, hmmm?”
“What? Why? Surely I didn’t get everything wrong!” Sherlock looked absolutely scandalised at the very idea.
“No, not exactly, just…” John smothered another giggle at Sherlock’s indignant look. “I’ll just tell it, all right?”
“Fine.” Sherlock threw himself backwards onto his bunk and glared up at the ceiling as if it had done him a personal wrong. “If you absolutely must, then yes, tell me your little story.”
John cleared his throat and began. “Well, um, I was shot in the shoulder in Afghanistan, and by the time they’d decided to pack me off home, I was in a really bad way.”
“Thank you, yes, John,” Sherlock said scathingly. “Please tell me all about things I already know. I’m certain I won’t find it boring at all.”
Continuing on as if there had been no interruption at all, John said pleasantly, “I wasn’t really speaking to anyone but my therapist, and her only because the military required it.”
“Unless you’re about to tell me that the blackmail and crime had to do with her, then I fail to see what this has to do with anything.”
“It has to do with me, Sherlock. Now pay attention and stop interrupting, or else I’m never going to tell you what you got wrong.”
Sherlock transferred his glare from the ceiling to John but didn’t say another word, which John decided to take as a personal victory.
“I was… miserable. Everything was drab and grey and nothing was happening and I had this annoying limp at the time. Had this hideous cane the hospital gave me that I had to take everywhere I went, and that wasn’t a lot of places. So when Harry came to see me… She said it was to give me a phone to keep in touch, but it was really to tell me about her problem and try to get me to help. I didn’t want to, but nothing was happening and there was this part of me that sort of thought that doing something crazy, even crazy and illegal, would sort of… break me out of this grey. So after Harry and I yelled at each other for a bit, I agreed to try and get back the pictures. She told me how to get to the blackmailer’s flat, and that night, I took my cane and my…” He paused and gave Sherlock a long look. Should he? Not even Harry had known. He sucked on his lower lip for a moment, before just shrugging and continuing. It wasn’t as if a convict could pass judgment, and Sherlock had already guessed at the existence of a firearm anyway. “I took my cane and my gun, and went. She said that she remembered the blackmailer’s sitting room as being in the back of the house and there was a large desk there, which she thought probably held the photos. So I jimmied open a back window and climbed in. The whole thing was pretty easy, found the photos, and no one seemed to be home. It wasn’t until I got back home and called Harry to tell her I’d taken care of everything when I realised I’d forgotten my cane.”
“Psychosomatic,” Sherlock muttered, and then swung his eyes to John, as if worried that it would count as an interruption, and then relaxed when John paid him no mind.
“I had just enough time to stash my gun before the police found me. Harry was furious I got caught and elated I got the photos, so she paid for my lawyer and yelled at me the rest of the time. Last time I saw her, she was pissed and ended up getting sick everywhere before the guard let her out.”
Sherlock was quiet, eyes fixed on John, for quite a while before seeming to come back to himself. “As fascinating as that story was, John,” he drawled, “I don’t see where I got anything wrong. I believe you just wanted an excuse to narrate your sordid deeds.”
“You said my sister wanted to keep the blackmail from her husband.”
“Yes, I still don’t see-”
“Harry has a wife.”
Sherlock’s mouth fell open. He shut it. When he opened it again, a soft laugh escaped and he closed his eyes, resting his head back against his pillow. “Yes, I can see where that might be an amusing error.”
“Especially coming from you, nancy boy.”
The next morning, John insisted Sherlock come with him to the showers.
“I refuse to sit in that cell for the next two years with you smelling like that.”
Sherlock had bristled and attacked with quite a few words of his own, but John was immoveable. He tried not to notice the way Sherlock’s shoulders seemed to slump imperceptibly, or how the light in his eyes, which had been growing steadily more brilliant as they talked, grew dim. Instead, he nattered on, mind focused on the faces around them and not on his words at all as they joined the queue of inmates being led to the showers. But when they reached the door, he never even paused. The tall man quietly peeled off his jumpsuit, leaving it in the pile to be cleaned, and stepped under a shower head.
