Fic: Cooperative Principle - 3/8 (BBC Sherlock)
Title: Cooperative Principle
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 6k this part, 56k overall
Betas: vyctori and seijichan
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: As the newest instructor at St. Bart's, John has been explicitly warned to never do Sherlock Holmes any favours. Too bad the sex is so good.
Warnings: explicit sex, dubcon, PTSD, panic attacks
Chapter One -- Chapter Two -- Chapter Three -- Chapter Four -- Chapter Five -- Chapter Six -- Chapter Seven -- Chapter Eight
“Excellent,” Sherlock announces out of nowhere, appearing at John’s shoulder.
“Jesus Christ.” He successfully refrains from hitting Sherlock with his cane. “Don’t sneak up on me. I mean it.”
“I knew you wouldn’t hit me.”
John shakes his head and resumes his progress toward the exit. “I could have.”
“Yes, but you didn’t,” Sherlock concludes, as if this is solution to John’s complaint.
It’s been a long day, and John is already impatient with him. He’s locked his office door and is already most of the way out of the building. Topic change, now. “What was excellent?”
Sherlock gestures between them. “I caught you on your way out.”
John was hardly about to wait for him again. In fact, the thought that he might need to wait had gone a long way to negate Tuesday’s apology blowjob. Which isn’t very fair, considering Sherlock had only stood him up in the first place in order to save the lives of three children and their father. And then the dead uncle. It’s difficult to be angry about Sherlock’s texting silence when John remembers the uncle. No, not difficult to be angry, exactly. It’s never difficult to be angry, but it’s hell trying to feel justified about it. There is a man dead, killed, and John’s snippy over lack of response from a bloke he’s not technically dating.
“You’re conflicted,” Sherlock sums up neatly. His hand touches John’s shoulder but does not settle there. Which is good, because it’s aching, the weather as it is.
“And you didn’t bring food,” John replies.
“A strike against me, I know.” Sherlock opens the fire door, which is less an act of pity and more an attempt to make John brush against him on the way through. “I did bring an umbrella.”
“Is there anything you don’t keep in your coat?”
“By all means, check.”
Isn’t that a mental image. Fantasy, more like. Slipping his hands into thick folds, Sherlock’s eyes unwavering on his face.
Fuck, no. Stop that. He’s too old to be getting off in supply closets, even if the one they just passed is incredibly well-located.
Sherlock beams at him.
“No,” John tells him.
“I didn’t suggest anything,” Sherlock replies, so innocent he’s come out the other side. “You expressed interest in the contents of my pockets.”
John refuses to respond. It’s the only way to keep this remotely near stalemate territory. He keeps walking, and Sherlock keeps pace. Rather, Sherlock keeps walking, and John keeps pace. It’s a long stride to match, but John manages, experiencing pain but not difficulty.
They get more than a few looks on their way out, and John is fairly certain the intern at reception just mouthed “Rule One” at him. Seeing as John isn’t currently in a supply closet, Rule One is holding just fine.
Sherlock pulls a compact umbrella from his pocket as they step outside into the steady rain. John keeps close, but it’s coming down hard and not even having an umbrella to himself could get him through this with dry trousers. As they walk, Sherlock’s arm repeatedly brushes against John’s. When they stop for the light to change, the brushing becomes a solid press of contact.
John rolls his eyes. “Stop that.”
The umbrella tilts away, and John is immediately drenched.
John sputters, then laughs.
“Better?” Sherlock asks.
“Much, thanks.”
The umbrella returns over John’s head, though it’s a bit late for that. Sherlock grins down at him. John responds by wiping his face dry on Sherlock’s shoulder. He smiles after, polite as can be.
Sherlock doesn’t lean in. He curls. He stands straight and tall, his chin leading his face downward. Every inch of his body indicates where John ought to be, and something more compelling than obedience bids John’s limbs to obey. John holds himself still, unable to look away from Sherlock’s soft mouth. They are in public, he reminds himself. They are in public.
