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John had always been a dog. He never cared, and why should he? Since the day he was born and sold he had been raised like an animal, like many others in the world. It didn’t bother him; he had never known anything else but this. He didn’t see how similar he and his owners were.
When he grew up he was sold again, because his first family only wanted a puppy. When he was about ten years old he was passed to someone else, and then someone else, and then again someone else, until he lost memory of the faces of his owners and only remembered their hands. Some were gentle and petting, some were harsh and punishing, but none ever lasted long.
There was only one owner John would never forget, and that was Sherlock Holmes. He still remembered the day his older brother bought him at the market and brought him home, presenting him to a lanky, skinny fourteen years old that initially didn’t seem intentioned in having anything to do with him, even as John had stood on his knees to greet him every day when he came back from school. He was sixteen at the time, perhaps.
John had liked the Holmes estate, where no one seemed intentioned in beating him. They didn’t care much about him either though, and after one week with barely enough to drink John had curled himself in front of Sherlock’s door, waiting for his young master to acknowledge him in some way, show a bit of interest, or wait for the pain in his rumbling tummy to stop at once.
Sherlock exited his room only hours later and stumbled in an almost starved John, whose half naked form lied now limply in his way. The boy seemed to understand that his sense of responsibility was being tested, and finally decided to give some attention to the poor boy he now understood he owned, and was at his mercy only.
John had gratefully eaten the food Sherlock gave him, though he seemed reluctant to let him eat from a plate on the floor. When John was sated and barked happily Sherlock tentatively patted his head, only to be rewarded with an affectionate nuzzle against his knee. John looked up and tilted his head to the side, not understanding the pity in the other’s eyes.
As time went by the two became inseparable. Sherlock would hardly take John as far as the mansion’s garden’s border, but it was an awful lot of space for someone like him, and John never complained. He actually enjoyed following Sherlock’s order, rolling on his back or giving his hand to the boy happily.
No one ever came to visit Sherlock, so no one knew about John, but John knew about them. Often his master would come home upset, and John would be there to hug him as he cried and told him about his school days. John whimpered at the thought of not being able to protect his owner, and he would have lowered his ears if he had been an actual dog.
Sherlock was day after day more reluctant about John’s state, but his family didn’t worry about having a human fully acting like a dog on the leash around the house on a daily basis, so he couldn’t do much about it.
But in secret Sherlock had started a sort of experiment on John. It started when he had asked him if he understood everything people said, to which John had barked in affirmative response. At that point, Sherlock had demanded him to bark once for a yes and twice for a no to every question he would lay, and he got one bark back.
Could he talk? Could he read? Could he write? At the negative responses, Sherlock’s mood had sunk a bit, but then he had asked: would he have liked to learn? John had tilted his head in confusion, his furrowed brows letting out his doubts. Could he? Sherlock had smiled gleefully at his one-bark response, and petted his head gently.
It was easy, Sherlock had explained. He only had to let the air pass through his throat, form a sound different from a bark, imitate what Sherlock did with his lips and say something, anything, morphing his thoughts into words. John thought about something to say, something worth being said and came out with something. But would he be able to? He was just a dog, but after all he could try. So he opened his mouth, letting the air hiss through his too gritted teeth or come to a stop against his tongue, no sounds coming out. At first. And then he did it, he managed to form a word when his master’s hopes seemed to shrink, he did it for him.
“Sherlock,” he had said, his lips feeling uncomfortable around the difficult letters.
It was far from perfect, but Sherlock’s smile had been so bright with joy that he had smiled back and leaned in to receive some pats and some praising as a reward.
After that Sherlock had started introducing him to letters, their pronunciation and written form, and then to more and more complex words, until John had managed to read a fairytale from a book Sherlock bought for him. The expression on his master’s face was so prideful that John put everything he could into learning more and more.
Then came numbers. He wasn’t as good with them as he was with letters, but with Sherlock’s guidance he managed to find his way through the simplest counting, eventually starting to even enjoy very simple equations and proportions.
When the boy went off to college, John felt very lonely and feared he would be sold again, but it didn’t happen. Instead he lived in Sherlock’s room most of the time, fed by the maids and butlers of the mansion, never bothering or being bothered by the Holmes’ parents. John kept studying in secret, and even with his slow pace he slowly managed to read every book held in Sherlock’s room. And every time Sherlock would come back he was always the first to greet him on the door, hugging his long legs and waggling his rear in the air, dragging him to his bedroom to speak up and show him his progresses.
Then Sherlock moved to London to live on his own, and brought John with him. He got a room of his own and could lay around the flat doing whatever he wanted to. The two-legs walking lessons Sherlock had gave him time ago were now used fully almost every day, and John started doing the chores he had seen so often done by the maids when it became clear Sherlock wouldn’t be able to do them alone.