John followed him closely, too busy meeting the eyes of some of the prisoners to notice when Sherlock stopped, and found his nose pressed against a pale, smooth back. Cheeks flushing hotly, he took a step backwards and opened his mouth to apologise, but found himself distracted by the narrow torso and how it angled down, dimpling just above his… then Sherlock was glancing over his shoulder and John looked away.
“Soap, John,” Sherlock said quietly, and John’s hands slipped a little as he handed the small bar to his cellmate.
Both men had almost managed to successfully complete their showers without incident, and Sherlock, muscles still tensed, kept looking around every few minutes. He had yet to wash his hair, and John imagined it would be quite difficult for him to willingly close his eyes amongst such a group.
John tapped Sherlock’s arm and tilted his head to the side slightly, signaling.
Nodding, Sherlock quickly slipped the soap into his hair and scrubbed, the muscles in his arms and shoulders tense, and John felt momentarily honored that Sherlock trusted him enough in such a short time to watch his back.
And John knew, when an inmate finally worked up his courage to try and make a move, that he wouldn’t betray that kind of trust.
The inmate raised a hand to lay on Sherlock’s lower back, and John grabbed it by the wrist, using the momentum and wet floor to slam the man’s head into a nearby shower knob.
He may not have known Sherlock Holmes for very long, but he already knew that Sherlock’s trust was a rare thing, and he wouldn’t let anything break it.
“Really, John,” Sherlock said later, in their cell. “What’s the point of a shower if I’m just going to get blood on my feet?”
“So sorry,” John said without a hint of contrition. “Next time, I’ll aim for a shower that’s further away.”
“Please do. I’d rather not have to smell Jacobson’s blood for the next twenty-four hours. So disgusting. You really ought to wash my feet in apology.”
“Wash your own damn feet.”
“You’re closer to them.”
Sherlock seemed rather surprised when John’s pillow slammed into his face.
~to be continued…~
A/N: This chapter isn’t anywhere near as long as I wanted it to be, but I felt so guilty because of how long it’s been since I updated that I wanted to post something. I moved from Kansas to Texas at the end of April, and it’s been crazy hectic ever since, and this is the first time I’ve gotten to really sit down and write for quite a while. I’ll try harder to update more regularly once things have settled down, truly!
Thanks to everyone who has commented and liked this work so far. I really appreciate it, and lap up the positive comments like a kitten with world-class cream, complete with purring. ^o^
...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 Four
Sherlock’s eyes were on him the moment he returned, and for some reason, John wasn’t ready for the man to learn what he’d just done. Perhaps he was afraid of questions, because truly, he had no idea why he was doing this himself. The military doctor in Afghanistan may have protected anyone who needed it, but the prison inmate had no real reason to choose this one broken man out of hundreds to safeguard.
In order to distract himself from Sherlock’s deductions, he grinned and said suddenly, “You never asked if you got anything wrong.”
Blinking, Sherlock shook his head roughly and then narrowed his eyes at John. “Unnecessary. You validated everything.”
“No, not everything. You said I had no close friends or family, so who would I have been protecting?”
“I-” He paused, and then his mouth twisted into a scowl. “Oh, fine. Yes. I suppose.”
“Hmmm?” John inquired innocently. “You suppose what?”
Sherlock’s scowl deepened into something almost demonic as he mumbled. “I may have misspoken. But I wasn’t wrong.”
John chuckled, but decided not to push it. “It was for my sister.”
“Well, your estranged sister, I imagine. Familial ties can be ridiculously binding in the most annoying of ways, and you would have likely been guilted into helping her. So, depending on how one would interpret ‘close,’ I most certainly was not wrong.”
“You are bloody impossible. Do you want to hear this or don’t you?”
“No need. I think I can gather most of the relevant information just from what you have said and what I have deduced. Your sister, likely estranged due to some moral issues that have driven you from her…” His eyes sharpened as they moved from John’s face to his shoes and then his wrists. “Drugs? No, alcohol.”