The light changes and Sherlock anchors him with his eyes. They don’t move. When the crowd around them pushes by, Sherlock grips John at the elbow, forbidding any stranger from coming between them. Sherlock brings his lips to John’s ear and whispers above the rain, “Do you really want me to stop?”
“Which answer keeps the umbrella over my head?”
“Not that one,” Sherlock replies and promptly closes it. With the most impish grin John has ever seen, he sets across the street.
John chokes on a laugh and follows quickly. The time limit is from the lights, not from Sherlock. The man stops at the kerb, striking a silhouette against streetlight. Drenched and grinning, he sets off with a swagger the moment John catches up.
He’s not the man at Bart’s, too soaked, too far in disarray outside of his control. Neither is he the exhausted man from last week, too sharp and without enough bite. He’s not even a cross between the two. He’s someone else entirely and John wonders how many times he’ll come to know this man before he knows him.
They reach the tube station and look at each other in the shelter of the overhang. They drip. Sherlock’s lips are cold, but his breath is warm. John shivers. His coat isn’t soaked through, but his socks certainly are.
“Cold?” Sherlock asks.
“It’ll be warm on the train.” It takes only one step to realize Sherlock isn’t following.
“Humid, too.” Sherlock makes an exaggerated face. “And crowded, can’t forget that.”
“Did you--” He did. Of course he did. “Did you get me soaked just to persuade me into a cab?”
Sherlock’s eyes are round and innocent. “You don’t have an umbrella. You would have been soaked anyway.”
“No, because I wasn’t going to walk here. I--” John sees the verbal trap the moment he walks into it.
“Oh, so you were going to take a cab home. Meaning I haven’t persuaded you at all. If anything, I’ve persuaded you into a walk.”
“True,” John replies and, really, it’s not a very hard trap to get out of. “Thanks, very helpful on the wallet. See you.”
Sherlock’s face twitches in something between a smile and a glare, but he doesn’t follow when John walks away. John knows because he waits for him at the bottom of the escalator, just in case.
I hope you realise you could have come twice by now. SH
John takes and sends a picture of his own hand in the two-finger salute.
Sherlock responds with a picture as well, two fingers between lips.
John inwardly concedes that he was never going to win that argument anyway and commiserates by wanking twice. It takes a while, but it’s worth it when he replies, I started late. Managed it well enough anyway.
Thinking of me? SH
Vain.
Confident. SH
Yes, he is.
It rains through the night, through the morning, and into Friday evening. John brings his own umbrella. They walk to the tube stop, Sherlock leans in but does not kiss him, and John takes the escalator down.
Half a minute later, he takes the other escalator back up. He limps toward the barrier and strains to see over the crowd, but Sherlock is tall and distinctive and has clearly already left.
He might be stalking Sherlock’s pretentious website. A bit. Maybe. When there are no updates all weekend, John’s somewhat disappointed.
This is probably a bad sign.
It’s not raining on Tuesday and Sherlock still doesn’t drop by John’s office. Not that it would be a terribly good idea to have Sherlock back in his office. There’s only so much sex two people can have without it becoming a bit obvious. Which is a shame, especially considering how nicely Sherlock fits under his desk.
He limps to his tube stop only to see a familiar figure leaning by the entrance.
“Fancy meeting you here,” John says. Even with his cane, he doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands.
Sherlock smiles. “Dinner?”
“Starving.”
They go for Indian, walking to a place close by. John’s sure they’ll need a reservation, but the hostess recognizes Sherlock. Almost immediately, they’re seated and before John can ask what’s going on, the owner comes out to hand them a free starter. She shakes Sherlock’s hand, Sherlock asks her about her dog, and she shakes Sherlock’s hand a bit harder. That finished, Sherlock opens his menu as if nothing has happened.
John considers staring at him until the answers fall out. He tries it for a bit, but ultimately says, “I’m missing something.”
