Chapter Text
It had once been a luxury private hospital near the Central City, but these days it was old-fashioned, confined and labyrinthine. After it was divided into two sections: section A for slaves (secure, CCTVs, closed unbreakable windows, rooms were locked outside, usually heavy medication for patients, chains and restrains to make sure, that they wouldn't try to escape. For their own safety, as the personnel told to them, if they bothered to talk at them at all.). Section B for educational purposes for medical students: laboratories, lecture rooms and smaller research rooms for students and a bit bigger for their teachers who often also worked in the section A.
Dr John Watson was comforted his patient, a sobbing middle-aged slave with heart problems. At least he was doing his best. Her condition was serious, although treatable, but her owner, a very impressive and persuasive Madame Wentswoth wanted to get rid of her aging slave, who couldn't perform her tasks as effectively as before because of her illness, and buy younger and more capable slave to do her housework. Pensions didn´t exist for aged or incapable slaves. Nobody wanted to keep a slave who was unable to perform his or her duties properly or who needed expensive care. It was also illegal to abandon a useless slave on the streets; they could disturb people and be even a danger in citizens. Living homeless on the streets was the privilege reserved for free people. The unpleasant truth was that most slaves died prematurely. Most of them died because of hard work, bad treatment and malnutrition. These were listed as a natural cause of death. Some were simply killed. Euthanasia was the legal and popular solution. Madame Wentswoth wanted to do her duty towards her ill servant as neatly and painlessly as possible. She had taken her ill slave to hospital to have her put down professionally. That was what they did to incurable animals, so why not to slaves as well?
The poor woman was crying because she didn't want to die. John Watson was not going to let her, but he could do only little for that. He had given her free medication, getting himself in trouble, if someone reported upward, because her owner didn't want to pay for the cure, but she would have needed an operation for which Madame Wentswoth refused to pay. She thought that her older slave, who had served in the house already when Mme Woodlice was a teenager, deserved to be put down. John couldn't treat the slave for free.
A door swung open without warning. John lifted his gaze from his patient to a door to see who disturbed him in this intimate moment. But when he saw who stepped in, he suppressed his anger.
Doctor Dewberry, the leader of Barts hospital and its main surgeon, stepped in unceremoniously, not bothering to give time for John´s patient to cover herself. He didn´t regard her as a person worth of dignity and privacy, but more of a kind of furniture. John wanted to tell him that he did not appreciate being interrupted in the middle of a patient appointment. Or that all the patients needed privacy. But of course he didn`t. Some things were better left unsaid to your boss.
Dr Dewberry could be a ladies` man when he wanted to. He was tall with chocolate-brown eyes and a calming appearance. His golden hair had started to turn silver, which made him look angelic. He talked sweetly for the owners, especially for women like Madame Woodlice, and his smile was wide and warm for them. But among his personal and slave patients he had a different reputation. Beneath the mask of medical demi-god lured an ambitious and merciless man.
“John, I need you to check a patient for me. I have an urgent surgery ahead and I don't have time to take care of everything by myself. The case is routine, but it is essential that we keep the owner happy. He is a very important client. Be careful.” Doctor Stephen Dewberry advised his younger colleague.
When John Watson was taken as a younger surgeon into Bartholomew´s Private Hospital, he noticed very quickly, that his real job was being a personal assistant of Doctor Dewberry rather than working as an independent doctor. But everybody lived under surveillance. He had grown used to it during his whole life: It was everywhere: in the school, in the army, so it was inside the old and respected Bartholomew´s hospital. There was an alternative for euthanasia: using them as laboratory rats for educational purposes for students to practise with medication, surgery, autopsy, all kind of experiments. Students could practise with ill and disable slaves as they learned how to become doctors. Sometimes their test subjects happened to get better (but often they did not).
The main surgeon doctor Stephen Dewberry, whó was also the director of the hospital, operated only the most important and most difficult cases, leaving the more routine procedure to his colleagues. Patient´s examination and preparation for the operation made some of the younger doctors, when doctor Dewberry had no time to do it personally.
“Yes, sir.” Before he turned to leave, Dr Dewberry gave him the last instructions.
“Be careful! His owner, Mr Moriarty, is a very important client, who can be very demanding, and nothing should be allowed to go wrong. Mr Moriarty told me that he is dangerous. A liar and a troublemaker. He sounds a bad choice as a concubine, but what I am to judge another man´s preferences? You should not listen him or start a conversation with him, just do your duties and leave. Report to me personally if something out of ordinary happens.Do you understand?”
“…Yes. I think, that I can manage with him Sir.” John assured his superior.
“I count on that, Watson, because of your military background. That is exactly the reason why I hired you.” Doctor Dewberry assured him, when he offered him the manila file of his newest patient.
