substituteskull | (no subject)

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Three years since the outbreak and John Watson still doesn't know what to make of it. Like all doctors, he'd heeded the call of city and country as England did what all smart island nations did the moment the moment WHO released a statement that the virus had spread outside of America through international travel. It shut down completely. He'd not paid attention to the politics of it, hadn't bothered so much with the news. John had his work to do, people to treat, safety and quarantine to enforce. His world because St. Barts'.

At first, isolation seemed to work. Patriots were forced to stay outside of the relative safety of Great Britain as the airports and the Eurostar stations shut down. Ferries between the islands were discontinued.

The problem was that no one could isolate whatever it was causing humanity to change. The virus didn't seem to kill the host's brain, just every other part of their systems. A day post infection, the victim would become feverish. Two days later, they'd succumb. And after that...nothing short of dismemberment could stop them. It wasn't airbourne. And not in the blood either. Just the saliva. John had never seen anything like it. The internet called it a zombie plague, but that wasn't quite right either.

It took six months for everyone worldwide to realize that quarantine wouldn't help. Infections sprouted up for no discernible reason. People turned in the Underground, in shopping centres, on the playground. London, and the country, didn't stand a chance. The government fell overnight. Society followed.

And John just stayed on at St Barts'. He stopped trying to do the most good. And just attempted to survive.

It's not easy, even for an ex-soldier. There's no heading down to Tesco's any more. Ammo is impossible to come by. But if John, and the others holed up in St. Barts' still want to eat, someone has to go out. And that someone is almost always John.

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A few nights of weakness here or there hadn't meant to turn Bill to anything more than a friend. They've all done things against their character in this new world. You have to if you want to survive. Society and morality are not things that can come away unscathed.

But they agreed -- They agreed that physical comfort had not been something that would change their relationship. John ought to have known better. He ought to have seen it. In small bands like this, sexual relationships do not just define place, but status.

And Bill feels as if his own is being jeopardized by Sherlock's return. John rolls his eyes. Will no one ever believe that two men can simply be just friends?

Then again... Sherlock is never 'just' anything.

"It looks like you're about to have an unfortunate fall in the shower," Bill says. A whisper. John doesn't hear it. But the scuffle to follow? That's hard to miss.

Sherlock sees the darkening look in Bill's eyes and he tries not to let his mirth show as he rotates his shoulders and gets ready for the blows before they fall. That comment about an unfortunate fall? Well, that's completely unnecessary, since body language gives so much more away so quicker.

Bill is more than a little bit taller and thicker than Sherlock. And he's got some armour in terms of clothing, but all that bulk just makes him slower. Sherlock steps back when the first blow is thrown, allowing Bill to get a firm grasp on his freshly cut hair so he can bring his palm up and into Bill's nose.

He's always been on the thin side and he'd been the target of many bullies much larger than he is, so this is familiar ground. He has no qualms with taking cheap shots - throat, feet, shins, genitals - which Bill will discover if this fight continues very long.

It's not until he heard the sound of agitated water and skin to skin contact that John finally bursts into the locker room. He says nothing at first, watching Sherlock with his still painful ankle and his broken arm manage to get the better of a man literally trained for unarmed, hand to hand combat.

He's always found Sherlock something beautiful to watch, though at the moment, John's got a pained, incredulous sort of expression on his face and stands, door half open, with his head cocked to the side.

"Are you two mad?!"

Bad question. One is likely clinically mad and the other...had certainly grown that way.

"Stop!" He's not going to get in the middle of them, but he would very much like to not clean up blood today, thanks!

Sherlock hears the door open and knows at once that it's John coming in. He'd probably been standing there for God only knows how long. Did he hear their verbal altercation? Probably? He'll certainly find out later.

He continues to struggle with Bill, using the man's weight against him and sneaking in several blows of his own - both legitimate and illegitimate in terms of 'fair play', but what's really fair about attacking a nude, injured man in the shower?

'Stop'.

Well, that's a fantastic idea and it opens up something lovely. The perfect opportunity to do the absolute most damage to Bill and his respectability. He does exactly as John says and stops. The only thing he will do now is defend against any blows that might go fatal or cause lasting injury. Other than that, Bill can show his true colours to their mutual friend. Isn't that what he'd been trying to do all along? Prove which one of them could be trusted?

The last punch from Bill, unprovoked as Sherlock had absolutely stopped throwing blows, gets John's dander up. The fist cuts into Sherlock's eye and the blood-- Damn it, just what he'd been trying to stop. If that punch causes Sherlock to fall, and likely even if it does not, Bill is entirely too frenzied to stop his assault.

