Ejdeha

[mekachu04]

septemebr, 12, 2012

Non-con. Genderbent. Abduction.

http://www.preceden.com/timelines/133241-ejdeha-

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

He was expecting the worst. After the Pool, he was expecting Moriarty to make good on his threat. To ‘burn his Heart.’

 

A mattress on the floor of an otherwise bare warehouse storage room. A single body twisted in a sheet, arms lashed down on either side with heavy leather belts.

A shaky “...sh..sherlock?” from the blond.  The air was thick and suffocating, and Sherlock found himself bolting across the room recklessly.  He was close enough to see the panicked look on John’s face when his mind screamed back at him, ‘Wrong, Wrong Wrong!!’ combined with the dry horrible chuckle of his cruelest rival.

The sheet was draped across John’s torso, and he was still wearing his plain pants, but was otherwise bare. “Do you see now?” Moriarty called from where he stood watching from the shadows.

The top of a starburst scar peeked out from the sheet at John’s shoulder, and while it was the first time Sherlock had a chance to see it- as much as he’d longed to study it in detail - he found other details more starting and telling.

Other than the hair on his head, John’s body was smooth and hairless. Not shaved or waxed - naturally so. With most blonds, body hair was light and thin - but John’s was nonexistent. “Your pet really is an incredible find. I understand now why you are so protective of the beast....”

Sherlock wants to look away to refute Moriarty’s claims, but he can’t, little details jumping to his attention as he tries to sort out the meaning. The last one though. It steals all his attention, steals all his thoughts. He hears the clicking of Moriarty’s fine shoes as he closes the distance between them, but he doesn’t register it.

John Watson is a man’s-man. The poster boy for male virility. There has never been any doubt to this in Sherlock’s mind. Except now, with the man bound near naked  and spread before him. Sherlock’d assumed (in passing, it really wasn’t something he’d dwelled on too long) that with his reputation with the ladies that he must have been particularly well endowed, because otherwise he was actually quite ordinary and plain to look at.

He could see now he’d been wrong. The pants weren’t tight or particularly revealing in any way, but they lay flat and formless. 

Moriarty was at his side, a hand on Sherlock’s arm, “Do you smell that? Those hormones so thick in the air?” He dug his heel into the sheet where it gathered on the floor, and drug it easily away.

Sherlock couldn’t help the step back. He refused to look at the hurt in John’s face, refused to see the betrayal on his once only friend’s face. Now that he’d been made aware, he could feel the air thicken, could see now how it made his pulse run, how he felt the urge to protect the...

He recoiled again, glaring between John and Moriarty. “What is he?”

The sheet pooled at Moriarty's feet. John’s chest was well defined, muscles standing out in stark relief. Same with his abdominal muscles. But he was lacking more than the male reproductive organs. His bared chest and stomach were missing basic mammal features - no papilla or umbilicus, only pigmentation on the skin to pass a casual glance.

Sherlock spun on Moriarty, fist curling in the man’s lapels. “What. Is. He?!”

“Why don’t you ask her what her kind is called?” He pushed Sherlock’s hands away, “They’ve always been so tight lipped about names... Maybe she’ll tell you. She really is *so* fond of you....”

The criminal mastermind kneels down next to John now, who continues to stare, begging, pleading, up at Sherlock. Sherlock watches Moriarty, unconsciously looking back down at John. “Sherlock....please.. help me?”

Moriarty pats John’s cheek, sitting back on his heels. “Come on Sherlock.” He mocks, before jumping to his feet again, “Won’t you save your pet?”

“What are you?” He asks finally, looking down, but not at the body lashed to the bed.

“It’s me.. Sherlock, please-”

“WHAT ARE YOU?!” He jerks himself farther away, John trying to contort himself on the mattress to keep Sherlock in his sight.

“p..Please, Sherlock....”

The longing to return to John’s side hits him like a sledgehammer, and he sees even Moriarty grimace and flinch. “Stop That! What are you doing to me?”

The feeling only gets stronger, and Sherlock backpedals farther, John’s voice cracking, “I don’t mean to.. Sherlock!”