There was a guard by the examination room. An armed man was not an unusual sight in this hospital, but no matter how much John Watson tried, he never got used to it. A hospital should be a place to heal and help patients, to make them feel that they were safe and they would be taken care of. The presence of guards and locked rooms with bulletproof windows made the place resemble more of a prison
Usually the slaves were too suppressed to try to attack or escape. The hospital had its own security men, but sometimes the clients sent their own guards with their slave, as seemed to be the case this time. He nodded to the guard, who looked more like a bored young man waiting for a coffee break than an alarmed and armed security man ready for action. But then appearances could mislead. The guard asked him, why he was there, and then, satisfied with the answer he got, he knocked on the door three times. Somebody inside the room opened a door and John stepped in.
John Watson stepped over the threshold. There were two men in the room watching his entry. The one who opened the room was stern, military type, with. a taser hanging at his belt. He nodded to John shortly to address his presence. John´s patient sat on the edge of an examination table, with only a hospital gown to cover his nakedness. John noticed a black collar around his throat to indicate he was owned and that his hands were tied tightly back, his legs were restrained by a hobbler to make even walking a challenge. Running would be out of the question. His long curls almost hid his face. John didn´t like to see a patient treated like this, however much he had tried to adjust. It felt so wrong, inhumane and unnecessary. But he had been told about this young man; his training was still incomplete and he could be dangerous. It usually meant that he had not yet be beaten into total submission. The angle of his head revealed that; he kept it proudly up, looking straight at John. Slaves usually bowed their head down in submission and avoided direct eye contact without noticing it.
John Watson was not going to work in the presence of an armed guard.
“Could you give me some peace to do my work?” He asked from the man, who just stared at him blankly without giving him any answer.
“Right. I see. How about this: you are dismissed. Go outside and leave us alone. Now.”
Finally the guard reacted, shifted his leg. “I have my orders, doctor.”
“I am the only one giving orders in this room. I need privacy to do my work properly. This man is going nowhere. You can stay right outside the door. I can shout if he breaks free and attacks to me. Have you understood?”
The guard hesitated, he was going to object, but then he thought twice. He left the room, muttering something about giving him five minutes. John sighed with relief and turned now his full attention on his patient.
The man was in his twenties. He was alarmingly thin. The complexion of his skin was chalky white as if he had not seen a daylight for a year. It wasn`t a mystery to John, why his dark brown, curly hair had been grown that long, although his beard was carefully shaven, or why his fingernails were long and manicured. He had seen it before; some owners liked their male slaves to look female. The most captivating detail was his eyes, alien in their shape and their colour impossible to capture, their gaze piercing. There was no hate or fear or what was the worse: the empty stare, an inevitable sign of the total loss of one´s personality. John Watson suddenly felt under scrutiny. This was something new. He shifted his leg and cleared his throat.
John always read his patients´ files beforehand to learn more about them. This file didn´t reveal much about this young man. There was no known medical history, no information about his family. He learnt only the reason why he was here: to start a surgery process known as a Transformation. It didn't simplify his task to check him in for an unnecessary operation. John could see the familiar signs of mistreatment and abuse. The patient´s condition was hardly optimal for such a big operation, that much John could tell just by looking at him.
“Hello. My name is John Watson. I am here to perform a medical examination on you. It won't take long and I won't hurt you. It is for your own good.”
That was what he always said, talking to his patient, who he was and what he was going to do to them. He knew that it might sound hollow, but it was his effort to calm them, to tell them that they were safe with him. That he saw them as people who had a right to know what he was going to do. He knew doctors who didn't bother speak a word to their slave patients besides giving them orders during their examination as if they wouldn't be able to understand a normal, friendly conversation. Even animals got better treatment than these people; vets talked to their pet patients.
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“I don´t want you to touch me! Why do you lie? If you don't want to hurt me, then why do you lie?”
John Watson blinked, confused. The slave`s unexpected outburst surprised him. The slave was in no position to tell him to stop and still he did that. Slaves who have lived in slavery their whole life, couldn't even to say “no”.
“I am not lying - ”
“Right. Maybe semi-truths then,” the slave interrupted him. John blinked. That was new. “You seem to believe in your own words. My owner doesn't suddenly want to know if I get a proper amount of vitamins or if the last beating by his minions might have caused some permanent damage. Nope. I am here because I have two ribs too much for his liking. So they can go. And I should be grateful for that. I would not need them, they are two useless twigs. I can lie on my back and let my owner to shag me whenever he wants without them. Or any other bones. Do you know, doctor, that not long ago all a slave´s bones could have been broken just for fun? I would guess that they would not teach such a thing in medical school, or would they? I hope that you tell the truth – Doctor Watson.”
“I do what I can. If you let me to check you now, I could help you to get proper treatment during the time you spend here. I can help you…”
“Hospitals and doctors are all the same. You cannot help me as much as you would like to believe. It must be frustrating. You are really trying to be a good doctor amongst all these butchers who don't give a flying fuck for their patients. Most of them don't even try to hide behind the mask of care. Owners seldom demand decent treatment of their … property, don't you think, doctor?”