John is forced, therefore, into the altercation. He puts the much taller man into a hold, half forced to jump onto him, arm around his neck.

"I said stop it!" John yells. He's not planning on getting hit for what he obviously sees as an attempt to break up the fight, but one of Bill's fists goes wild and his fingernails catch John below his left eye, tearing open three gashes across his cheek.

Well that gets Bill to stop and John glares up at him, hand over his injured face. "John--"

"ENOUGH!"

The punch is a heavy one and it causes Sherlock to wobble on his feet. He reaches up and grabs onto the shower stall once Bill's pulled off of him, doubling over and catching his breath for a moment. He looks up just in time to see the fly away fist impact his friend's face. He hadn't meant for John to get injured during all this, but it seems a fitting end to add a physical aspect for Bill to see.

He's not exactly an innocent party in all this. And maybe he's intentionally manipulating things into his favour, but he'd had no plan in any of this until Bill approached him with his acidic words and spite.

He wipes his eye with the back of his hand and checks it for the blood he knows will be there.

Probably best not to say anything until John's calmed down. He'll just start picking up his spilled bathroom items and put them back in his box while John takes care of Bill. The shower is all the more desirable after such a pleasant release of adrenaline and testosterone.

"John, I'm so--"

John holds up his hand before anyone can start sputtering. What a nightmare this is turning into being. John likes to fight as much as the next bloke -- and let's face it, maybe even more than the next bloke because it's been a way of linking a naturally short statured man to his masculinity. He simply is done with it. There's been enough today to leave him exhausted.

Eight hour trips to and from a new food store, fighting with Sherlock on a terribly emotional level-- He doesn't need this, not when the night was suppose to be a healing exercise between him and his best friend.

"Go to bed, Bill. We'll talk tomorrow." And won't that be uncomfortable? Absolutely. John dabs at his face and turns away from them both to head to the sinks and wash up.

Bill doesn't even look at Sherlock and only tries once more to get John's attention before he leaves, shoulders slumped.

Sherlock glances over at John when he's got his items picked up, then he watches the last part of Bill's retreat. He feels a bit proud of himself for getting the upper hand and now that there's one less man in the locker room, he might accidentally let some of that show.

With a heavy sigh and a rotation of his neck and shoulders, Sherlock turns the valve so that water starts to come down. It's cold at first, but that hot water John mentioned is not far behind.

"Are you all right?" Sherlock asks over his shoulder, meaning John's face. He's not considering his friend's emotional level through all this. There's still a lingering buzz of adrenaline coursing through his system and it's the next best thing to turning to morphine or cocaine when he's gotten himself into a slump as bad as he'd been in before his talk with John.

Is he all right? No. No, he doesn't think he is. John clings to the sink to keep himself upright and ignores the sting in his cheek. He doesn't have the right medications or large enough plasters. This is going to scar. He probably ought to give at least one stitch to the middle scratch too and then hope that Bill's nails were clean and he won't have to tap into antibiotics.

Waste is...just waste.

"You wanted him to attack you," John says, glancing over his shoulder as well to catch Sherlock's gaze. He's only partially able to do so before he swings his own head back down and starts to laugh. "You might literally be the death of me, Sherlock Holmes," he says.

Of course, Bill had just outed him about the suicide bit but-- Let's not bring that up. It's been too enlightening of an evening.

"Could you not, you know, start fires next time?"

"Good," Sherlock tells John when his friend deduces correctly about his motives. "I'm not sure how much you heard, but I had my reasons. He approached me first and I thought the boost of adrenaline would be more socially acceptable and less wasteful than taking a withdrawal from the Vicodin supply," he points out. He knows that Mycroft's told John about his 'danger nights', so there's no reason to beat around the bush with it.

"Now, will you help with the shampoo? I pulled my right shoulder during that scuffle," Sherlock says to him, picking up the bottle and holding it at a low angle, since he really had done some minor damage to the muscle there. It would be fine in the morning once it's had a chance to recover with minimal impairment.

He mostly just wants John not to leave him to shower alone.

"Have you-- Have you honestly injured both of your arms now? And you're the bloody genius!" Well, they've always been strange ducks, haven't they? Always enjoyed, for lack of better words, the strangest of things. A fist fight in the bathroom with Sherlock nude over John's supposed friendship? It's not reality. This is not his life now.