James Moriarty winces alongside him, “Pheromones, Sherlock...” He explains, his voice all knowing but soft, “Meant to attract mates and -”

But Sherlock pushes him aside, staggering away. He makes a break for the exit, gasping the night’s air once he’s safely back outside. Moriarty doesn’t follow.

All he can do is grip the railing to the emergency exit stairs, heart and mind racing.

He can see it now, can understand it. Why he couldn’t chase off John, why the man seemed to get under all his defences so quickly. Why it was so easy to open up to the shorter man and to feel comfortable. 

He can’t be here now. He needs to get away. His mind is shooting off thoughts like random sparks and it’s starting to hurt. Too much to process and his heart *aches*

He flees. When he finally does pause to consider looking back, it’s far too late.

*************************

Moriarty told the truth when he said ‘they’ were tight lipped on names. As far as he or anyone else has found - they don’t have an actual name, but the one person he can find that seems to know anything about them calls them Ejdeha. A few have persisted as strange mythos, but none have ever been truly studied. Even discovering that ‘John Watson’ was actually a shape shifting, part beast, faux-human was really nothing more than an accident.

He’d been alerted that something about Watson wasn’t quite right, when one of his more trusted underlings had been looking over the service records of one ‘John Watson’ and found it … off. Sebastian Moran had been nosing around, and found that there were little details that didn’t match up right.  Mostly, because they matched, word for nearly word, to the records of a one Harold ‘Harry’ Watson, four years John’s senior until late 2009, where John Watson’s paper’s showed him wounded and set home. Harry Watson finished his tour and returned home to his wife Clara a few months later.

John Watson was a living replica of Harry Watson in 2009. Photos showed that he hadn’t changed, hadn’t aged. At all.

They hadn’t been expecting the man was a monster in the most literal sense. And he certainly had hoped for a more creative and original name than ‘ejdeha.’ As it was, when they pulled Watson off the street this time, one of more.. short sighted thugs had gotten frisky and one of his skeevy cohorts had gotten all worked up, excited and eyes gleaming as he started ranting about shapeshifting dragons. It seemed absolutely ridiculous.

Until the thug had eagerly stripped Watson right there in front of Moran, and he could see the wrongness for himself. Not to mention the way the air left the room, and Moran had the unnatural urge to *comfort* Watson.

After Moran had put a bullet in the thug’s forehead, and with their new ‘expert’ (a tiny spineless sniveling creeper who Moriarty couldn’t wait to leave bloated in a ditch here in the next few days) at his side, he’d brought Moriarty in to confirm the outlandish claim.

Fear - real true, paralyzing fear - caused a chemical reaction in the faux-human body, one that created a fake feeling of compassion in near-by humans. Moriarty had actually gagged when it first hit him, the feeling so strong he had to storm out in disgust.

“Why didn’t that happen before?” was his first question, turning it over and over in his head as he paced outside the room. Moran watched calmly, turning to the cad who seemed to have some idea, who suddenly seemed to realise the precarious spot he was in. 

“Uh... It’s... it’s really a last resort....”

************

Moriarty parroted back the details he learned about the creature that John Watson was, watching to see how the creature responded. Watched to see what was true, and what could be beneficial to his own empire.

And of course what could be used against dear Sherlock.

It was only the females who changed to a human form. It was when no males could be found. They

would take a human form, seduce a human male, copulate, and then turn back into a monster. They’d disappear back into the wild. John Watson looked humiliated when faced with these facts.

He didn’t look properly frightened until Moriarty smirked, wondering aloud how long it would take Sherlock Holmes to figure it out, had he most of the facts. How the consulting detective would interpret the exuding hormones with only part of the truth.

How fast it would take the real human man to leave, and never look back.

He stood in the doorway, looking back at the chains and straps holding Watson down. He smirked, voicing one last question before he left, “How much would someone pay for one of your babies, I wonder....”

***************

***************

Moran had no interest in John Watson, the faux-human.

But as someone who’d faced off with several of the world’s largest cats and lived to (not)tell about it, he did have a passing fancy in seeing what kind of dragon apparently hid under the unassuming human form.

