Blood Lines, a Sherlock fanfic
Title: Blood Lines
Word Count: 2,273
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Disclaimer: I don't own this. Wish I did, but you know.
Summary: AU. John finds himself at a tattoo parlour where he meets talented tattoo artist, Sherlock Holmes.
John Watson stood next to Mike Stamford outside in driving rain. Despite the weather, something made him stop and study the grim façade of the shop before him. Original wooden window frames painted black glimmered warmly out onto the street, papered with fading artwork far older than John himself. The sign, elegant, as though it was taking a step back, simply said ‘Forever 1895 - Tattoo Studio’. The words, written in cursive white against the peeling black scudded gently before John’s eyes. Of all things.
“Come on mate, no time like the present. And I’m freezing my arse off here.” Mike prodded John towards the door. Taking a breath, John collected himself and pushed it open. A gentle tinkling sound resounded through the empty shop as a small bell caught against the opening door, signalling John’s arrival.
A woman appeared from the back of a shop, scowling and distorting features that in any other position would be beautiful. She looked John up and down and sighed dismissively.
“Yes?” She asked.
Mike stepped forward from behind John.
“He’s here to see Sherlock Holmes.”
The woman stepped back, and John could see a staircase tucked away behind her. She threw back her head and shouted up the stairs:
“Oi, freak! Your client’s here!” She turned back to John and smiled, a false cheery smile not quite reaching her eyes.
“Just go on up, on your left.”
With that, she turned and returned to the back of the shop, as though the whole encounter had been an entire waste of her time. John huffed out his breath, bewildered. He turned to Mike, unsure.
“Well, it’s all yours now. Good luck.” Mike said, patting John on the shoulder before turning, pulling up the collar of his coat against his neck as he left, as though it could offer some protection from the rain outside. The bell tinkled again and the door swung shut and John was left alone. Straightening unconsciously into military stance he braced himself, puffed out his chest as he took a long, deep breath, and headed towards the stairs.
The steps were narrow and steep, old steps, the kind of steps health and safety would never allow nowadays. Clutching the handrail and being only too aware of the sweat that made it so slippery in his grasp he made his way up to the first floor.
The buzz of a tattoo machine hit his ears as he reached the top. The right door was closed, muffling the sound, but it nonetheless quickened his heart and dried his mouth. Swallowing, he turned left, where the door was open and the room was silent. He considered knocking, not wanting to interrupt the artist, but before he could a deep, rumbling voice barked ‘Enter’ and all he could do was comply.
The tattoo artist, though slim, was tall, gangly almost, and seemed to be the centrepiece of the room. This may seem probable, but what a room! The walls were covered in artwork, layers of tracing paper stencils and half-finished designs. Near the door was a photograph of a famous pinup, Irene Adler. For want of anything better to say, John remarked upon it:
“Irene Adler, you… like her?” His words sounded foolish and hung in the air and he wished he could take them back, refine them, as the creature before him studied him, drinking his appearance in.
The man, Sherlock Holmes, steepled his fingers before him, eyes flicking from seemingly random parts of John’s body. Sherlock wore a dark suit, jacket open to reveal a shirt that seemed far too tight, straining against his body, the buttons surely about to pop at any moment. That can’t be comfortable.
“I designed her backpiece.” Sherlock spoke, snapping John’s eyes away from Sherlock’s chest and that shirt and to his face. “Twenty two hours.”
“Oh. Right.” John said. “Is that a lot?” Please ignore the idiot in the doorway. His mind uttered, and he tried to rein his thoughts in, reconstruct them into some sensible order.
Sherlock didn’t look like he could bear to answer. He stared at John, pale eyes running like shivers over him, before saying:
“Afghanistan or Iraq?”
“Pardon?” John asked. Sherlock shook his head almost imperceptibly before repeating:
“Afghanistan or Iraq? You’re back from a war, the tan, the haircut, the way you hold yourself and the way your eyes settle on the military designs, Death Before Dishonour, and all that. A simple deduction.”
“Afghanistan.” John replied, startled.
Sherlock nodded to himself.
“Should I… come in?” John asked, indicating to the large padded chair that was placed in the centre of the room, behind which Sherlock sat on a small stool.
“By all means, take your time.” Sherlock smirked now, something John tried to ignore as he limped quietly into the room.
“Psychosomatic limp.” Sherlock continued as John made his way to the chair. “You were standing perfectly fine, as though you’d forgotten about it, but when called to move you remember it, interesting. But your leg wasn’t injured. No, no. Shoulder, am I right? Oh, and please, make yourself comfortable.”
