Sherlock meets The Flash and Arrow

CHAPTER 37

Sherlock

My eyes close, and when I open them I'm back at the mortuary. It's the day I met John. I'm walking up to a body bag with a riding crop in my hand. I know what comes next, and it seems too...benign. When I unzip the bag, though, I realize what's really happening. What I'm about to be forced to do.

Instead of the corpse I flogged before, Molly Hooper is restrained on the table. She's wearing nothing but her underclothes. Her expression pleads with me. "Please, Sherlock," she whispers. "Help me get out of here."

There is nothing I want more badly right now than to do what she's asking, but I'm a prisoner to my transport. Instead of moving closer to help her, I'm raising the riding crop. My arm snaps down hard and fast, and Molly arches her back and cries out. There is an angry red stripe across her stomach, painfully bright against her pale skin. She looks back at me, more shocked than anything, and inside I am screaming. Asking, then telling, then pleading with my body to stop. She doesn't deserve this. She's done nothing wrong. But my arm, ignoring my protests rises and falls again, eliciting another cry from Molly. A second welt forms next to the first. Her body writhes in front of me, desperate to escape the pain.

Another red stripe.

Another scream.

Another.

Another.

My mind, which I've relied on for so many things, betrays me and forces me to keep track of how many times I whip Molly. Exactly seventeen. Seventeen red lines on her body, seventeen screams, seventeen chances for me to stop our mutual pain and help her. But I can't. I can't stop my body from doing this. I'm not strong enough, and I hate myself for it. She can't even tell how I'm feeling—my face has molded itself into a cold mask of indifference without my consent. If I could, I'd be crying, screaming, apologizing endlessly.

My head turns and I'm forced to look at her expression. The shock is still there, but now it's mixed with hatred, and her face is wet with tears. I can feel the riding crop leave my hand, replaced by the knife. My mind starts screaming all over again, threatening to lose its sanity.

I'd prefer going mad to hearing the sounds of the knife sliding into Molly's eye and her screams suddenly stopping.

It's silent now. Shockingly silent compared to Molly's echoing screams from only seconds ago. All I can hear is my breathing and of Molly's blood slowly dripping from the table to the floor. She helped me so many times, even saved my life, and I made her last moments a living hell. I never even thanked her properly.

Now she needs the body bag.

I still can't control my actions. I want to run away, wash all this blood off my hands, lose myself in the drugs that I swore off of, anything. Anything to make it stop. To make myself stop.

But I can't. Instead, I'm walking up the stairs to our flat. John is sitting in his chair with a half-finished cup of tea in his hand. He looks up as I walk to him, probably expecting me to tell him he needs to get milk or ask him to come on a case with me. Instead, I feel my rebellious transport slowly lean in closer, until I can feel John's breath on my face. It smells like Earl Grey.

He tenses up as my body continues to approach him—my mind is desperately trying to pull away, but I can't. The rest of the space between us disappears almost instantly, and my lips brush his. The teacup he was holding clatters to the floor, the contents spilling everywhere and soaking into the carpet. To my horrified surprise, he begins to return my kiss. My body reacts in kind, leaning against John, our torsos pressing together. If I could sever my consciousness from the rest of myself, fly away, and not look back, I would.

Because as terrified as I am about what will happen next, I am enjoying this one last moment with my faithful blogger/flatmate.

We continue like this for far too long—it could be a second or an hour, and the fact that I can't tell bothers me. I can always keep track of time. My fingers press against John's chest, and suddenly I'm holding a knife. I know with a terrible, aching finality that this is my last chance to stop this devastating force from taking my friend...to stop my own body from being the tool used to kill him. My mind pushes, fighting with all its strength, but nothing happens. I am still prisoner to my transport, and the knife is still in my hand. John hasn't noticed, probably because he's too focused on our lips, still passionately pressed together. Something I'm trying desperately to ignore, since it will only make what I know is coming next even harder.

Suddenly, I pull away from him and my hand moves down, towards his stomach. With a quick flick of my wrist, the knife plunges deep into his stomach. I know enough anatomy to see that the knife has hit an artery, punctuated with a sudden bloom of red staining his jumper. He jerks in the chair, and as I pull away with blood—John's blood—on my hands and shirt. He looks up at me.

I prefer to think that I don't have a heart, but I can definitely feel something inside me shatter when I see the shock and betrayal written all over his rapidly paling face.

"Why?" He coughs up a little blood. Nothing compared to what's oozing from the gash in his stomach. The gash that I put there. My fault.

I want to explain everything, say that I'm sorry and that I love him and that it's not me doing this, but instead I can feel my face slowly curl into a malicious grin as my hand flips the knife around. Then I jerk forward and the knife is in his eye socket.

Suddenly, I'm in control again, but it's too late. I know he's dead.

Dead.

I try to run to him, but his blood is covering the floor like thick, red mud and I can't move. It slowly rises higher and I can hear my brother's voice echoing in my head as silent sobs wrack my body.

"Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock."

John

I wake up when I hear Sherlock cry out in the middle of the night. He's covered in sweat.

The past he just shared is clearly haunting him. His hand, hanging off the side of the bed, makes the motions of flipping a knife across his fingers. His breath is rapid and shallow, like he's terrified.

I don't even think. I don't care what people will say. For God's sake, they're from a different universe. How much can their gossip affect us?

I slide into his bed next to him. He curls closer to my body heat in his sleep. I slowly comb my hand through his curls, watching him sleep. Slowly, his breathing levels out and he calms. His hand goes limp and he relaxes.

I don't do this. Sherlock gets into my bed all the time, with his usual disrespect for modesty, decency, privacy, and boundaries. He's so innocent. He doesn't even think about the social implications, or if he does, he doesn't care. We've slept in the same bed before, but just because there only is one bed in some of the places we've stayed. But I never get in bed with him when I have a choice. It's always me reiterating that I'm not gay. But today, for some reason, that's not that important anymore.

Sherlock quiets, but I keep running my hand through his hair. I'll probably stay up all night making sure he sleeps well, but I don't mind.

I'm not gay and I don't do this, but, for once, I couldn't care less.