Doctor Watson wasn't sure if the slave really waited for an answer. The tone and words surprised him. He wasn't used to hearing a slave talking like that to a citizen, or watching him like that, observing and evaluating. It was like their roles had been turned upside down. The owners usually needed even less than that to beat their slave into half death. And after they bring them to us for repair.
“This must be frustrating to you, doing this parody of doctor work. You graduated so young, then you took all your idealism with you, went and to defend king and country and now you have ended here in this rat hole to help owners to transform their slaves instead of the real healing.”
“Hm. Sorry?”
“You are in the wrong place.”
“I don´t think so. And you are hardly in any position to tell me that.” The slave`s arrogance irritated John. Just a bit, but enough. The slave had it coming. From miles.
“Yes, I am and I can. I can tell it about your body language, and how you treat me and talk to me. You don´t handle me like I were like a piece of furniture. Why would a doctor end up in a slave hospital? In some cases because he is a sadist. But you are not. I see how you treated me, ordered the guard off, and how you wanted to release me. Or because he is desperate; he has low self-esteem. Or he is an idealist like the doctors who volunteer join the army. You have done both. No man in his right mind would volunteer to the army or go to a slave hospital to do some good. There is the pattern. You went into the war almost straight from medical school and after the war ended, it wasn't a relief to you. You missed the war so much that you went into another one soon after the peace has settled. But you...ah...you wounded and was sent to home against your wishes. It is not in your leg...somewhere else.”
“Anyway you didn't adjust to ordinary life very well after your wars, and here you found yourself ´helping´ the pariahs of your society: the slaves.But instead of doing real doctor work for your patients, you help other doctors perform operations which they don't need and which are mostly harmful, or to use them as their lab rats, of course in the name of science. You haven't been here long and you are already getting enough.” But I don't recommend you to return to your therapist. She won`t help you any more than these straps make me compliant.” Sherlock paused.
“How...how do you know that I have a therapist?”
“Most of wounded veterans have. And mostly they are women.”
“’That is…”started John.
“Yes?”
“That is extravagantly said.” John finished. He wanted to defend his decisions, how much he himself doubted them. But that this unknown slave dared to say such things.... John should have reported omit Sherlock´s cheeky talks, but for some reason Sherlock trusted that John would not do that. What Sherlock said to him here would be secret.
“You are not a slave from your birth. You cannot be. I have never heard a slave speaking like you,” John admitted.
The corners of Sherlock´s mouth twisted up just a little at the sides like John had just complimented him. This was the closest thing to praise he had ever heard.
The file stated that the slave`s name was Sherly. It was the name his owner had given him. John Watson was meant to use this name also if he wanted to address him, but it was clear that it was not his real one. He would have preferred to address him by his real name. It would have been impertinent to ask him what his name used to be. He didn't know how to address his patient.
But John also read distrust from those amazing green-blue eyes. Suddenly he knew what to do next.
“I don't like these restraints. I don´t think that you need them.” John told him simply and released his wrists and elbows from leather straps, which prevented the circulation and made his hands numb, his fingers feeling like some foreign objects. Sherlock´s eyes widened when he got his arms free, and he put them carefully on his lap like he could lose them if he didn´t keep his eye on them.
He watched the young doctor keenly without saying a word.
“I would like to release you from your leg restraints also, but I can't do it. Neither can I move your collar as much as I would like to. It looks to be a bit too tight,” John continued.
It was. Everything on him was meant to remind him of what he was, or, more truthfully, to what he was supposed to be, to keep him in check, to prevent him from dreaming of escaping. His crotch and back were sore from the chastity belt. But to get his hands free after hours of being restrained in the humiliating position was more than he had expected. His hands started to tingle, and he rubbed them to ease the sensation.
Sherlock evaluated John. He liked what he saw. This small man deserved a reward. He didn't have anything else to offer than his real name and that was what he gave.
“Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr Holmes.” John said, and Sherlock let out a crooked smile. It was the first time in his adult life that he had been called that. Maybe the last time, too. A slave didn´t have surnames. It was - again - the privilege of the free.
John gently touched injured skin of his wrists. Then he took an antiseptic cream and massaged it cautiously on the welts. He had been tied for at least a day like that.
“I didn't want to come here.” Sherlock said quietly, more like to himself than to the doctor. “I hate hospitals and doctors. He made me. He tied me to make me to compliant.”
“I haven´t heard about a slave who objects his owner.” John smiled.
“I am not ordinary,” Sherlock assured John who could very easily believe him.
“This should help.” John finished with cream. Next I would like to take off the gown, so that I could check you properly. May I continue?”
Sherlock nodded. “Go on. Do what you are paid for.”