“How-”
“She clearly thought enough to get you a lawyer, but wasn’t able to consider the idea you might need decent shoes or other paraphernalia in prison. Also, there’s a fleck of vomit on one of your shoelaces, recent enough that it likely occurred either during or just before your incarceration.”
“And goodness knows I couldn’t have binged a bit the night before I committed a crime.”
“Possible, but unlikely. You would have wanted to keep your wits about you and would certainly never have broken into a house drunk. Besides, the angle is all wrong.”
“And of course you somehow deduced that I broke into a house.”
“What other kind of crime could you have possibly done for a loved one? Clearly not a violent one, and drugs are certainly out of the question. Breaking and entering would be the most logical conclusion. Either she lost something of value while on one of her indulgences that you needed to reacquire for her, or she was being blackmailed and you had broken into the blackmailer’s home to steal back the evidence.” John’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, blackmail, then. Most likely scenario then is that she is married and had an extramarital affair which was then photographed or videotaped, and when the blackmailer contacted her for payment, she turned to her ex-military brother and convinced him to try and help her. She clearly couldn’t turn to her husband, as that would inform him of the existence of said material, and she wouldn’t trust her friends with such a delicate problem… What?”
John simply couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore, and it bubbled out of him in the middle of Sherlock’s diatribe, causing Sherlock to pout petulantly at him.
“What, John? If I got something wrong, do tell me instead of laughing in that idiotic way.”
Shaking his head and trying to control himself, John grinned across the cell at Sherlock. “Let me just tell you the story, instead of trying to deduce it, hmmm?”
“What? Why? Surely I didn’t get everything wrong!” Sherlock looked absolutely scandalised at the very idea.
“No, not exactly, just…” John smothered another giggle at Sherlock’s indignant look. “I’ll just tell it, all right?”
“Fine.” Sherlock threw himself backwards onto his bunk and glared up at the ceiling as if it had done him a personal wrong. “If you absolutely must, then yes, tell me your little story.”
John cleared his throat and began. “Well, um, I was shot in the shoulder in Afghanistan, and by the time they’d decided to pack me off home, I was in a really bad way.”
“Thank you, yes, John,” Sherlock said scathingly. “Please tell me all about things I already know. I’m certain I won’t find it boring at all.”
Continuing on as if there had been no interruption at all, John said pleasantly, “I wasn’t really speaking to anyone but my therapist, and her only because the military required it.”
“Unless you’re about to tell me that the blackmail and crime had to do with her, then I fail to see what this has to do with anything.”
“It has to do with me, Sherlock. Now pay attention and stop interrupting, or else I’m never going to tell you what you got wrong.”
Sherlock transferred his glare from the ceiling to John but didn’t say another word, which John decided to take as a personal victory.
“I was… miserable. Everything was drab and grey and nothing was happening and I had this annoying limp at the time. Had this hideous cane the hospital gave me that I had to take everywhere I went, and that wasn’t a lot of places. So when Harry came to see me… She said it was to give me a phone to keep in touch, but it was really to tell me about her problem and try to get me to help. I didn’t want to, but nothing was happening and there was this part of me that sort of thought that doing something crazy, even crazy and illegal, would sort of… break me out of this grey. So after Harry and I yelled at each other for a bit, I agreed to try and get back the pictures. She told me how to get to the blackmailer’s flat, and that night, I took my cane and my…” He paused and gave Sherlock a long look. Should he? Not even Harry had known. He sucked on his lower lip for a moment, before just shrugging and continuing. It wasn’t as if a convict could pass judgment, and Sherlock had already guessed at the existence of a firearm anyway. “I took my cane and my gun, and went. She said that she remembered the blackmailer’s sitting room as being in the back of the house and there was a large desk there, which she thought probably held the photos. So I jimmied open a back window and climbed in. The whole thing was pretty easy, found the photos, and no one seemed to be home. It wasn’t until I got back home and called Harry to tell her I’d taken care of everything when I realised I’d forgotten my cane.”