John sighs, poor, hard pressed John Watson, and removes his shirt and his trousers before stepping into the water. Still quite warm, he's rather pleased to find.

Having to do Sherlock's hair, however, will be a difficult endeavor. "You'll have to bend a bit," he mentions. "It's not my fault that my genes did not favour stature, do not even start with me." He's not as generous as Sherlock might like with the shampoo but... Well, no one in the world is left making shampoo either.

While Sherlock is bending, he might notice a whole array of interesting, lovely scars that John's managed to get. Of course, his crowning glory is still his shoulder. And his face is still weeping blood too.

There's not many places he's not scarred up, incidentally.

"The right arm is only a minor injury," Sherlock points out, but he doesn't seem very embarrassed by it. If anything, he's amused. Unlike John, he hasn't grown out of finding pleasure in the simple things life throws at him. Crime scenes are few and far between these days, so he's got to stay entertained some way.

He bends forward as John instructs him. He definitely takes the opportunity to glance over his friend's body like this. He can put stories and specifics to many of the scars he sees on his friend, simply because that's what he does. He's more familiar with fresher wounds, but it's all similar.

"Do you need help patching up your face?" Sherlock asks him, closing his eyes when some of the shampoo dribbles down his temple. "I won't be much help, I imagine, but I might be able to hold things for you while you suture yourself up. As I said before, you don't need to worry too much about the penicillin. I can make more easily and I shouldn't have to explain to you that prophylactic treatment is more conservative than treating a full infection."

"I can handle my face," John mentions with a laugh. Sherlock's ability to turn doctoring into a 'I know more than you' sort of scenario always amuses him. Always had amused him. Always will amuse him. He likes that sort of thinking so much more.

A good scratching to Sherlock's scalp and he assumes the other man can do the rinsing under the spray himself while he soaps up the back of his neck and his shoulders.

And isn't this a very odd thing to be doing? Probably, but Sherlock's arms are roughly useless at the moment and it's no different from a sponge bath.

Or so he tells himself.

It's all very cursory at least and then it's to his own body. John doesn't bother with shampoo, it's all hand soap, lathered up quickly. Rinsed off just as quickly.

He'll leave Sherlock to the rest. He really should see to his face. It will not be the first nor last time he must stitch himself up.

Sherlock turns everything into an 'I know more than you' scenario. If he doesn't have the knowledge to back it up, he gets defensive and claims that he doesn't know it because it's not worth knowing. It's true, but it still makes him ruffled when John treats political gossip as important information. Not that they'll have much of that to worry about these days.

When Sherlock's finished rinsing his hair, he'll pick up a bottle of conditioner and hand it to John. It takes as long for him to do a quick rinse as it takes John to wash half his body.

"You know... I'm trying to figure out how you've always managed to smell fine despite throwing soap on yourself without so much as using it to wash," Sherlock says, giving John a bit of an amused look again. He's not completely satisfied with John's job of washing his shoulders and back, but this is his third shower today, so he can't be too worried about being thorough.

Conditioner? "Sherlock, you--" You hardly have any hair. Oh well. John sighs, lets the criticism about his washing go without comment, pours an ample amount of conditioner in the centre of his palm, and beckons Sherlock closer again. Yes, his cheek is bleeding and yes he has better things to do with his evening. But this is soothing. Being with Sherlock is a balm.

John is a little more thorough this time, running his fingers through the silky black strands carefully to coat them from root to end. Lovingly. Yes. He smiles to himself and then tilts Sherlock's head back, pushing himself on his toes to be just a bit taller. It's a little more difficult to rinse out conditioner, he figures, so rather than have Sherlock do it himself, he helps. And all right. Yes. He very much enjoys Sherlock's hair. Perhaps he can find a way to stroke it when it's curly again? And wouldn't that just make the other man grumble! Such a grumpy house cat in a muffler.

But for now--

He really needs to get himself situated.

"Finish up wasting the water," John jokes as he steps out of the spray and towels off. "I'm going to sew up my face in my room."

You can follow him when you're ready.

Edited 2013-11-07 01:09 (UTC)

Sherlock just gives a half shrug at John's half uttered question. Of course he uses conditioner in his hair. As John thought to himself earlier, without taking the precaution of conditioner, his hair would end up a frizzy mess by noon. Tangles, loose bits shooting everywhere; and with the frequency of his showers, his hair would be completely stripped of any oils.

He finds it very pleasant to have his friend take care of his haircare. He'd never thought about this sort of thing before and how much nicer it would be to have a friendly presence take care of things like this than a hairdresser. It's just comfortable. Fitting in with John's cat analogy, he shuffles his feet a little so he could crane his head to either side to make sure he's properly pampered from all directions.