This slave gave him permission to continue. Offering him the illusion of having the power to say `yes` or `no` did the trick, and the arrogant patient had said `yes`. Maybe this was the first time that someone bothered to ask his mind? John knew that he could have gotten his work done without the patient's cooperation, he could even call more personnel to keep him at bay during the examination. But he didn't want to let the situation devolve to that. It was not his way.
John removed the hospital gown. What he saw beneath it did not shock him anymore. He could tell even after a superficial look that his patient suffered from the usual signs of maltreatment: being underfed and dehydrated, marks of constantly being burned, beaten and flogged: the usual ways to punish a stubborn slave. And this slave had a reputation of being difficult. Pierced nipples, the round burn scars on his stomach. Fresh and older whip marks crossed on his back and the most startling scars were carved by a sharp instrument, likely a scalpel on his flesh. On his chest, right above his heart, John found the initials of J.M., his owner´s signature. The owner wanted clearly to leave memories on his property`s skin.
The most awkward thing John found on Sherlock was the chastity belt with a tiny tube reserved for penis. He already guessed that it had to be more a permanent part of the slave than an occasional accessory.
“This must be uncomfortable.” John commented.
“To put it mildly.”
“These things should not be on for long periods. They can cause health problems.” John added.
“As if my owner cares about such trivialities. Although he takes it away now and then. He wants to see my body to react what he does to me.“
On his thighs were wounds cut by a sharp instrument, likely a scalpel again.
“That is nothing. My owner, he gets easily bored, and he tries to find something new to amuse himself. He told me….he told me that because I like chemistry so much I would be interested in trying chemicals myself. That is why: drugs, acid burns, wounds soaked with different chemical substances. Then he asked me how it feels.” Sherlock explained, when he noticed John´s expression. All injuries were superficial, but being subjected to such a treatment over and over again would have some effect to the target´s psyche too.
John needed to check for injuries before he started his basic health check. As if there were anything ordinary about checking the condition of people whose lives consisted mostly of neglect and abuse from day to day.
He listened to the slave`s heart steadily beating as he should to track possible heart problems, which would cause problems during the operation. His reflexes were fine. He was not in good condition, but John couldn't find anything so fatal, that he could cancel the operation. He almost wished that he could.
It was time to start. He put his hand on the slave´s cold skin, felt his bones beneath it, but hardly any flesh. The slave was so thin .
John grabbed at his wrist, lifting his arm as was needed to see the damage to the otherwise perfectly flawless skin. Sherlock knew what the doctor could read from the tiny spots on his skin: the progressive destruction. John frowned and Sherlock snorted at his gesture.
“Becoming an addict wasn't my intention. They didn´t ask my permission when they started to inject drugs to me.”
“How long?” John asked.
“I am not sure. I haven't been allowed to carry such luxuries as a watch.”
“I am sure, that as a clever man you have an idea.”
“Of course.” Sherlock smiled.
“Then?” John demanded stubbornly. He had to hear it, although he already had an idea about how long.
“A year. More or less. But you know, they don't really give me much chance to refuse. At least not at the beginning.” Sherlock said blankly, without embarrassment or regret. It was all the same for a slave, what would kill him.
“I can believe it.” John admitted. “Can you tell what they have given to you?”
“I am sure about cocaine, but it is for reward. The other stuff is for punishment or fun. Fun for them, not to me, but I think you can understand that. Or to maim my brain.” Sherlock added bitterly.
John knew too well that drugs and even medicines, especially psych pills, were used to break slaves and keep them in control, but he hated to witness it with his own eyes.
Sherlock said matter of factly: “Sometimes I ask for it. I need it. He makes me do things for it and then I get my reward.”
John could suddenly understand that, as much as his medical side disapproved it. The desire to escape by any means available.
John wanted to change the topic.
“Do you smoke?”
Sherlock snorted in disbelief. ”Do you imagine that slaves are allowed for such a luxury? Are you so ignorant? No, I don´t smoke, not any more.”
“So drugs are allowed, but no cigarettes?”
“Yes. It is the funny logic of slave owners. Drugs keep a man more effectively in control.”
John explained to him what he was doing. He always did so, when he yet healed his free patients and now, when his patients were slaves.
This was even more important with slaves, when they were otherwise treated like crap. So John went on telling him what was happening, and that he was not going to hurt him:
“I am checking your eyes.”
“This is for your reflexes.”
“I will take blood tests from you.”
Sherlock snorted: “Don't fuss over me. You are not my mother.” John couldn't help smiling again.
He listened to the slave´s heart steady beating as he should to track possible heart problems, which would cause problems during the operation. His reflexes were fine. He was not in good condition, but nothing so fatal John couldn't find, that he could cancel the operation. He almost wished, that he could.
Finally, “I am taking your pulse.”