“How do you know all this? Did Mike tell you?” John positioned himself in the chair, memories of dentist trips past flooded through him as he leaned back, feeling entirely too vulnerable in front of the tattoo artist who seemed intent on analysing him.
“Mike Stamford may have wrangled you past my waiting list but that’s all he did for you. I don’t need his help to read you, you’re an open book. Now, why are you here? It’s not your idea, clearly, not something you’d ever considered before, now, could it be the therapist? Suggesting you try new things? Compounded by bumping into an old friend with a new tattoo. Two crystallising events and the fates brought you here. Fresh out of the army, wounded, honourable discharge, all very noble. Army doctor, probably saved a few lives too, I’d wager. But back home, gloomy old England, you miss the excitement. The adrenaline pumping through your veins. Bringing you to life! The smell and sight of blood, despised by many, but you relish it! A man after my own heart. John Watson, I know exactly what you’re here for. But do you?”
John pushed himself onto his elbows to meet the artist’s eye.
“I don’t know what you’re doing but I’d like you to stop now, please. I’m here to get a tattoo, not therapy.”
“You don’t see, do you? A tattoo can be therapy. You learn so much about someone through pain. And what is a tattoo except pain eagerly invited? An hour of pain for a lifetime’s reward. It’s a good pain, a controllable pain, a satisfactory pain. So few people seek it out, but those that do, you don’t think that’s therapy? We’re so removed from pain, so coddled, the sight of blood makes us feel faint now, but pain is good! Pain is life! And you, John Watson, seek that pain. You seek control. And I can give you that. It’s my job. Mind you, I only take those who truly understand, but I think you do. And one day, maybe, I will tattoo you. But not today.”
“Sorry, what? I’m booked in, Mike got me this appointment. He said you’d tattoo me. That’s the deal.” John sat up completely now, his brow furrowed, trying to understand. Controllable pain?
“Calm down. Your trip wasn’t in vain. You won’t return to your spartan flat bereft of an experience and idly consider blowing your brains out. Which, I hasten to add, you’d never do. Too resilient for your own good, you may not be anchored, but you’re not lost in the storm just yet. Keep that gun locked away a while longer.
“Let me suggest instead a technique called blood lining. Normally I’d use it to outline a tattoo without leaving a permanent mark, a way of mapping where I’m going when I’m doing pieces without outlines. If I tattoo you with water it’ll feel the same, and you’ll bleed and your skin will become irritated and for a week you’ll have a mark which will fade. But most importantly, you’ll get that adrenaline hit. And that’s what you’re here for. You’re not ready for a tattoo, it would be irresponsible to tattoo you today. You’re not fully formed yet, you’re still taking shape. So I give you this option. Are you interested?”
John Watson looked at Sherlock Holmes, the tattoo artist sitting before him, the smug expression on his face, and considered his words. Was Sherlock doing him a kindness in not tattooing him? Certainly John himself had thought this trip a mistake, and if Sherlock, this seemingly all-seeing-eye of a man could intuit that too maybe it was. And yet the urge to feel that adrenaline in his veins once again was undeniable.
“Oh god yes!” He exclaimed, a smile on his face.
“Perfect.” Sherlock replied, as though that had been exactly what he’d been expecting from the moment he’d first seen John. Maybe it had been.
*
Sherlock refused to let John see the drawing and then the transfer as he applied it to John’s arm. John could only catch a glimpse of what appeared to be lettering before Sherlock ordered him to look away. Lying down on the chair, arm outstretched towards Sherlock, perched resting on a bed of kitchen roll and shaved and wiped down and thoroughly prepared, he heard Sherlock snap on a pair of gloves and load a needle into his machine. A buzz filled the air as Sherlock tested the machine, pressing a pedal on the floor with his foot. Spreading his left hand over John’s skin and pulling it taut he buzzed the machine again, before dipping it into the water and looking over at John.
“Ready?”
John nodded, and in the next moment felt the bite of the needle on his skin, a small sweep as Sherlock tugged the first line through, before lifting the machine and asking:
“Is that okay?”
Already John’s body was producing the adrenaline he craved, and he felt high and dopey as he nodded that yes, things were very okay indeed.
Sherlock accepted this and lowered the needle again, stopping and starting to dip the needle into the water bowl beside him and slowly etching a design onto the underside of John’s right arm.