When his friend drops his hands, he sighs. One hand pushes his fringe up and over his forehead with the muted coordination of a sore shoulder. "And you'll take the antibiotic?" Sherlock asks him, for now watching the smaller man instead of moving to finish washing himself off.

He'll follow John, but it will be a while. He's going to have a hard time putting his pyjamas on and moving his stuff back into the locker.

"I'll take it before I put on the gloves," John says agreeably, somewhat lazy in his own approach to dress and head out of the locker room. He should stay and give Sherlock a hand-- But he'd rather operate on his face alone. And he needs a few minutes to himself. After what Bill said--

And Sherlock's denial of caring for him-- Not caring, love. And that's fine. No, Sherlock. No one listens to you. Not all the way. But that's just human nature, isn't it?

It takes some time for John to find the alcohol, to heat his needles, to thread the suture gun. It takes no time at all to push the needle through his cheek twice. He doesn't even flinch any more.

John's completely dry when Sherlock is back and his cheek is plastered accordingly. No ugly black strings showing for now.

Sherlock wouldn't have told Bill how he felt about John anymore than he'd already done. John is his friend. His only friend. And, to Sherlock, there's nothing more important than that in his life. Tonight, he hadn't confirmed or denied Bill's accusations because he knows how he feels about John and he knows that there are just too many limitations in words like love and caring to cover it all.

Love, in the way most people mean it, is just too skin-deep. It's thrown around here and there with no regard to what it actually means.

He'd die for John. He'd live for John. And everything else in between, but no one needs to know that but him. He sure as Hell won't be telling Bill Murray any of it.

Sherlock's dressing and trip to John's room goes uninterrupted. He's not sure where Bill is, but one glance at the other man's room tells him that he's not there. He doubts he'd have overnight patrol two nights in a row with two days of food retrieval between.

He doesn't knock before trying John's knob. For the first time, the door opens instead of remaining firmly locked. Why had he gone to John's room instead of his own?

"The sutures went fine," Sherlock says, glancing at John's cheek. Should he go then or stay? He can't decide, so he just hovers in the doorway.

John motions for Sherlock to come all the way into the room as he stands from the small desk and rips off the gloves. They get binned and John leans behind the still hovering Sherlock to lock the door.

There are protocols. He set them up. He has to uphold them. Then again-- "Are you staying?" He feels somewhat awkward now. "You don't have to but I'm not sure I'm quite ready to go back to being alone."

They don't have to talk. Actually, it might be better if they don't. Rehashing today's trauma isn't important. He just wants to be with his friend. He wants to watch him think again.

Sherlock looks at the gesture John makes and he steps into the room now that he has an overt invitation to do so. He shuts the door behind him, but doesn't think to lock it until John tells him to. He never locks his own door when he sleeps and so far no one's given him a problem for it.

"I'll stay for a while," Sherlock tells him. He isn't going to commit to staying the entire night, but it's a possibility at this point. He's had to listen to his friend's nightmares with none of his usual ways to remedy them over the last week and he doesn't like the idea of being caught outside the door again. There's also a suspicion in the back of his mind that he might suffer from his own nightmares tonight if he tries to sleep alone. And, sleep will be essential with how little he'd had the night before.

He takes a moment to look around, then he decides to sit on the far end of John's bed in the corner against the wall with one foot drawn close. The pain in his right ankle has come back since the fight in the shower and he leaves that leg extended.

John just lightly bats at that one foot as he tumbles into bed properly. He's made a nest of the thing. Despite his outward neatness, There are two decent sized pillows and the rest of the blankets are twisted. John never makes his bed until it's time to change the sheets. At the moment, he doesn't need them. The old hospital is naturally cool so while his toes might require a bit of cover, nothing else really does. Small as he is, John Watson runs hot.

He lays in quiet for some time before his eyes open again and he seeks out Sherlock's outline in the periphery of his vision.

"No more encouraging fights until that leg heals completely." But that's not what he really wants to say. "And let me handle Bill."

Sitting like this is both familiar and terribly new. Back in Baker Street, they'd sometimes sat on the sofa together. Not often, but whenever one or both of them were feeling hurt or lonely in a way the other perceived. An offer of closeness without it appearing to be that. It worked for both of them very well.

