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John had four different kinds of bad days. Sometimes these bad days overlapped. Sherlock had taken to thinking of them as a symphony of horrors. Each kind of bad days was a unique piece and when they came together, they created something overwhelming and tragic.
Today was a bad day. John came home from his therapist frustrated and twitchy. Sherlock didn’t say anything, stayed hunched over his music stand where he was composing and waited. After a few seconds, Sherlock realized today might well be what he called a minor symphony, though it was hard to tell, without Sherlock trying to touch him, exactly what kind of bad day it was.
At least one culprit though, Sherlock thought as John irritably tugged at his shirt and smoothed his hands over a flat well-muscled chest, was the dysphoria. John usually wanted physical assurance during these times. But Sherlock had to be careful how he gave that physical affection. Arms thrown over his shoulder, fingers carding through hair, kisses on the temple and forehead, those were all fine. But Sherlock resting his head on Johns' chest or wrapping an arm around his waist would cause the older man to seize up and gruffly leave, shaking minutely.
But another cause, Sherlock thought, had to be John's assault. If only because he’d yet to seek Sherlock out. John became so angry when he thought of his assault, his anger not even directed at Colonel Sebastian Moran (Moriarty’s captive for the last six years). No, horribly, this pain made John angry with himself. John had admitted, after a screaming match about nothing that seemed to help the older man breath a bit easier, that he wasn’t even really angry about the rape. John said it was the loss of control.
His body, he had said, hadn’t been his for the first two decades of his life. It all fit wrong, too tight, tingling, itching like a million ants under his skin. Nothing was right back then, he didn’t have control of what his body did, who he became. He couldn’t control his wild golden hair, almost reaching his waist, or the frilly hand-me-down Sunday dresses his mother good-naturedly cooed over. When he got older it got worse. He couldn’t control how his flat, boyish chest, the only part of him that felt normal, began to morph. It was like something out of a horror movie for John, like some monster had implanted eggs in him. He had dreams about his chest bursting open like in “Alien” (a film apparently, one John insisted be added to Sherlock's pop culture education), blood and gore everywhere. Then his nightmares came true, except he didn’t even get the courtesy of death afterwards. He started his period, painful and gruesome by the basest definition. When he came to his mum at thirteen and told her, for the first time since he was very small, that he wanted to be a boy, she laughed. “Oh Emma, darling” (the name would have undoubtedly made the young boy flinch, even then) “that’s just a natural part of becoming a woman!”
The only problem was, John wasn’t a woman. After another half-decade, he firmly told his mother such. Another two years before surgery, another few months healing, then John felt alive. John had mostly gotten the curves along his waist and hips to fade away through careful diet and even more selective exercise, though genetics were mostly to thank. His chest had flattened and with every day the scars faded. Things in his body felt good, they felt like he had control, and this was how it was always meant to be. John couldn’t have been more grateful. From then on, he was the master of his own body and the captain of his own fate. He could be and do anything he pleased. No one did a double take when he said his name, no one’s eyes lingered on his chest, trying to figure out what, exactly, he was. They accepted what he said at face value. No fuss, no questions.
This life was what John would have whispered into existence in the dead of night in his small room at the age of eight, what John created when, in a fit of rage over arguing with his mother about going to a school formal in a dress, John had taken a pair of rusted kitchen scissors and hacked at his golden locks (His mother said it was like Rapunzel after the witch had sheared her hair. John wondered if the loss of so much weight had made Rapunzel feel as light as he did?). This life was what John had demanded the day his surgeon, a carefully selected alumni from Bart’s who was known for his discretion and immaculate stitching, asked him, once more, if he was sure he wanted to do this. If he was sure he wanted to remove the strange things riding along on his body without his permission. The answer was yes. The answer was, it’s my body, I control it, I’ll fix it how I see fit.