“Don’t worry, most people are.”
“No, what was that about? The table and the, um. These.”
“Dahi puri,” Sherlock provides without glancing up. “They’re very good.”
“What was that about the dog?”
Sherlock waves his hand. “It was a case.”
“Where you saved her dog?”
“Not intentionally.”
On second thought, staring at him until the answers fall out is a much more productive tactic. It turns Sherlock smug, an unfortunately good look for him. They order, John eats the dahi puri, and Sherlock watches him in turn. Sherlock leans back in his seat, his forearms on the tablecloth. The fingertips of one hand stroke the side of his glass, gliding through condensation. They’re very nice hands.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Sherlock murmurs. His eyes belong in a bedroom or three inches above a cock. Preferably both.
“You know what I’m thinking.”
“Enough to want it said aloud, yes.”
“Not in public,” John tells him.
“Especially in public.”
John smiles into his glass, freezing his teeth on ice. Bit unpleasant, certainly enough to push him through this warm, slightly flustered haze. “And what are you thinking?”
“That three dates in a month is less than I’d hoped.”
“Three? No, last week under the desk doesn’t count.”
“I brought food,” Sherlock reasons.
“We didn’t eat it.”
“Hardly my fault.”
John thinks about this. Possibly, he thinks about this longer than strictly necessary. “Still not a date,” he says.
“Fine,” Sherlock says. “How’s Friday?”
A giggle wells up John’s throat and pops out his mouth.
Sherlock waits, eyes locked on John’s face.
The giggle worsens. The giggle itself becomes funny, and John tries not to laugh at it. He puts his hand over his mouth and keeps it there until adult function returns. There is a short stage of biting his lip and snickering before this occurs. Finally, he says, “Friday’s fine.”
“Then why did you laugh?”
John nearly laughs again before Sherlock’s tone registers. Instead, he clears his throat. “Nerves? Let’s go with nerves.”
“Nerves? Why nerves?”
“Being asked like that would do it for most people,” John points out mildly.
Sherlock waves a dismissive hand. “You’re not most people. Why nerves?”
Christ. “Look, it’s fine. It’s not-I didn’t say it was bad nerves.”
“Oh.” That seems to please him immensely.
“Though I do have to ask why Friday. Are we skipping Thursday?”
“We don’t have to. You simply have work Friday morning.”
John wets his lips with a dry tongue. “Um. True.”
“Saturday morning is open, I presume.”
John nods.
Sherlock smiles.
John becomes much less certain of his ability to wait for Friday.
“Of course...” Sherlock adds.
John has time for the briefest moment of confusion before he feels Sherlock’s foot press down on his. “Sherlock,” he hisses.
“Yes?” Toes behind his ankle now.
“You really can’t do that here.”
“Technically, I can. You simply can’t be quiet through it.”
John’s warning glare has taken down drunken soldiers. It manages basic restraint against Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock sulks and lets his shin rest against John’s.
“Thank you,” John says.
Sherlock’s eyebrows shoot up.
“What?”
“Thanking me for not giving you an orgasm. That’s precedent I’d rather you didn’t set.”
“Thank you for not getting us thrown out of the restaurant,” John amends, glancing around to make sure no one heard Sherlock.
“Much better.”
Their food arrives. John eats. Sherlock talks. John prods Sherlock to eat. Sherlock picks at his food. John wagers he can distract Sherlock from eating, Sherlock scoffs, and that is how John Watson plays footsie on a second date at the age of thirty-seven. It is exactly the type of thing he will never put on his blog. It makes Sherlock eat, so John counts it as a victory.
They eat largely in silence, which is fine. The contact under the table is steadying, now that they’ve gone still. It’s quiet and comfortable, and if Sherlock would come to his office to simply sit with a book, John can’t imagine how much he could get done. He realises with a bit of a jump that he’s not sure where all the exits are. Without missing a beat, Sherlock gestures, indicating them with all the bored patience of an airline stewardess.