John lie there, his eyes closed, trying to guess what the artist was writing, but the sweeps and swirls became indistinguishable from one another and the sensation became a symphony of nagging pain and swoon inducing chemicals. The pain became separate, transcendent, a thing divorced from him and without any power to harm him. It became pleasure, causing tingles through his entire body, and the touch of Sherlock’s gloved fingers, stretching skin taut became like a lover’s caresses until such a point John started to worry he would fall apart and let out a groan of enjoyment. He bit it back, trying to remember where he was, what was happening, and the decorum of the situation. Who gets off on a tattoo?
The next thing he knew Sherlock had stopped and was wiping John’s arm clean of any excess blood.
“You can look now.” Sherlock said, and John retracted his arm, cradling it towards himself, and he saw there, in bloody red raised letters, in the beautiful calligraphy tattoo artists do so well, the word ‘Soldier’.
For a moment he was afraid to speak, his throat caught and his eyes prickling. He turned away from Sherlock, his man he barely knew, who seemed to know so much about him, and pulled himself together. He turned back to the artist, who appeared not to have noticed him, and was busying himself with clearing away his equipment, tossing the needle into the sharps bin with the practised action of a man who’d done it a thousand times before.
“Thank you.” John said, the words catching in his throat but coming out more or less whole.
“My pleasure. If I could just wrap it?”
John replaced his arm and Sherlock drew out a roll of cling film, winding it around John’s arm and taping it in place. The cling film attached itself to the blood droplets and smeared the artwork, a watery red mist over a fresh scar. Having done this, Sherlock removed his gloves, tossing them in the bin behind him.
“What do I owe you?” John asked, and having heard of Sherlock’s reputation, he was expecting the worst. However bad it would be, he told himself, it had been worth it. He’d do it again, ten times over, for ten times the cost, any day. He was shocked to hear Sherlock’s reply:
“I can’t charge for that. Lestrade would never allow it. Consider it a gift. The best thing one human being can give another is pleasure, I’m told. You enjoyed it, yes? You feel it now, your blood rushing? Who could charge for that?”
“I’m sure women on street corners would disagree with you there.” John smiled. The tattoo artist barked out a laugh.
“Are you suggesting I’m a prostitute? Surely not, I’m far too well dressed.”
With that, John sensed his allotted time was over and he pushed himself out of the chair, embracing the slight dizziness his head offered. He felt Sherlock’s eyes follow him as he walked from the room, and was certain the artist was listening as he walked down the stairs, almost bouncing with every step.
And as he left the shop, into the rain, you’d never know an hour and a half ago he’d had a limp.
Word Count: 2,273
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Disclaimer: I don't own this. Wish I did, but you know.
Summary: AU. John finds himself at a tattoo parlour where he meets talented tattoo artist, Sherlock Holmes.
John Watson stood next to Mike Stamford outside in driving rain. Despite the weather, something made him stop and study the grim façade of the shop before him. Original wooden window frames painted black glimmered warmly out onto the street, papered with fading artwork far older than John himself. The sign, elegant, as though it was taking a step back, simply said ‘Forever 1895 - Tattoo Studio’. The words, written in cursive white against the peeling black scudded gently before John’s eyes. Of all things.
“Come on mate, no time like the present. And I’m freezing my arse off here.” Mike prodded John towards the door. Taking a breath, John collected himself and pushed it open. A gentle tinkling sound resounded through the empty shop as a small bell caught against the opening door, signalling John’s arrival.
A woman appeared from the back of a shop, scowling and distorting features that in any other position would be beautiful. She looked John up and down and sighed dismissively.
“Yes?” She asked.
Mike stepped forward from behind John.
“He’s here to see Sherlock Holmes.”
The woman stepped back, and John could see a staircase tucked away behind her. She threw back her head and shouted up the stairs:
“Oi, freak! Your client’s here!” She turned back to John and smiled, a false cheery smile not quite reaching her eyes.
“Just go on up, on your left.”
With that, she turned and returned to the back of the shop, as though the whole encounter had been an entire waste of her time. John huffed out his breath, bewildered. He turned to Mike, unsure.
“Well, it’s all yours now. Good luck.” Mike said, patting John on the shoulder before turning, pulling up the collar of his coat against his neck as he left, as though it could offer some protection from the rain outside. The bell tinkled again and the door swung shut and John was left alone. Straightening unconsciously into military stance he braced himself, puffed out his chest as he took a long, deep breath, and headed towards the stairs.
The steps were narrow and steep, old steps, the kind of steps health and safety would never allow nowadays. Clutching the handrail and being only too aware of the sweat that made it so slippery in his grasp he made his way up to the first floor.
The buzz of a tattoo machine hit his ears as he reached the top. The right door was closed, muffling the sound, but it nonetheless quickened his heart and dried his mouth. Swallowing, he turned left, where the door was open and the room was silent. He considered knocking, not wanting to interrupt the artist, but before he could a deep, rumbling voice barked ‘Enter’ and all he could do was comply.