Moriarty had stripped that away. John was selective with who he allowed to penetrate him. It was something he was still flustered about some days. Some partners ignored his opening altogether, focusing on his penis, some wouldn’t even touch him down there, unsure what was allowed and too cowardly to ask (those partners usually only lasted a night). Regardless, only the most trusted of the trusted, the people John wouldn’t mind being with for many years to come, were allowed to penetrate him.
Moriarty didn’t get the memo. John hadn’t cried from the pain. John Watson knew pain, it was an old friend, a tether in the hurricane that was his life. John had cried because, for the first time in nearly half his life, he hadn’t control of his own body. Bound to that bed, he’d been as malleable as a marionette. John couldn’t fight, couldn’t find the breath to speak. His body, his sacred temple of blood and surgical steel, was desecrated.
On the “Moriarty” days John tried to avoid Sherlock, lest he start a pointless shouting match that could be heard clear across Baker Street. Sherlock understood, in a way. It was hard for him to empathize with John, both men so wildly different, but Sherlock remembered getting clean. He was always angry with himself at his lack of self-control, his inability to control the detoxing side effects that were born and bred within his mind. It wasn’t the same, but similar enough in the blind pointless rage and frustration at one’s own self.
“John?” Sherlock asked softly. John, who had been rubbing his aching shoulder as he made tea (PTSD day too, then) started badly. Oh dear, that was a bad sign.
Some days weren’t just one horror or two.
Some days where Major Symphonies.
The war, John's father ( A man long dead, thankfully, who would beat both his wife and children while drinking himself further under the table, a man who cared not for his children or their well being, who called John slur after slur and sat on top of him at the age of 16 and force-fed him straight liquor until John had thrown up and spent the next morning crying as he treated his wounds with shaky hands), Moriarty and his own dysphoria coalescing.
These days had only happened twice before, as far as Sherlock knew. John slept poorly, left afraid and angry and heartbroken, he was clumsy, sometimes his leg gave out, and the screams. Lord the screams. The first time John had gone to see his therapist after Moriarty had resulted in one of these days. It was usually triggered by John trying to work through too many traumas at once. He and his therapist had to tread carefully. All the horrors of John's life bled one into another, but in John's mind each fresh hell was carefully labeled, caged, and sedated. To wake more than one beast at a time meant John would have to figure out how to wrangle the monsters back into submission. To unleash all of them was calling for trouble.
That night John had come home, he snapped at Sherlock about the bloody hand in the fridge which had leaked onto the meat John had been defrosting for dinner. Sherlock snapped back in their usual manner. He had been so distracted by the experiment he was working on that he didn’t notice anything was wrong with John until he saw him flinch as though he’d been struck. Sherlock looked up then, opening his mouth, quite surprised when he looked at his partner. John was staring off into the distance and his face had gone pale. A second later his eyes widened minutely, and he stepped back, pleading exhaustion. No witty remark, no starting a bickering match with Sherlock as he would have any other bad day, and no fond exasperation as he would any good day. Just radio silence and fleeing the scene.
Sherlock wasn’t sure what to do. John stayed in his room the rest of the day, not responding when Sherlock knocked at the door. He didn’t answer when Sherlock brought home his favorite Chinese takeout, the handle was locked when Sherlock tentatively tried the knob. That night, though, Sherlock was woken about 2:15 am by screaming. He bounded up the stairs three at a time, trying the handle desperately. He was about to go downstairs and fetch his lock-picking kit when all went silent. Sherlock realized that there was no one else in the room, just John and his demons.
Sherlock had been unsure what to do, unwilling, now he knew John was physically safe, to invade the other man's privacy. At least part of the issue, he reasoned, was John's personal space having been horribly violated. It was true, to an extent, but really Sherlock was scared and confused. He didn’t know how to help John; would the invasion trigger him more? Would his presence be unwelcome? Then the screaming began again. Sobs and begging, pleading with unseen men for mercy, for help, for life. Sherlock just slid to the ground beside the door and waited. The next morning when Mrs. Hudson pulled him aside and asked, “was it the war dear?” Sherlock didn’t know what to say. He just nodded.