The doctor´s hands were warm in the right way and moved gently on his skin. He didn't push, pinch, slap or tease, which would hurt or arouse him against his will, but just with all the world´s kindness he didn't know existed beside his mother´s touch. Nobody had touched him like that, at least not in the very long time. He closed his eyes with the hungry of feeling a human touch. Sherlock knew that his reaction was wrong. John Watson was doing his job as he had done so countless times before him, touching people with his warm, skilful hands. He was not an exception. He should know better than to let this professional gentleness to affect him so profoundly. He should really have learnt already. There was a price for every good moment without exceptions. He was losing in the world where some people were owned by some others.
John Watson sensed Sherlock´s longing reaction to his touch. He decided to continue as he had meant to and took his pulse. The world started to turn again on its dull predictable orbit and Dr Watson continued to examine his patient.
Next he checked the blood pressure. Low.
“Do you know why you are here?” John asked cautiously.
“My owner has not kept me in the dark with this matter.” Even without Moriarty´s photos, Sherlock had an idea about what the transformation meant.
Moriarty had showed him photos, which were taken of his last bed slave before Sherlock. He had been called Victoria, so Sherlock had assumed,that his real name had been Victor. Victor who? He didn't know. In the photo before the transformation Sherlock saw a skinny young man, whose light brown hair was long but not curly. In the last photo the person had undeniably female features, even tiny breasts. Even his crotch. Sherlock´s thought stopped on the memory of Victoria´s crotch. What he saw, and more importantly, what he didn´t see. Soon after the last photo Victoria/Victor had suffered complications after one futile operation too much and had died. Moriarty didn´t pay much attention to his concubine, whom he had exhausted until there had been nothing more left to use of his body or mind, and when he was done he already had a new, more alluring target in his mind.
Sherlock Holmes.
He had only practised with Victor, to be ready for Sherlock.
Sherlock had understood what Moriarty had planned for him after seeing this abused and mutilated young man in these photos. And now the process was starting with him.
“Had you something to add?” John´s voice started him from his thoughts.
“No.”
John was almost done, when someone knocked impatiently on the door. Sherlock´s escort was becoming impatient behind a closed door.
“A minute! I am almost ready!” John shouted, but the door opened and a new man stepped into the examination room without offering an apology or bothering to say hello. The newcomer smirked at the men in the room, although John missed the reason of his amusement. A scar on his forehead gave away his real status, although he acted like a free man.
“I hope that you are ready with Sherly. It is time to show him his room.”
“I am ready.”
The two other guards followed behind a young man of Sherlock`s age, a slave`s tattoo on his forehead. The guards grabbed Sherlock, forced his hands again back and tied them before they left the room, escorting him between them, almost carrying him away, not letting him a chance to take a false step.
John Watson stayed last in a now-empty room in his thoughts.
Sherlock was lying on his back, prone, his arms and ankles tied by soft restrains to the bed´s edges on his hospital bed. It was a private room, naturally. Moriarty didn't want his favourite toy to be in touch with unpredictable factors, which were also known as people. It was risky enough to let him go to the hospital, but at least he could minimise his contacts with other people there to selected personnel.
“Because you have such an unruly mind, I will give you something to do. But I predict that you won't feel your waiting long.” Chameleon promised. ”Mr Moriarty´s order!”
And when Sherlock turned his head to Chameleon´s direction, he saw a needle in his hand. He didn't want to be drugged here, not by Chameleon´s selective drugs, but he was already restrained into his bed and he couldn't stop his enemy from pushing a needle into his arm and so he tried to relax his muscle to avoid further damage. It was pointless to struggle against the inevitable.
“Sweet dreams, toy!” Chameleon wished heartily, when he tapped the thin arm´s skin a couple of time, preparing it before he pushed the needle home.
Sherlock laid still and waited. The worst thing was, he was tied down. Chameleon´s favourite solution was too familiar to him, but despite that it always managed to paralyse his mind with terror and the effect was worse when he was restrained. Chameleon sat in the room in the corner like an audience waiting for the show to begin, not wanting to miss any of the other man's reactions to his favorite mixture. Sherlock tried to anchor his mind to some solid point on the ceiling above him to prevent the hallucinations taking over his mind, but up there was nothing to concentrate on besides the dirty grey ceiling and it was not enough to stop hallucinations.
First he didn´t notice that anything was off. But then there was something in the corner of his eyes, big, black and formless. He tried to look at it, but it always slipped to the corner of his sight. He couldn't see it properly, however hard he tried. Then the black fog grow bigger; it filled the room and swallowed all the light until there was none; he couldn't see the details of this boring hospital room or Chameleon, who surely was still sitting in the corner. The fog filled his nostrils and his ears, at least so he felt. It was so thick the space from a Black Hole had escaped to invade the earth and started its gloomy triumph in this tiny hospital room.
This is just unreal, he reminded himself sternly. These all are creations of his mind. But the knowledge didn't make it go away. It was nothing near a natural night; the blackness was absolute. The ghosts formed from the ink of the blackest holes from the universe were his old familiar nightmare created by Moriarty´s own cocktail.