“Psychosomatic,” Sherlock muttered, and then swung his eyes to John, as if worried that it would count as an interruption, and then relaxed when John paid him no mind.
“I had just enough time to stash my gun before the police found me. Harry was furious I got caught and elated I got the photos, so she paid for my lawyer and yelled at me the rest of the time. Last time I saw her, she was pissed and ended up getting sick everywhere before the guard let her out.”
Sherlock was quiet, eyes fixed on John, for quite a while before seeming to come back to himself. “As fascinating as that story was, John,” he drawled, “I don’t see where I got anything wrong. I believe you just wanted an excuse to narrate your sordid deeds.”
“You said my sister wanted to keep the blackmail from her husband.”
“Yes, I still don’t see-”
“Harry has a wife.”
Sherlock’s mouth fell open. He shut it. When he opened it again, a soft laugh escaped and he closed his eyes, resting his head back against his pillow. “Yes, I can see where that might be an amusing error.”
“Especially coming from you, nancy boy.”
The next morning, John insisted Sherlock come with him to the showers.
“I refuse to sit in that cell for the next two years with you smelling like that.”
Sherlock had bristled and attacked with quite a few words of his own, but John was immoveable. He tried not to notice the way Sherlock’s shoulders seemed to slump imperceptibly, or how the light in his eyes, which had been growing steadily more brilliant as they talked, grew dim. Instead, he nattered on, mind focused on the faces around them and not on his words at all as they joined the queue of inmates being led to the showers. But when they reached the door, he never even paused. The tall man quietly peeled off his jumpsuit, leaving it in the pile to be cleaned, and stepped under a shower head.
John followed him closely, too busy meeting the eyes of some of the prisoners to notice when Sherlock stopped, and found his nose pressed against a pale, smooth back. Cheeks flushing hotly, he took a step backwards and opened his mouth to apologise, but found himself distracted by the narrow torso and how it angled down, dimpling just above his… then Sherlock was glancing over his shoulder and John looked away.
“Soap, John,” Sherlock said quietly, and John’s hands slipped a little as he handed the small bar to his cellmate.
Both men had almost managed to successfully complete their showers without incident, and Sherlock, muscles still tensed, kept looking around every few minutes. He had yet to wash his hair, and John imagined it would be quite difficult for him to willingly close his eyes amongst such a group.
John tapped Sherlock’s arm and tilted his head to the side slightly, signaling.
Nodding, Sherlock quickly slipped the soap into his hair and scrubbed, the muscles in his arms and shoulders tense, and John felt momentarily honored that Sherlock trusted him enough in such a short time to watch his back.
And John knew, when an inmate finally worked up his courage to try and make a move, that he wouldn’t betray that kind of trust.
The inmate raised a hand to lay on Sherlock’s lower back, and John grabbed it by the wrist, using the momentum and wet floor to slam the man’s head into a nearby shower knob.
He may not have known Sherlock Holmes for very long, but he already knew that Sherlock’s trust was a rare thing, and he wouldn’t let anything break it.
“Really, John,” Sherlock said later, in their cell. “What’s the point of a shower if I’m just going to get blood on my feet?”
“So sorry,” John said without a hint of contrition. “Next time, I’ll aim for a shower that’s further away.”
“Please do. I’d rather not have to smell Jacobson’s blood for the next twenty-four hours. So disgusting. You really ought to wash my feet in apology.”
“Wash your own damn feet.”
“You’re closer to them.”
Sherlock seemed rather surprised when John’s pillow slammed into his face.
~to be continued…~
A/N: This chapter isn’t anywhere near as long as I wanted it to be, but I felt so guilty because of how long it’s been since I updated that I wanted to post something. I moved from Kansas to Texas at the end of April, and it’s been crazy hectic ever since, and this is the first time I’ve gotten to really sit down and write for quite a while. I’ll try harder to update more regularly once things have settled down, truly!
Thanks to everyone who has commented and liked this work so far. I really appreciate it, and lap up the positive comments like a kitten with world-class cream, complete with purring. ^o^
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