He wasn’t expecting much, but stood ready and armed, when the constrictive restraints were removed.  Moriarty had left by that point, leaving Moran in charge over this side investment for the time being. Despite the lack of female parts, there were plenty of volunteers for the ‘mating’ part, and once complete, the beast was led into a large, reinforced cell. The bindings were removed one by one, until only the collar remained. The last safeguard.

If Watson tried to change forms while the collar was on, he’d asphyxiate, and die outright.

Moran wondered how long until he’d choose that way to go; Holmes had already turned him away. As far as they could find, he had no one else. Harry Watson had moved on with his life, and didn’t seem too interested in reconnecting.

The leather was pulled away, and the guard stepped away, never turning their back until they were at the door, and it being locked between them.

Nothing.

***************

Watson refused to shift, curling in on himself miserably in a corner for days. Moran was about to refuse him water when he noticed how pained his face was when he thought no one was looking,

“You’re going to kill yourself if you *don’t* change, aren’t you.” He asked, standing over him with the jug of fresh water in hand. He glared at him, had the nerve to hiss, and just curled up tighter.

That glare wasn’t even human anymore, and he strode causally away. He knew it was only a matter of time.

***************

He missed the shifting (he was actually pretty pissed about that). He had to sleep at some point, and was harshly woken by one of the grunts when they’d finally noticed. By the time he stood in the overview of the cell, the deed was done.

And a 6-odd meter beast - sand tan scales, frills, horns and spikes, and two massive leathery wings- was curled around a single egg. 

Muddy brown in colour, and about 60 cm long, and roughly 20 cm diameter. And Watson was curled around it with nothing short of murder in her eyes.

She was gorgeous.

He was almost sad to have to shoot her.

***************

The tranquilizers only drugged her into a stupor. She watched them, raging, but unable to stop them as they carted the egg away. 

Moran took the chance to carras the leathery skin of her wings, in something akin to child-like wonder.

***************

Starved, clutchless and alone, the braver (stupider) grunts paraded past her cell. Her wings had been strapped down against her body to restrict movement, and  it took only two weeks for Watson to shift back to the faux-human form.

After mating, she didn’t hold out as long before shifting back. This time, it took two days. Moran got to see it, watch her body break itself, and reform, grow and change. He honestly could not look away.

***************

Once she stopped fighting it,  the whole production smoothed out. One week as a beautiful winged beast, twelve hours as a battered humanoid after being mated, before shifting back to lay a single egg.

Incubated at her body temperature, it took 90 days for the first egg to hatch. Moriarty stepped aside from his game with the Holmes brothers to see their progress, watching with glee as the first tiny winged lizards hatched.

It died within hours. Watson stopped laying more eggs.

Every egg that hatched afterwards followed its nestmate.

***************

As a beast, Moran found Watson to be magnificent. As a human, he was worthless and boring. She no longer changed back to that ugly body, instead lying listlessly in her large natural body. There was no energy left for hate.

With the Grunts, she just despaired. When Moriarty swung by to rage at her, she shut down. No reaction at all. Just stopped functioning.

Long after he’s left, Moran sits at her side, both staring off into nothing. The muscles in her wings have started to atrophy, dying from being bound and unused for months. He has come to terms with the knowledge that this wonderful creature will be beyond saving in a short few weeks.

“Yaḥyà....” he murmurs to her, hands curling on the sensitive skin behind her skull. John Watson is the name of the broken man that was left for dead by the ‘great’ Sherlock Holmes. Yaḥyà, while still uncreative, has become a comfortable name for both of them. She acknowledges that he is her warden, not her ally, but she befriended Sherlock Holmes (without pheromones, despite what Moriarty convinced him of) and worming herself into Moran’s comfort range didn’t take much.

***************

Moran convinces her to change back to John Watson. Her smaller size would be easier to break out, since her body is too weak to escape now, even with help. Her wings are useless now; he fears unsavable.