He was standing now (impossible! He couldn´t stand) and saw a form in front of him: it stood with its back to him so he couldn't see who it was before it started to turn very slowly and suddenly he didn't want to know. But it continued to turn to face him. He couldn't even blink when he saw its face and recognized himself. He watched at himself (he didn't even wonder how he could see anything in the darkness) like the reflection of a mirror and he saw himself as female. A perfect female version of himself stood naked after the Transformation process. It had happened against his will; it was wrong, although not illegal. If he was her, then who was watching her/him? A single word: mutilation echoed like a horrified promise in his ears and somehow he understood and he saw himself as he would be in the future as he had seen Victoria/Victor in photos before and after the Transformation process. He tried to cover his face with his hands to push his future self away from his sight, but he couldn't do it. And he remembered that he was restrained. But no, he wasn´t any more. But still he couldn't raise his hands to cover his face. He couldn't grasp or push or run ever again. His legs and arms had been cut off without his notice.
And he screamed alone to the darkness which would be his home from hereafter. His female doppelganger came nearer and touched his cheek with her eloquent, long fingers, which were so much like his, telling him: “Now I shall be your hands and legs, eyes and mouth and genitals. We shall be one.” And to his ultimate horror. The doppelganger, who was more a ghost than a person of flesh-and-blood, rounded her arms around his torso to embrace his broken body and lifted him up to carry him somewhere and her face was suddenly Moriarty´s. When he saw that and felt Moriarty´s warm breath on him, he writhed in the embrace hoping beyond the hope to get away somehow, to crawl far away from the thing, but the creature had an iron grip and strength and he was carried away without any trouble like a little child.
John finished his reports for Dr Dewberry.
For the woman with heart problems he recommended to continue her care, although he knew that it would not happen. He just didn't want to sign a death sentence for her.
And then Sherly…no, Sherlock.
This was not the first time that he felt a temptation to change the results to slow the process and help his patient to gain some extra weight and strength to better withstand an operation which was not in his hands to prevent. He couldn't lie about his patient´s condition, because Dr Dewberry was a doctor himself and able to see through plain lies, but after all, Sherlock´s condition didn't need much extra exaggeration to convince any doctor that an operation would be risky. But when had Dr Dewberryl cared about endangering his slave patient's well being? Only owners’ anger about breaking their favourite toys made him act more carefully.
So he completed his report and sent it to Dr Dewberry, hoping that it would be enough to delay the operation.
It would be only a temporary solution, but he had become tired of sending his patients under the knife, going through useless and even dangerous operations against their will. He had seen enough abuse, misuse, confusion, pain and fear in their eyes, when he was unable to help them or ease their lives. He felt himself more a slaughterer`s assistant than a real doctor healing people. He had saved more lives in his army days than now in his civilian life, trying to protect his patients from their owner´s arbitrariness. He was tired of witnessing the needless cruelty every day.
Although he had worked there for only a month, he felt that he could not stand this much longer. Things had to change or he would lost the rest of his self-respect.
He probably needed other work.
It was not that all owners were pure sadists. Most of them treated their slaves quite reasonably, giving them what they needed to live, although nothing extra, and without giving a second thought at whole issue. But he saw the worst examples here. He couldn't forget what he had seen here as he couldn't forget the violence and suffering that he had witnessed on the battlefield: A young girl, hardly sixteen, who was forcibly sterilized, so that her owner could use her without the fear of unwanted pregnancy. A young pregnant woman forced to have an abortion by her owner, who was surely the father. The poor woman, almost a girl, had wanted to keep her child and wept inconsolably. A male slave who had been beaten within an inch of his life because of some minor mistake. He was brought to the hospital, where he died some days later despite John´s attempts to save his life. And so on.
Now this. He should sign his report, give his permission for a mutilation and send it. Then he was supposed to forget it and move on. Go after work to pint with his mates, socializing, pick up Chinese or Thai takeaway, and go home. Start all over the next day. Maybe get a girlfriend. This was not for why he had educated himself as a doctor. It was not enough, not for him.
John Watson read the list of his latest patient´s injures again; signs of maltreatment, the descriptions of which had become too familiar to him. He didn't know for sure why he bothered to catalogue them all so conscientiously, he was a man with precision when it came to his profession. He knew that many his other doctors didn't bother.
“Cigarette burns on his stomach and chest, oldest of them were several months old, newest done maybe a week ago under his armpits.” It must hurt like hell, John thought.
“Wounds on his foot soles, scarred. “Jim” carved on the ball of foot by a sharp object like a scalpel.”
“Superficial and also deeper cuts all over the body, especially on inside of his thighs. On back it seems like someone has dug symbols into his flesh with a knife.”