This right here? This has been touched on in words. They'd shared something earlier that day they'd never shared before. Raw emotion. Tears. (Okay, Sherlock's shared some raw emotion back in Dartmoor and the tears before his jump; but they hadn't been reciprocated in kind during those instances of weakness.) When John had invited him into the room, he might as well have been saying 'I need you with me tonight' and by accepting it, he'd been saying the exact same thing.

So, at first, he's understandably tense as he sits there on John's bed watching as his friend makes himself comfortable. Over the next several minutes, some of that tension dissipates, but his mood is still quiet as he's gone back to cataloguing the information he knows about viruses. He's made three sections based on other information he knows: possible, impossible, and unsure. He'll test them accordingly. Escherichia coli shouldn't be difficult to isolate and cultivate. He can use the bacteria's short life cycle and plasmids to his advantage in replicating viral nucleotides. With that, he can make a suitable intramuscular or intravenous vaccine that will prevent viral mutation within the host.

"Hmm?" Sherlock looks down at John. The look on his face should tell his friend that he hasn't been listening to him. "Bill? Oh, right. If he leaves me alone, I'll leave him alone. If not, I'd be more worried about him than me." Then again, Sherlock knows when to stop, so Bill's life won't be the one in danger.

John's smile mellows out and his gaze returns to the ceiling, to the edge of a blacked out window facing the interior courtyard, and finally the insides of his eyelids. "It's not you I'm worried about," he confesses. Sherlock has been more or less on his own, living without much of anything, for three years. Now, the man is the ideal person to be left to his own devices in an apocalypse of this magnitude, logically and physically prepared, mentally conditioned, but John is not going to say that Sherlock's survival is more than just a simple miracle and finding each other... Well that's more of a miracle still.

Even if Sherlock goads, even if he pushes buttons, even if he manages to piss everyone off this side of civilisation, there's very little that John would think he could not handle on his own.

"In all this time, we've never had to deal with someone showing aggression towards one of our own." John isn't a leader. He might have been forced to that position, and he might need to find control where it's possible, but he's a soldier and soldiers typically are trained to follow.

He turns onto his side, facing away from Sherlock, but that's only due to the plaster over his cheek. John's real worry is that this has become personal. He's the sort of man to let small -- or large -- slights go. Bill, however, is holding too much to the past.

Sherlock can't help but smirk a little when his friend agrees that out of him and Bill, the obvious superior force is him. He likes being superior. Unlike John's torn role of half leadership, half duty follower; Sherlock is entirely leader in terms of how he handles things. He's never liked authority figures and he only follows the rules when they suit him. He's had a history of taking law into his own hands on several occasions, either by letting criminals go when he finds their circumstance and crimes not worth the punishment they would receive as well as intentionally adding discomfort and harm to those he believes deserve harsher punishment. (Irene Adler and Operative Neilson, respectively.)

Unfortunately, he's late to the game and the group has already established dynamics and someone who questions authority doesn't quite belong. Either the group will adapt to him or he will be forced to go on his merry way like Bill is pining for.

"And you're worried about how the rest of the group will react to what's happened," Sherlock predicts as he looks down at the back of his friend's head.

"I don't plan on pressing charges or trying to convince people to choose sides. As far as I'm concerned, it's over. He doesn't matter," Sherlock tells his friend. When he'd gotten those few blows in, he'd gotten over the deliberate miscommunication. And when Bill struck John, he felt like he'd taught the man a lesson that couldn't be conveyed in words. He's not the type to hold grudges except in rare circumstance. But, if he catches Bill trying to hurt John through him again, he will retaliate.

Once again, Sherlock is completely on the money. John isn't sure if he should be amused or scowl. Smiling to himself, visible over his shoulder from Sherlock's angle above him, John's choice is probably easily determined. He can't help himself. Sherlock can do plenty of wrong, but he always makes up for it. Or perhaps John is just broken and Sherlock's got the pieces that make his gears work again, even if not so perfectly.

"Of course I'm worried-- Sherlock, I've known these people for years. They've known Bill. They respect Bill. I don't want this to turn into having to choose you or them."

They both know who John will choose. Who he always chooses. Just think back to all of those relationships he's let slip through his fingers for the chance to spend an evening with his crazy flatmate?

"I'm not asking you to change, but I've seen you sham people for weeks at a time. Just-- try. Outwardly. Even if you don't care for them, or find their habits odd. We have some work to do and we need these labs." In other words, he'll follow you anywhere after this, just let him help you keep the lab.

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I keep promising myself no phone tags... ><

It's hard not to phone tag. You caught me right as I was sitting down XD

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