As they make a break for it, he still calls her Yaḥyà.  She calls him Sebastian. And even though he has no interest in John Watson, Moran buys her an ugly cream jumper at first chance. It’s the most comfortable he has ever seen her, wrapped up in the ridiculous knitted cloth.

***************

Yaḥyà admits she did try to seduce a mate, once. A young foreigner, who’d seen her in the mountains while he and his fellow soldiers hunted for insurgents. He’d befriended her, at least, she’d thought so. He’d even snuck off a few times alone to visit her. 

After a few such visits, she’d copied his features, so when he came back, she could change. Visit with him properly. She hadn’t expected that a few of his had followed. She wasn’t entirely sure to this day if he’d planned for them to follow, or if they’d done it on their own.

When she tells Moran this, they are bunkered in for the night at a seedy hotel. But neither of them are afraid - not of the trivial thugs that linger in the halls and alleys nearby. Moriarty is their greatest worry, because he knows Moran’s habits and patterns. And his web is silent and patient, waiting for them to stumble upon it unawares.

That hot afternoon in Afghanistan, when Yaḥyà’d stood before Harry Watson - a near perfect doppelganger- one of his comrades had panicked. Worried about his brother-in-arms, he’d shot her outright. 

She would have died there, bleeding out in a body she couldn’t quite coordinate yet. Couldn’t even talk yet. Just lay there crying out, voice raspy and wild.

A young medic on Harry’s crew had tagged along. He’d pushed the others out of the way, applied pressure to the wound - she surely thought he was trying to end her right there, it had never hurt so much. She’d passed out - woke in a British field hospital, her mystery savior hiding her in plain sight.

He and Harry smuggled her back to England, pulling out every stop they knew. After all, where else were they going to hide a white, blond-haired, blue eyed mostly human until her shoulder recovered?

Moran has his doubts that the ‘good doctor’ can help them much, but Moriarty knows nothing about Bill Murray, and if he could get John Watson to exist on paper so well the Holmes brothers didn’t notice, then he’s really their best bet.

***************

Joseph Dutton, and his fianceé, Alexandra Eames, leave England on a flight to Munich. There are no red flags when they leave the country, not a single bimp on any radar. Not a soul on any level took notice.

It was an honest coincidence that Moriarty turned his attention to the continent* for his missing pawns at the same time.

***************

Sherlock was expecting Moriarty and Moran in Switzerland. Cornering Moran and *John* at the River Aar near Meiringen hadn’t even been considered. Gun trained on them (John noted with sick glee it was the Sig that Harry had given him, alongside his phone, when he*’d left the hospital), Sherlock looked back and forth between them, unsure of who warranted the cover more.

The look was withering. Time had not eased Holmes’ opinion on John. The one time John tried to reason with his former friend and flatmate, Sherlock Holmes fired a warning shot at his feet.

“Dear, you should be nicer to your toys.”

Moriarty’s voice echoes off the canyon walls, he coming into view meters behind Moran. He chuckles at Sherlock’s annoyed look, “Sorry.. My wayward toys, then?”

Moriarty is unarmed, but no one finds him harmless, and Moran spurs into action when the red dot of a sniper hovers over them. John’s already been standing between him and Sherlock, but Moran knows that the firepower of Moriarty's snipers have the detective out matched. He would know - he’s worked over most of them.  

He uses his bulk to block John’s body completely from the sniper, based on the way the dot moves. John’s voice is soft behind him, back pressed flat against his back, “Chi kar mikoni? Sebastian?”

It’s a fleeting moment of weakness that he suppresses, the urge to turn and hold John close. He can only stand straighter and lean against John’s back solidly.

“Mowazebe khodat baash, Yaḥyà.”

The way John stiffens at his back, he knows John understands. He doesn’t see, but Sherlock has lowered his gun, looking between them, studying and trying to understand. He can see, however, Moriarty look at him in disgust, and then the sniper fires.

***************

John is painted in Moran’s blood, the snipers round cleaning passing through the man’s heart. Sherlock and Moriarty aren’t given a second thought as John spins to hold Moran’s body, to catch its fall. He’s distraught, inhuman cries and wails gasping and falling from his lips. The only word of any human tongue he can manage is the strangled, “Sebastian? Sebastian?”