It was such a waste of people. On the battlefield, where he had fought side by side with his mates, he had witnessed so many unnecessary deaths of young men whose lives had not yet properly begun and who would have had so much to give, so much life in front of them, if they only have survived the war. These young men didn´t. But he returned home, a wound on his shoulder and another in his soul. It was just like the arrogant slave had told him.
He didn`t know, if it was worth of coming back. He needed a job, but it was difficult to find one these days. After six months he had accidentally met his old friend from his student days, Mike Stamford, who had become a teacher in the Bart´s Hospital´s student section. They had gone to a cheap corner place. While drinking their bitter coffee and after changing some pleasantries, which was not a pleasure for John, Mike told him that they were looking for a new doctor to the slave section. John Watson would be just the right one for the job.
That was how he started his work in Bart´s Slave Hospital.
John knew that Sherlock was right: working with slaves was not the most respected or wanted job among doctors. Usually doctors who couldn't get other kind of work for a reason or another ended up working with slaves. This explained the poor quality of the medical care that slaves got. The doctors mostly hated their work and despised their patients. The slaves knew that and were reluctant to go to a doctor.
But John Watson was not like them. He wanted to do some real good for his patients. It was like trying to swim up the Niagara Falls.
This young slave was right. He was with supporting the unfair system instead of helping his patients. The process was a meat mill, which chewed the victims, broke them with finality and killed too many of them in the process. Sherlock was a proof of another wasted life. John Watson felt himself unarmed against it. The operation was just another cruel act of subordination. There was no reason to do it.
There was only one trick he could try to buy some time for his patient. The results of blood tests need some time to be completed. If he were lucky, there could be a reason found to make the process stop. An infection could delay the operation. It could be better. This is a travesty of healthcare: that a doctor wish his patient have an infection to prevent more harmful surgeon, which would be useless. In what kind of society have we made? So: “We have to wait for the results from the laboratory before the operation can carry on. Meanwhile the patient can wait in the hospital; with proper food and vitamins he could be more prepared for to stand the stress of the operation, his condition checked regularly by his doctor.”
There was so little he could do for his patients.
The message was sent.
It was almost midday, so lunch time. John left his room, but he thought that he could first go to check his newest patient. His welfare was his responsibility, after all. He wanted to make sure that he was taken care of, getting his meal as John had ordered and being as comfortable as it was possible, when he was stopped by a familiar voice. He turned to face Mike, who was asking his company for lunch.
Company would be nice. I can go and see him afterwards, John thought, letting Mike to lead him towards a canteen.
Afterwards didn`t ever come. Instead of seeing his patient John found himself in Dr Dewberry`s office. He had just finished his dinner and going out from the cantina, when he got a call from Dr Dewberry to come immediately to his office. John knew that his reports were the reason he was called there.
“John, John, John. What should I do with you?” Dr Dewberry´s voice was soft, worried, his best doctor tone.
“You are a damn good doctor, and your army background has given you an experience, which I appreciate and which is needed here. But you are too soft. You should be careful and follow the instructions of the hospital. It would ease your work considerably. There is no need to think so much. If you are unsure, follow the instructions.”
Dr Dewberry talked with a man John didn't recognise. He was almost as short as himself, his suit looked more expensive than his monthly wage and his dark hair was combed against his skull. But his completely expressionless face terrified John most. He talked with Dr Dewberry like they were old friends, but the talk muted when John Watson stepped in.
“Here you are, Dr Watson. May I introduce you to Mr Moriarty, Sherly´s owner. The slave whom you just checked.”
“I haven´t forgotten, sir. And, it´s a pleasure, Mr Moriarty.”
John Watson gave his hand, but Mr Moriarty didn't make a move to shake it. After a while John let his hand drop.
“I will get straight to the point, Dr Watson. Mr Moriarty is a busy man and has been very generous to our hospital in the past when we had financial difficulties. We all have reason to be grateful to him. He has personal reasons to support our work: many of his personal slaves have been taken care of here. You don't know him because you are new here. “
“Mr Moriarty is worried about the schedule of Sherly´s operation. He wants it to be over as soon as possible and to be able to take his favourite pet back home. He misses him greatly. You surely understand it, Dr Watson?” The main surgeon’s voice sounded demanding and assuring at the same time.
“Is this about the laboratory tests?” John guessed innocently.
“Exactly! Good, Dr Watson. These blood tests are completely irrelevant and unnecessarily delay the operation. We don't have to wait on them. Mr Moriarty,” Dr Dewberryl turned to his guest, “I am sure, that there is no need to change the schedule of the operation. “
“May I disagree, sir? The operation is always risky for the patient, and considering the patient´s condition it would cause a danger. It would be good to check all factors beforehand. We don't want to lose a patient, especially if he means so much to Mr Moriarty.”
Dr Dewberry looked unhappy. He went closer to Dr Watson towering him.