John pushes rice and lamb around his plate, smiling faintly down at it. He considers his phrasing, tries to, but about that lack of orgasm is too blunt and it’s a bit too early to pull off fancy a coffee. Any attempt at fancy a coffee looks odd unless it’s to begin the date or there’s already a flat in sight.
Before John can make up his mind, Sherlock’s mobile rings.
“Hello,” Sherlock answers in the instant it takes John to look up. How the hell did he get his mobile out so quickly? Whatever the response is, Sherlock sits up straighter to hear it. His eyes focus on a spot past John. “Have you confirmed that it’s locked box? If it doesn’t lock only from the inside, it doesn’t count.”
John pushes his rice and lamb around a bit more. His own phone is on silent, the way it ought to be on a date.
“Good. Now, why don’t you think it was a suicide?”
John looks up. Oh.
Sherlock nods along for a moment. “Do the details of the note check out?” A pause. “Read it to me.” A far longer pause. Sherlock rolls his eyes. “That’s an atrociously common grammatical error. Why would-”
Whatever the person down the line says, Sherlock’s face lights up. John smiles back, but Sherlock isn’t paying attention.
“To be fair, that is a perfectly legitimate reason for a copy-editor to kill herself. Where did she work?” A pause. “Check for Oxford commas.” A pause. “No, the opposite of a Cambridge comma. The one before the ‘and,’ yes, that one.” A pause. “Oh? Definitely fabricated. Brilliant. Who’s on forensics?” Sherlock nods. “Good.” Another pause. “Yes, obviously,” Sherlock says, and it’s the happiest condescension John’s ever heard.
Sherlock hangs up, pockets his mobile, and is halfway out of his chair before he realises John is still there. John smiles tightly.
“Locked box as in, everything locked from the inside?” John asks.
Sherlock nods, eyes bright. “We have a spatially-aware killer who can’t tell a possessive pronoun from a contraction.” He takes his coat from the back of his chair and pulls it on, shaking it the once so it falls in line. He pulls out his wallet and throws a pair of twenties onto the table.
“Right,” John says. He puts down his knife and fork.
“No, take your time.” He sweeps around the table, comes in for a kiss, and John startles back. John’s never kissed a man in public before, let alone one running out in the middle of a date. Sherlock stares at him, eyes narrowing. “Do you mind?” Sherlock asks. “You do. You mind.”
“No,” John says. He’s been on the other side of this too many times to say anything else. Too many nights on call, too many times interrupted. Sherlock’s sudden joy isn’t exactly on par with John’s past reactions, however.
Sherlock frowns, gaze flicking between John’s eyes. “You’re a very bad liar,” he notes.
John pats him on the chest. “Go catch the bad guy. It’s important.”
“I know it’s important,” Sherlock says. “Do you know it’s important?”
“I just said it was.” John gives him a slight push. “Go on.”
All hesitation gone, Sherlock grins and darts away.
John limps back to the tube stop and experiences a bit of nausea at the sight of the station. No, he’ll keep walking. He needs to clear his head. Cool off. Just keep moving and not let the thoughts catch up.
His leg hurts. It really does. It hurts. It is very painful and maybe it will get better and maybe it won’t, and this is good, really. Realising this. Not realising the pain, John knows the pain well, but about Sherlock. Because, broken as he is, and as interesting as Sherlock claims that this makes him, John still can’t compare with an unusual murder. Which is not something John typically looks for in his love life.
If it were a real injury, John might respect the pain. Real pain is a warning to stop. It’s all in his head, and that means John can press on without damaging himself. He can push through it. Never to the other side. There is no other side. But he can keep pushing.
He walks half of the way back to his flat before he realises the ringing noise isn’t from a mobile. It’s not someone keeping pace with him, it’s the phone booths. They’re ringing as John walks.