The next time it happened he paced the living room for hours before snarling and throwing himself into his chair and calling his brother. It was nearing 4am, but his brother sounded distinctly unruffled.
“Dear brother mine, to what do I owe the pleasure at (a brief pause during which his brother pretended to check his watch. Bullshit, of course, his brother was in his office, up all night working on something important, or at least what he called important.) 3:42 on this beautiful Tuesday morning?” Mycroft drawled.
“Where’s Moriarty?” Sherlock spat. There was a pause during which his brother shifted his mindset, hearing the helplessness in his younger siblings voice.
“Why?” Mycroft asked tensely.
“I need to kill him.” Sherlock sounded almost animalistic in his impotent rage.
“I take it he’s having nightmares?” the elder Holmes asked softly. In a moment of tenderness harkening back to youthful days of playing pirates in their grandfather’s garden, and Mycroft sitting under a sheet with just Sherlock and a torch in the dead of night, telling tales of King Arthur and Merlin.
“I don’t know how to help.” Sherlock's voice was small and quiet.
Mycroft hadn’t heard that voice since he was twenty-one, having returned from university in a rush to be with his family at his grandfather’s side. Sherlock had whispered to him, as their father said his own goodbyes, that he didn’t want grandfather to leave. Sherlock's fourteen year old face had been open and so afraid, his eyes wet. That was the first time since Sherlock was a boy that he held his brother. A moment of utter humanity shared between the two and never mentioned after grandfather had been left in the ground to rot. Mycroft had believed his brothers' ability to love had been buried with their grandfather and the lover Sherlock had lost far too young. Though he was sorry for the ordeals Dr. Watson had to experience, he was secretly relieved that his brother could still feel so deeply.
“It’s not really my area Sherlock-“
“Myc.” No one but Mummy called him that anymore. Sherlock hadn’t since before Mycroft left for school at sixteen.
“Go to him next time. Don’t make him do it alone.” It was the only advice Mycroft had thought to give. For all he could think was that he wouldn’t want Sherlock to have to do any of this on his own.
Sherlock had murmured a quiet thank you and ended the call.
Tonight, it seemed, Sherlock was going to try and use his brother’s advice.
John scurried back to his room with his cup of tea, he didn’t answer Sherlock at all. He didn’t respond when Sherlock knocked on his door at dinner, he didn’t respond when Sherlock knocked again before bed. Finally, Sherlock decided to just speak through the door.
“John,” he said clearly, but tentatively. “John, please just… leave the door unlocked, please? I get worried for you at night and-" there was nothing else to say. “please John. You don’t have to do this without me.” The last part was said almost to himself; it was doubtful John heard him.
Sherlock drifted downstairs, exhausted but not tired. He sat in front of the fireplace for hours, waiting.
About 3am, once more, the screams began. Sherlock steeled himself, he was shaking, unsure if he was going to make things better or worse. Regardless he snagged his lock-picking kit and dragged himself upstairs with heavy heart.
He tried the knob out of habit and was startled to find it open. Surprised, he laid his kit upon John's dresser and approached the bed. John made a pitiful sight, so unlike the man he normally was. His face was scrunched, wet with tears, and he was hyperventilating, his whole body drawn tight as a bow. He seemed to catch his breath though and convulsed, letting out an agonizing screaming. Sherlock cringed in sympathy before approaching the bed.
“John.” He said lowly. It had no effect, he waited a moment and said it once more before laying a tentative hand on John's shoulder. John let out an animal cry of fear, eyes snapping open before he snarled and had Sherlock under him on the bed in a second. (Dear lord, Sherlock loved John’s raw strength, under any other circumstance he’d have been highly aroused.)
With one of John's hands at his throat, the other twisted in his shirt, Sherlock moved slowly. He began to shush the older man, who was still crying, and laid one hand over the one clenched in his shirt. He cupped John's hand, stroking over and over with his thumb.