“Dr Watson. Don´t let me down, not now. I am capable of doing my job without causing any permanent damage. There is no fatal risk. Infections are treatable by medication, as you know well. We are here to make them to better fit their owners´ needs. They usually recover faster than the free. They are not like us. Consider them more like machines who need repairs. I thought that you had already learnt that. “
He turned to Mr Moriarty: “I am so sorry, he is new here. He needs just time.”
“Not at all, dear friend. No need to apologize for him. He can do it himself.”
“Now, Dr Watson,” Dr Dewberry turned to John, his black gaze hard on him. “The process should start as soon as possible.”
“Dr Watson, if I forget blood tests, I assume, that the patient ready for the operation?” Moriarty said.
“No, he is not ready. He is not strong enough. He needs rest, proper nutrition, vitamins and sunlight.” John held his irritation so as not to let it be heard in his voice.
“John, I hope that you are capable of doing your duty properly, so that I am not obliged to deliver your tasks to another doctor?”
John gritted his teeth. He looked at Moriarty, a small man who radiated the air of threat and at his superior, who could get him sacked without second thought at this second, if he thought it necessary. These men did what they pleased and they didn't need to explain themselves to anybody. He now realised, how futile his attempt was to change their minds, or even slow them . He was just one man.
“All right. Sir, you don't need my signature to do what you see is the best.“ They wouldn't get his approval.
“I warn you, Dr Watson. You are going on a dangerous path now.”
“I can sleep well on it, Sir.”
Doctor Watson turned and left the room.
When he had closed the door, Mr Moriarty said, surprised, like he had meet a rare specimen or something incredible irresponsible and stupid:
“He cares them. I assumed, that your personnel are free from such disadvantages.”
“The personnel of this hospital are very professional and have a strong sense of duty. They cannot care too little. This work is impossible to do successfully, if you start to worry about every patient you meet.He is new here, but he is a promising doctor. He will learn.” Dr Goodwill promised as much to himself as to Mr Moriarty.
John shift was ending, but he wanted to see his patient one more time before he left home. Despite of his best intentions, he hadn´t had time before that. But when he got to the door, the familiar guards were blocking his way again, and this time he couldn't convince them to let him in. He couldn't hear any sound from the room, and the slave, who had escorted Sherlock, told him: “He is fine. I think, he is sleeping. He should not be disturbed.”
John didn't like it at all, but he couldn't do much more with it. It was the end of his shift, so it was time to go home, to his sparse furnished rent flat, which felt hardly like a home.
Inside the room last tendrils of his hallucinations lingered in Sherlock´s mind, although the worst was behind. He was sweaty and shaky, and he wanted to roll himself into a ball so as to comfort himself, but he couldn´t. Instead he lay still on his bed; the sheet was scrunched under him from his struggling against his hallucinations. His food tray had been left untouched on a little corner table, far away from his bed, forgotten. It was meant to be his dinner, but he never got it.
Not a great loss, he thought himself.
Some hours later Sherlock lay on his back as before, both wrists and ankles restrained to metal bars of his hospital bed as usual. So nothing new about that. This was the only position he was now able to take, but sleeping would be harder. Instead he listened to every sound he could catch outside his room.
He counted seconds, a technique he used sometimes to keep his mind busy, trying to keep unwanted thoughts away and to prevent him from panicking during endless time of being tied down, unable to move much. Sleeping was out of question, although pills he had received made him foggy and unfocused. He didn't want to fall asleep and let them get him unguarded. He didn't want this to be too easy for them, although he could probably not do anything to even slow them down. So he counted how seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned into hours.
He had counted to 1060, then the door opened and the slice of light revealed that someone was coming in. He turned his head to see the newcomer. There they were. He had already anticipated them, wondering what took so long. The anesthesiologist in his green coat, two female nurses, Chameleon and a male nurse. He kept his eyes tightly squeezed.
“Is he sleeping?” He heard the doctor asking.
“If not yet, he will be soon. The dose we gives to him would sedate a horse.”
“He is a cunning little thing, a highly tolerant for drugs.” He heard Chameleon say. “Be careful.”
“We can handle him.”
They were going to put him asleep and take him into the surgery. Doctor Watson told him he would do all he could to stop them. It surely hadn`t been enough. Doctor Watson might be brave, but he was only one man and they were many. He didn't want this to come.
“No!” He screamed, tugging his bindings, trying desperately to cut them despite knowing his attempts futile, when he saw the anesthesia mask in a nurse´s hand coming nearer his face.
“Be still!”
“I don't want… listen… Where is John Watson! He promised…” A hand took hold of his hair and the mask landed on his face, the disgusting rubber covered his nostrils and mouth, muting his words; he tried not to inhale the toxic gas until black spots emerged in his vision. He couldn't hold his breath any longer and inhaled the gas. His effort to fight ceased very soon, when his senses and brain activity became foggy. The last thing he saw before darkness was Chameleon´s face above him.