John watches one man approach the booth and open the door, and the ringing immediately stops. The man looks at John, and John looks at the man. They shrug at each other, and the man moves on.
The phone resumes ringing.
John opens the door.
The ringing continues.
John weighs how shit his night has been so far against the possibility of having a James Bond-esque moment. Considering he’s already been stupid enough to shag Sherlock Holmes not just once but four times, he’s also stupid enough for this. He climbs into the booth and picks up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Good evening, Doctor Watson.” The voice is posh and polished. The title is audibly not abbreviated. “It’s time we had a talk.”
The car pulls to a stop on the empty third floor of a parking garage. John climbs out. He fights the urge to look for more security cameras.
Across the concrete floor, standing on one painted line, there is a man in a suit. He carries an umbrella. Before him is a folding chair. Beyond him is a concrete railing and the sky, cloudy and dark beyond the yellow light of the garage.
“Good evening, John. Would you care to sit down?” The man indicates the chair with his umbrella. “Your leg must be hurting you.”
“I’ve had a nice sit on the ride over,” John replies. He sets his cane solidly against the floor. When he’d wanted a Bond moment, he hadn’t actually expected to be threatened into a car.
The man’s polite smile doesn’t falter.
Neither does John’s.
“I do have a phone,” John says, breaking the silence. “Right here. In my pocket. It works and everything.”
“Yes. It’s also on silent.”
So it is. John knows it’s true but still has to fight the urge to disprove him. He keeps his hand out of his pocket. “And what was so terribly urgent?”
The man sets the tip of his umbrella against the floor and shifts, standing on both feet rather than crossing one behind the other. His stance mirrors John’s. “A matter of concern,” the man says. “What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?”
“None of your business,” John answers simply.
“How very wrong you are. It is my business. Moreover, it may yet become my concern. What are your intentions toward him?”
John tightens his grip on his cane. “I don’t have any.”
The man’s eyebrows arch. “Curious. How is it you keep sleeping with him? If it’s not your intention to--”
“It’s casual.”
If anything, the eyebrows arch higher. “Is it now?”
“It’s still none of your business.”
“You’re very loyal for a casual man without intentions.”
“I’m very private,” John corrects.
The man laughs. It is not a pleasant sound. “Oh, John. When near Sherlock Holmes, there is no such condition.”
“Because he sees everything, or because you have the CCTV?” John asks.
The man smiles. It’s not very pleasant either. “Would you like a way out, John?”
“I can see the exit sign fine from here.”
“Perhaps, but when will you go?”
“When I need to,” John replies. He stands his ground.
The man shakes his head. “I see you don’t understand, John. That will be much too late. I’m offering you an immediate way out.”
“I’ll be fine with the stairs.”
“Perhaps.” He swings the umbrella a small, flicking distance. “Perhaps not.”
“You’re not going to tell me who you are, are you?”
“An interested party.”
“I could see that for myself, thanks.”
The man smirks. It plucks at something in the back of John’s mind. “If you have no intentions, John, why are you so determined to stay with him?”
“I’m not with him.”
“Not at the moment, no. But, should the opportunity present itself...?” He tilts his head, looking at John as if bidding him to be reasonable. To be a good boy and confess.
“It will still be none of your business.”
“Should you decide otherwise,” the man informs him, “my number is already on your phone. If you suffer any change of heart, do call as quickly as you can.”
“I’m not interested.”
“That is the question, isn’t it?” The man gives him another polite smile, one which suggests John is wearisome. “Do decide soon, Doctor Watson. I hate for matters to become... messy.”
A sharp bang splits the air.
John snaps around, facing the direction of the shot. No, not a gunshot.
“A car backfiring,” the man tells him.
“I know.” His body won’t move. He’s trapped at attention, three feet to the left of where he was just standing. Once he realises what he’s doing, he unfreezes. There is no need to be a human shield for a civilian. Certainly not here, and certainly not this civilian.
John turns around to face the man. He expects the amusement of a Bond villain, but finds instead consideration. His gaze is long and weighing.
