By: armydoctorpeterpotter (Team Speedy's)
The shadow of the bars striped the lion’s back like a whip. The creature was magnificent, in perfect physical health. The rusting placard in front of the display stated that he had been rescued as a cub from sure starvation when his family had been massacred by another pride.
Sherlock could not bear to look at him; neither could he bear to look away.
Despite the bright fur glistening in the sun, despite the well-groomed mane and the clean claws and the substantial belly, the abundance of lionesses for the taking, Sherlock saw in the way this creature moved that he was in agony.
“No one trusted you to take care of yourself,” Sherlock muttered under his breath. “They assumed you needed saving.” He stared at the wall at the back of the cage, the painted pastel savannah peeling, revealing the concrete beneath it. “Is this saved?”
“What’s that? Did you say something?” John was peering interestedly at the placard, hands behind his back. “From West Africa. Hmm. I’ve always wondered why they’ve got manes, y’know, coming from somewhere so hot.”
“To protect themselves,” Sherlock murmured. “To make themselves intimidating to forestall battle, to soften the blows to their face and neck when fighting then inevitably occurs. It’s worth the discomfort of heat.”
John glanced at him. Sherlock stared straight forward. His brows were furrowing.
This lion was like all other lions in captivity. There was nothing particularly remarkable about him.
But could there have been?
If he hadn’t been tamed, if he hadn’t been rescued from growing up in the wild on his own, learning to forge for himself…
He might’ve been hyena fodder, yes.
Or he might have grown to the greatest, most powerful leader. He might begin his own pride.
Or even better, he may have done the improbable. He may have defied nature itself and forgone the pattern of the pride. Raised by himself, he might thrive by himself, above the pettiness of the natural order. He would need no foolish lionesses, he would fend for himself, hunt for himself, defend himself, alone.
Others would scorn him, but it would be borne out of respect, and he would go down in legend, in history, as the lion who lived alone.
“Sherlock?” John’s hand was on his shoulder. “You’re shaking.”
“Yes, brilliant deduction,” Sherlock snapped. His head had began to hurt.
No lion survives on his own.
Captivity is freedom now. Captivity is the reward for survival. Why even bother?
John was studying him, eyes flicking from the caged majesty of the creature to Sherlock’s furrowed brow and his fingers, clenching and unclenching. After a long pause that Sherlock filled with frustrated thoughts and yearnings that he refused to address as sentiment, John spoke.
“You never did stop wanting to be a pirate, did you? Not really.”
“Mycroft,” he snarled, as he understood. “How is that relevant?” He refused to look at John. The lion was sleeping now, the halo of his mane dragging on the dingy cage floor.
“I’ve been trying to figure it out since he told me,” John confessed quietly. “And I think I’m starting to.” He sighed. “All you wanted was to be free. All you’ve ever wanted. Everyone has always told you that you need other people, that humans need other people, that you can’t function on your own. Yet you feel trapped, among the minds that drag you down, among the societal rules that distract you from elevating yourself, from your experiments and your brilliance and just being you. You don’t want to need anyone else; that’s not being free. You seek freedom in your own mind, and you seek it in your job, because murder is outside the realm of societal norms. You seek relief in it, in the horror, the transcendence, the absurdity, the sense, the sense it makes that someone is driven to murder in a world in which we are being told that freedom is captivity.” John swallowed hard. “Captain Holmes, on a ship of his own. Getting off on the spoils of war, making your living on bloodshed and abnormalcy.”
A lioness pawed gently over to the lion and curled up next to him. As she drifted to sleep, they might’ve been kittens, rather than fierce predators. Oddly, Sherlock did not scorn the sight. It was almost endearing.
“Oh goody, Doctor Watson. Thank you for analyzing my breakdown,” he sneered, but it came out half-hearted and John knew it.
“I haven’t said anything you haven’t thought of, Sherlock. But you should know what it is you’re feeling, what you refuse to address.” John stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. “You’re scared that that lion is happy. You’re scared that there might be peace to find in normalcy, in a quiet life after years of being a predator, being a pillager.” The lioness licked her nose in her sleep. The lion was snoring gently. “You’re scared that caring can be an advantage, and you have simply never learned how.”
John lifted himself higher on his toes and placed a brief kiss on Sherlock’s cheek.
He walked away, over to the small mammals exhibit. There was pancake batter on the hem of his jumper from where he’d made Sherlock breakfast that morning, dirt on his shoe from the dust experiment Sherlock was conducting in the sitting room that he hadn’t complained about, and his hair was mussed from where Sherlock had buried his nose in it on the way over, breathing in the comforting familiar scent.
“I think I’m starting to,” Sherlock whispered.
blakekathryn
annaxmalina
turnnoffyourmind
izzy806
2087
germansingergirl