The tattoo artist, though slim, was tall, gangly almost, and seemed to be the centrepiece of the room. This may seem probable, but what a room! The walls were covered in artwork, layers of tracing paper stencils and half-finished designs. Near the door was a photograph of a famous pinup, Irene Adler. For want of anything better to say, John remarked upon it:
“Irene Adler, you… like her?” His words sounded foolish and hung in the air and he wished he could take them back, refine them, as the creature before him studied him, drinking his appearance in.
The man, Sherlock Holmes, steepled his fingers before him, eyes flicking from seemingly random parts of John’s body. Sherlock wore a dark suit, jacket open to reveal a shirt that seemed far too tight, straining against his body, the buttons surely about to pop at any moment. That can’t be comfortable.
“I designed her backpiece.” Sherlock spoke, snapping John’s eyes away from Sherlock’s chest and that shirt and to his face. “Twenty two hours.”
“Oh. Right.” John said. “Is that a lot?” Please ignore the idiot in the doorway. His mind uttered, and he tried to rein his thoughts in, reconstruct them into some sensible order.
Sherlock didn’t look like he could bear to answer. He stared at John, pale eyes running like shivers over him, before saying:
“Afghanistan or Iraq?”
“Pardon?” John asked. Sherlock shook his head almost imperceptibly before repeating:
“Afghanistan or Iraq? You’re back from a war, the tan, the haircut, the way you hold yourself and the way your eyes settle on the military designs, Death Before Dishonour, and all that. A simple deduction.”
“Afghanistan.” John replied, startled.
Sherlock nodded to himself.
“Should I… come in?” John asked, indicating to the large padded chair that was placed in the centre of the room, behind which Sherlock sat on a small stool.
“By all means, take your time.” Sherlock smirked now, something John tried to ignore as he limped quietly into the room.
“Psychosomatic limp.” Sherlock continued as John made his way to the chair. “You were standing perfectly fine, as though you’d forgotten about it, but when called to move you remember it, interesting. But your leg wasn’t injured. No, no. Shoulder, am I right? Oh, and please, make yourself comfortable.”
“How do you know all this? Did Mike tell you?” John positioned himself in the chair, memories of dentist trips past flooded through him as he leaned back, feeling entirely too vulnerable in front of the tattoo artist who seemed intent on analysing him.
“Mike Stamford may have wrangled you past my waiting list but that’s all he did for you. I don’t need his help to read you, you’re an open book. Now, why are you here? It’s not your idea, clearly, not something you’d ever considered before, now, could it be the therapist? Suggesting you try new things? Compounded by bumping into an old friend with a new tattoo. Two crystallising events and the fates brought you here. Fresh out of the army, wounded, honourable discharge, all very noble. Army doctor, probably saved a few lives too, I’d wager. But back home, gloomy old England, you miss the excitement. The adrenaline pumping through your veins. Bringing you to life! The smell and sight of blood, despised by many, but you relish it! A man after my own heart. John Watson, I know exactly what you’re here for. But do you?”
John pushed himself onto his elbows to meet the artist’s eye.
“I don’t know what you’re doing but I’d like you to stop now, please. I’m here to get a tattoo, not therapy.”
“You don’t see, do you? A tattoo can be therapy. You learn so much about someone through pain. And what is a tattoo except pain eagerly invited? An hour of pain for a lifetime’s reward. It’s a good pain, a controllable pain, a satisfactory pain. So few people seek it out, but those that do, you don’t think that’s therapy? We’re so removed from pain, so coddled, the sight of blood makes us feel faint now, but pain is good! Pain is life! And you, John Watson, seek that pain. You seek control. And I can give you that. It’s my job. Mind you, I only take those who truly understand, but I think you do. And one day, maybe, I will tattoo you. But not today.”
“Sorry, what? I’m booked in, Mike got me this appointment. He said you’d tattoo me. That’s the deal.” John sat up completely now, his brow furrowed, trying to understand. Controllable pain?
“Calm down. Your trip wasn’t in vain. You won’t return to your spartan flat bereft of an experience and idly consider blowing your brains out. Which, I hasten to add, you’d never do. Too resilient for your own good, you may not be anchored, but you’re not lost in the storm just yet. Keep that gun locked away a while longer.
