Bendingsignpost asks about Sherlock-Chest Bomb.

Triggers for rape (but the story as I planned it has BAMFery and a happy ending).  I keep meaning to finish this one.  I just keep getting hung up on logistics.

This is one I started for a prompt, the short version of which is: Moriarty has planted a bomb inside Sherlock’s chest. If it goes off, it will destroy his heart, killing him. Sherlock has an earpiece. He’s told to rape John. Sherlock knows that if John knew the whole story, he’d prefer the rape to Sherlock’s death. Or he’s afraid the bomb is big enough to take them both out. For whatever reason, Sherlock goes along with it.  (It goes on longer, but eh.  )

When it’s over, they’re both tear-streaked, abraded, bruised, filthy, and exhausted.  Sherlock falls to the side.  John turns his head to look at him.  He doesn’t have to speak for Sherlock to know the only word in his mind.

Why?

Sherlock shakes his head slowly, lips still sealed and eyes a devastation; he doesn’t have to see his reflection to know how haggard he looks.  After a moment, he sits up to drape his coat over John.  The clothes he’d worn aren’t salvageable.  At least he can have some dignity on the way to…

Sherlock blinks.  He’s at a loss as to what happens now.  John isn’t saying a word, just watching him, eyes sunken but still—still!—not afraid.  Why should he be?  Sherlock has already done his worst.

“Hospital,” Sherlock finally croaks.

John shakes his head, and finally shifts, pulling himself up to his knees with a controlled, agonized breath and tugging Sherlock’s coat close around him.  “Baker Street.”

Unbelievable.  John sounds like hell.  He looks worse.  He’s shaking with reaction.  He’s ashen beneath the grime and mess, his pupils are dilated, his breathing slowing rapidly as shock sets in.  He’s flying so high on adrenaline he probably can’t feel anything right now, but when it runs its course, Sherlock will be carrying him the rest of the way to wherever they go.

“Police,” he counters, as if it’s a negotiation.

“Home,” John grates.  He flings the word at Sherlock like a slap across the face.  Sherlock doesn’t want to think of the place they shared that way right now.  It feels like a violation.  John doesn’t look happy about it either, but his jaw is granite.  No amount of trauma will work its way through the wall he’s erected till he’s good and ready.  “Sherlock.  I don’t know what the fuck is going on.  But we are going back to Baker Street.  Now help me to my feet.  Find us a goddamned taxi.  And get us out of here.”

It’s only when he finds himself obeying like a wind-up toy that Sherlock realizes he’s as numb with shock as John is. 

John is unnaturally still when Sherlock touches him, forcing himself to maintain control.  The effort it must take him makes Sherlock wish he’d just flinch and duck away.  For one thing, it’d make Sherlock feel less horrible about not wanting to touch him.  John was nothing but a victim here, but contact with him makes Sherlock’s skin crawl.

Which is too bad, really, since John needs Sherlock’s arm around his waist to keep moving.

Scrubbed down and buttoned up till they cease to look alarming, they catch a taxi.  The ride is a purgatory, both of them desperately wanting to huddle for comfort but straining away from the reminder of the assault.  They shift and shuffle till they fall into a brief equilibrium, sitting close but not touching, looking studiously away from each other, studiously not thinking.  The air between them is so stifling that even the cab driver can feel it, glancing anxiously at them as he cycles through his mirrors.  Unable to breathe for the weight of it, Sherlock finally cracks a window.

Then the little earpiece hisses back to life, and Sherlock lunges for the door, opening it enough to vomit out into the street while they’re still moving.

“You’re going to convince him to have you arrested,” Moriarty’s voice purrs.

“Sherlock!”  John lurches towards Sherlock, hand closing on his shoulder in unthinking concern.  The cab driver is shouting imprecations that neither of them listens to.  “God!  Are you all right?”

Sherlock laughs brokenly, because honestly, of all the stupid questions.  John looks so strung out he’s ready to break, like this is the final straw in the process of snapping him, and that’s exactly how Sherlock feels.  He laughs again, feeling it all coming undone, the threads of himself on the brink of falling completely apart into the mess of patchwork scraps he’s made of…

John sees it in his eyes, and does what he never did in the midst of the thing.  “Please.”  Sherlock blinks and John is staring into his eyes from inches away as though he’ll never look away again.  “Please, Sherlock, I need you to hold it together right now.”  And he means it.  He really does.  It’s in every sunken line of John’s face.  He cannot cope with this alone right now.

Somehow that knowledge is enough.  Whether it’s because John needs him, or because neither of them is alone in this…  Sherlock doesn’t know.  He’s never done this before.  Eyes squeezed tight, he jerks his head to the side to get hold of himself.

John sucks a breath in between his teeth.  When Sherlock glances back at him, alarmed, there’s impossible compassion in those murky blue eyes.

“Are you all right?” he asks again, voice gone gentle.

It’s still a stupid question.  But it’s John’s way of coping.  So long as there’s someone else to worry about, he can keep it together.

Sherlock doesn’t know what his way of coping is.  He’s never done this before.  Wait, no, yes.  Of course he does.  Of course.

He watches John and spends the rest of the trip pulling a tattered, cold shroud of logic back over his mind.