When the red dot returns to settle on his own bloody chest, he snarls, curling over Moran’s body. The look he gives Moriarty is more feral than anything the man has witnessed before. Likely the only one of them who’d recognise the look for what it was was the dead man whose body was currently causing it.

Soft cloth shredded easily as John let go of that humanity, shifting into the terrible beast Moran had fallen in love with. Despite the exercises Moran had conducted to help rebuild the muscles in John’s wings, they still only feebly move on command. But they pull close when John moves, letting her* easily bound across the way to bear down on Moriarty. 

The sniper fires, bullets tearing into the thick scales, but it’s not enough to even give her pause. Sherlock watches in morbid fascination as she tears into the slight man, watches the killing of his greatest adversary in ruthless efficiency.

There’s more passion and rage in that kill than he thinks he’d ever be capable of exuding. Once the beast charrading as mild John Watson has torn Moriarty apart, she throws herself into the wilderness around them - he hears the sniper scream when she finds him.

The bloodlust has mellowed when she returns, circling Sherlock warily. He still has the gun, but he can see where the sniper’s shots have pierced her scales with little success. This close, he may have more luck, but he takes his finger off the trigger, holding the gun up in raised hands. 

He can see her mind turning, in a swift flush of guilt, he can see John Watson under that look, measuring and steady. The gun is carefully set on the ground, and when he straightens, she noses at him, inhaling heavily.

Satisfied, she turns away, standing over Moran’s body with a keening wail. It’s a despair Sherlock’s not sure he could ever equate with, watching as she crumpled in on herself slipping back into the body of John Watson. Though naked, his torso is covered in the bright blood of - no. Not Moran’s blood!

Sherlock is spurred to action, darting forward as John fell aside Moran’s body. The wounds taken on as the dragon are gone; now only a single bullet wound shining obscenely against the right side of John’s back.  The sniper shot that killed Moran had gone straight through both their bodies, the wound bleeding fiercely down John’s chest as Sherlock pulled the limp body over.

He has nothing on hand to save John’s life, no way to slow the bleeding. Nothing to clear out the blood pooling in his right lung, judging by the wet breathing.

“John.. John, listen...”

He looks back at him, unable to focus, mumbling, “Sherlock...” He feels ill, he hasn’t heard John say his name since that night in the warehouse.

Whether Moran consciously fell in with John, or it was the pheromones, Sherlock sees how devastated John is by his death. Even if Moran’s feelings were manipulated, Sherlock can see now how sincere John’s own feelings toward him had been. He can make an educated guess about how crushed he’d of been when Sherlock had run. He cursed Moriarty. Then he cursed himself for allowing himself to be deceived so easily.

“John, you have to.. change back.” he stumbled over the wording, holding pressure against the wounds. “John, you’re going to die here if you don’t change.”

John tries to pull away, reaching for Moran, “Sherlock... Sebastian... he...”

“He’s gone John.. Change back. Now. John, you’ll die!”

John’s look is clearly a ‘so?’ but he focuses on Sherlock, “hey... Sherlock... you okay?”

“No..No I’m not. John, you have to change now!” He doesn’t say please, but he thinks John hears it anyway. Sherlock can feel his body shuddering, and he has to let John go, step away to give him room.

He seems very aware of both Sherlock and Moran as he shifts, careful not to step on either, and to not push Sherlock down with bulk, wings or tail. The deadly bullet wound glosses over and vanishes under scales. The frantic follow-up shots open again, shallow grazes on thick scales.

***************

***************

Ejdeha - Iranian for dragon

Yaḥyà - Arabic for John

*I am aware of the shift in pronouns again. While John/Yaḥyà lacks male genitalia - he does not look female by any stretch as a human. As a human, he is John Watson. As a dragon, she is Yaḥyà. While they are the same person, they are two sides, and two different sets of wants and desires.

chi kar mikoni? - farsi for ‘what are you doing?’

mowazebe khodat baash - farsi for ‘take care of yourself’