“Let me suggest instead a technique called blood lining. Normally I’d use it to outline a tattoo without leaving a permanent mark, a way of mapping where I’m going when I’m doing pieces without outlines. If I tattoo you with water it’ll feel the same, and you’ll bleed and your skin will become irritated and for a week you’ll have a mark which will fade. But most importantly, you’ll get that adrenaline hit. And that’s what you’re here for. You’re not ready for a tattoo, it would be irresponsible to tattoo you today. You’re not fully formed yet, you’re still taking shape. So I give you this option. Are you interested?”
John Watson looked at Sherlock Holmes, the tattoo artist sitting before him, the smug expression on his face, and considered his words. Was Sherlock doing him a kindness in not tattooing him? Certainly John himself had thought this trip a mistake, and if Sherlock, this seemingly all-seeing-eye of a man could intuit that too maybe it was. And yet the urge to feel that adrenaline in his veins once again was undeniable.
“Oh god yes!” He exclaimed, a smile on his face.
“Perfect.” Sherlock replied, as though that had been exactly what he’d been expecting from the moment he’d first seen John. Maybe it had been.
*
Sherlock refused to let John see the drawing and then the transfer as he applied it to John’s arm. John could only catch a glimpse of what appeared to be lettering before Sherlock ordered him to look away. Lying down on the chair, arm outstretched towards Sherlock, perched resting on a bed of kitchen roll and shaved and wiped down and thoroughly prepared, he heard Sherlock snap on a pair of gloves and load a needle into his machine. A buzz filled the air as Sherlock tested the machine, pressing a pedal on the floor with his foot. Spreading his left hand over John’s skin and pulling it taut he buzzed the machine again, before dipping it into the water and looking over at John.
“Ready?”
John nodded, and in the next moment felt the bite of the needle on his skin, a small sweep as Sherlock tugged the first line through, before lifting the machine and asking:
“Is that okay?”
Already John’s body was producing the adrenaline he craved, and he felt high and dopey as he nodded that yes, things were very okay indeed.
Sherlock accepted this and lowered the needle again, stopping and starting to dip the needle into the water bowl beside him and slowly etching a design onto the underside of John’s right arm.
John lie there, his eyes closed, trying to guess what the artist was writing, but the sweeps and swirls became indistinguishable from one another and the sensation became a symphony of nagging pain and swoon inducing chemicals. The pain became separate, transcendent, a thing divorced from him and without any power to harm him. It became pleasure, causing tingles through his entire body, and the touch of Sherlock’s gloved fingers, stretching skin taut became like a lover’s caresses until such a point John started to worry he would fall apart and let out a groan of enjoyment. He bit it back, trying to remember where he was, what was happening, and the decorum of the situation. Who gets off on a tattoo?
The next thing he knew Sherlock had stopped and was wiping John’s arm clean of any excess blood.
“You can look now.” Sherlock said, and John retracted his arm, cradling it towards himself, and he saw there, in bloody red raised letters, in the beautiful calligraphy tattoo artists do so well, the word ‘Soldier’.
For a moment he was afraid to speak, his throat caught and his eyes prickling. He turned away from Sherlock, his man he barely knew, who seemed to know so much about him, and pulled himself together. He turned back to the artist, who appeared not to have noticed him, and was busying himself with clearing away his equipment, tossing the needle into the sharps bin with the practised action of a man who’d done it a thousand times before.
“Thank you.” John said, the words catching in his throat but coming out more or less whole.
“My pleasure. If I could just wrap it?”
John replaced his arm and Sherlock drew out a roll of cling film, winding it around John’s arm and taping it in place. The cling film attached itself to the blood droplets and smeared the artwork, a watery red mist over a fresh scar. Having done this, Sherlock removed his gloves, tossing them in the bin behind him.
“What do I owe you?” John asked, and having heard of Sherlock’s reputation, he was expecting the worst. However bad it would be, he told himself, it had been worth it. He’d do it again, ten times over, for ten times the cost, any day. He was shocked to hear Sherlock’s reply:
“I can’t charge for that. Lestrade would never allow it. Consider it a gift. The best thing one human being can give another is pleasure, I’m told. You enjoyed it, yes? You feel it now, your blood rushing? Who could charge for that?”
“I’m sure women on street corners would disagree with you there.” John smiled. The tattoo artist barked out a laugh.
“Are you suggesting I’m a prostitute? Surely not, I’m far too well dressed.”
With that, John sensed his allotted time was over and he pushed himself out of the chair, embracing the slight dizziness his head offered. He felt Sherlock’s eyes follow him as he walked from the room, and was certain the artist was listening as he walked down the stairs, almost bouncing with every step.
And as he left the shop, into the rain, you’d never know an hour and a half ago he’d had a limp.