“It’s alright. You’re home John, it’s just me, just Sherlock.” John was trembling but didn’t move, his face still wild, though the hand at his lovers throat let up a bit, so Sherlock kept talking.
“Your name is John Watson, it’s 3am, we’re in your bedroom at Baker Street. You’re safe right now, no one in this building is going to hurt you.” John trembled a bit, his eyes clearing. Sherlock began to prattle about little things in the room, listing how long they had lived at Baker Street, how many steps on the landing, what chemicals were lining the carefully labeled "experiments" cupboards in their kitchen, just droning on.
After another moment John sniffled and let go. He didn’t say anything, just fell into bed next to Sherlock and curled around the younger man. Sherlock tentatively put his arm around John's waist, when it didn’t elicit any reaction, he drew John closer and carded the other hand through hair faded nearly to grey. Sherlock was hesitant to say anything that may remind John of why he was so far gone, so instead, he talked about his grandfather.
He told John about the bees his grandfather kept; the large, beautiful garden full of lovely colorful flowers that his grandmother had tended to until her death. (He didn’t mention that his family had been unable to find him for her funeral because he was too busy with the drugs) Eventually, he began to talk about Mycroft. He told John how his brother would read to him as a child, or let Sherlock try to work through his school papers, correcting him when he was wrong, about how Mycroft had gotten him his favorite Christmas gift the year he was sixteen. Mycroft had found an antique chemistry set from the Victorian era and gifted it to Sherlock. (Sherlock didn’t mention how he later sold the set to fuel his habits) Talking about his family felt strange, but it was a comforting weight in his chest, so he hoped it could perhaps bring comfort to John as well.
Sherlock hated himself, for a moment. Hated fate too. Sherlock had been given every opportunity, every advantage, a loving family with old wealth, a body that not only fit him in every way, but was quite lovely, and a mind that exceeded many. Immaturely, he’d almost squandered it on the drugs and his vain nature. Yet here was John Watson. John who was born with mind and body at odds, John who suffered abuse at his fathers’ hands, John whose family lived in and out of poverty, John who secreted away his money from the time he was sixteen for hormone therapy. John who worked night and day not only to afford his treatment but to fund his schooling, John who was still top of his class when he graduated, despite having had a major surgery in secret, John who went to war. John who lied, who paid off officials, just to fight for Queen and Country (because law ignorantly said that people like him couldn’t serve), John who saw death and warfare, John who ran into a burning building to save a man he loved and respected, John who lost that man in turn when Sholto succumbed to the weight of his own mind and fled, John who almost lost everything because of his selfless heart. John who disobeyed direct orders and ran back into a firefight to drag back a boy who, in John's own words, was so young he couldn’t even yet shave, and was shot for his troubled. Sent back to London destitute, alone, and with a body crippled by his own mind.
John Watson got no breaks in life, few reprieves, he lived a life of heartache and sorrow and pain. Yet here he was, clinging trustingly to Sherlock. Here he was, whole, alive, so alive. He still laughed and quoted Bond movies, still helped his sister and forgave his wrongdoers, he still tolerated Sherlock's antics and proudly stood beside him. He still loved. And of all the people to love, he chose Sherlock.
If Sherlock could, he realized, he would take all of John's pain and misery, if only to repay this man for a moment of his love and affection.
“Thank you” John whispered the next morning, setting a cup of tea by Sherlock's elbow. He kissed the crown of Sherlock's head. When he went to move away, Sherlock, who hadn’t stopped looking into his microscope at the mold cultures he was studying, flashed out a hand and grabbed John's slightly smaller one.
“I love you.” He said. His voice was low and steady, but his heart raced. He heard John's breath hitch before he gripped Sherlock's hand back. He kissed Sherlock's temple again for a long moment.
“Love you too,” the soldier finally said through awed tears.