He still had no documents and was less than a person, but his intellect had improved greatly since he had started reading. He had even ate up the school books of his masters and now knew everything any teenager would about history, astronomy, philosophy and literature, though he didn’t see the point in great part of that stuff.
Sherlock still was so pleased with him, and praised him constantly for the simple fact he was walking, that John was more than willing to do anything the man wanted.
This didn’t mean that sometimes there weren’t problems. Every once in a while it would happen to John to wake up from a strange dream that left him hot and distressed, and being the only accurate anatomy text books in the old mansion’s library, upon the ones he didn’t dare approach, John didn’t know what it was. It was scary, his mind was distracted by it, and he didn’t like the way it took away his already poor ability to talk.
When it started he was younger and Sherlock was in the college, not with him, but the first time it happened in their new house in London John had rushed to his master’s bed, half walking and half crawling like he was used to do. He leapt onto the bed and shook him awake, whining a small bark that no one would be able to interpret.
No one but Sherlock, because after only one look Sherlock had him strip and lay down and started rubbing his chest and belly like he had many times, to relax him, before he started rubbing his hand against that spot that ached so much- but oh, his owner’s hands made it feel so good.
These accidents didn’t happen very often, but every time John would panicky run to Sherlock, trying to form his needs in words that were never needed. Sherlock always made it better. Until one day John noticed that his master had these accidents too and offered to help, but he wouldn’t let him do that and would blush instead.
One day as they ate breakfast Sherlock had looked over at John and asked, in a small voice, if the other loved him.
“Yes,” John had replied without hesitation, smiling at his master.
Sherlock had smiled and said that he, too, loved John. Then he stood and stroked his hair, smiling at him and saying that he had raised him to be such a good person, and he was so proud of John, that he could only follow both his canine and human instinct, leaning up to lap gently at Sherlock’s lips. For a moment he froze, and John was afraid he would be punished for misbehaving, but then Sherlock’s cheeks coloured of red and he smiled more as he hugged John.
Some time later Sherlock had one of these accidents that scared John so much, and when help was offered he didn’t turn it down. John had started carefully, imitating his master with gentle caresses at his naked chest and stomach before letting his hands touch the hardened flesh between his legs.
John had watched with fascination at Sherlock’s reactions, so clear and beautiful on his face, wondering how he looked when he was being touched that way. He tried to remember how he liked it, and stroked Sherlock tentatively, drunk with the sounds he was making.
When John whined at the hardness between his own tights Sherlock had asked him to strip as well, and John complied and happily seated himself beside Sherlock, so they could touch each other.
After that time it came less and less like an accident, and more like something they both wanted. John started to like these sensations, and he liked he could let Sherlock feel them too.
To John’s delight they kissed a lot, sometimes even spent hours at it, and Sherlock was always happy when John told him he loved his master, so he said it often and heard it in return.
When Sherlock started working with the police, John was at a loss of what to do around the house other than his chores, and when one day Sherlock decided to bring him along John had let out a bark of happiness. He started following the man everywhere he went, protecting him when he could and growling at people he knew Sherlock didn’t like. He once even went as far as to bite a man threatening Sherlock with a gun.
Until one day it was all gone. Sherlock was gone, and John felt like he had lost the best part of himself. No, not as if, he had. And without knowing what to do, John continued keeping the flat clean, going through his chores automatically, waiting and waiting for a person who wouldn’t come back.
The elder Holmes, Mycroft had shown up to offer him documents, a name, a job that John refused and money that he had to accept. But he wouldn’t move, barely left the house in the hope that someday Sherlock would be back to him.
He waited loyally, thinking that this wasn’t that much different from college, and sometimes he found himself in the bed he and Sherlock had lied in so often with tears in his eyes and a burn in his chest. He was grateful that Sherlock had taught him how to write and use a computer, and that Mycroft who knew this all somehow didn’t try and sell him again despite his being much more human.
John often wondered if it would have been harder going through this had he still not known how to put his thoughts into words, without being able to link his memories to intelligible sounds that meant more than gestures, or if the pain he felt would have extinguished more easily had he been unable to express himself. He only knew that he didn’t want to forget his master, the way his lips smiled and kissed him and the way his hand patted him gently. He wondered if he would ever love someone else like that, and if there would ever be someone else to love him that much.
And then one day, after he fell asleep by Sherlock’s door like when he was little more than a pup, he felt these loving fingers stroke his head as gently as ever to wake him up. As he did so without opening his eyes, John’s lips cracked in a smile, and he leaned into the touch like he always had.
“Master.”