“Be careful of your instincts, John,” the man advises. “They may not always apply.”
John sets his jaw.
“Until we meet again.” He gestures to the car.
John gets in it, if only because he hasn’t the cash for a taxi.
He hears the beep and says, “Mike, hi. It’s John. Um. I was wondering if, I mean. In the time you’ve known Sherlock, have you ever... Well, have you ever been kidnapped off the street?” He groans and presses the pound key. He selects to re-record his message.
“Mike, hi. It’s John. I was wondering. I know we have Rule One about Sherlock and all that, but is there anything actually, I don’t know. Anything off about him. I mean beyond the obvious. In a bad way. I only ask because he’s been dropping by, and someone tried to warn me off him today. Bit odd, thought I’d get a second opinion. Right. Thanks.”
Mike meets him for lunch. They have a bit of shoptalk before Mike nudges the conversation toward Sherlock. He looks a bit concerned. “What kind of warning?”
“Sort of a ‘get out now’ type of deal,” John admits.
Mike gives him an odd look. “Get out of what?”
As a grown man, John absolutely does not experience the urge to fidget. “He’s been dropping by a bit. I think he’s trying to date me as an excuse to experiment on my leg.”
Mike laughs a bit. “We all wondered what the next stage would be. Flirting body parts out of the morgue-we couldn’t tell how he’d escalate from that.”
That is a bit funny, John has to admit. “It’s a little strange.”
“Yes, but you’re smiling,” Mike replies, pointing his fork at John. “Don’t think I’ve seen that since uni.”
“Right, well.” He searches for a rebuttal but only winds up smiling a bit more. He covers his mouth when the smiling won’t stop. “Shit.”
“Not following that warning, then.”
“No, but it was more of a threat than a warning, really,” John says.
“Have you told Sherlock yet?”
John shakes his head. “He’s on a case.”
“A case?”
“Detecting,” John says. “He’s a detective.”
“Oh, that’s what he does. I’d wondered.” Mike Stamford: incredibly friendly, incredibly unobtrusive.
“I’ll pass it along on Friday and then maybe we’ll go to the police,” John continues. “There’s a DI Sherlock works with.” Somehow, this sets John off explaining Sherlock. He knows more about the man than he’d thought, and he tells Mike all about the double-kidnapping case. He talks and he keeps talking until he feels a bit silly, but Mike nods along in amused fascination. Eventually, John winds down and the conversation turns to more usual things, but not with nearly the same enthusiasm.
Mike swears abruptly. “Sorry, I just remembered. Percy Phelps. He was in my year, do you remember him?”
“Vaguely.” To be honest, he’d only vaguely remembered Mike. Mike had always been the odd man out type, someone who stood off to the side at parties and was approached by those more awkward than himself. It does mean John trusts Mike’s word as to Sherlock’s particular brand of strangeness.
“No, I remember,” Mike continues. “He asked me once if you liked men and I told him no. God, he was put out.”
“Ah.” John struggles to remember anything remotely like this. “It wasn’t going to happen anyway.”
“Oh.” The guilt visibly lifts. “Well, that’s good, I suppose.” The conversation turns to other things. All told, it’s probably the smoothest John has ever come out to anyone.
On Friday, John walks to the tube stop, waits for about five minutes, and rings him up.
“Sherlock Holmes.”
“Hi.”
“Hello. I’m still on the case.”
“Okay.”
Sherlock hangs up and John goes home.
Later that night, he remembers to send a text about the warning in the parking garage.
Hours later, he’s startled out of a nightmare by his mobile chiming. Once the shaking stops, he manages to grab it. He squints at the blazing screen through the dark.
I’ve taken care of it. Won’t happen again. He had no right to involve you. SH
The timestamp is 4:28 am. He rolls over and slowly drifts back to sleep.
“John.”
“Oh, hello. Case solved?”
“Not yet. How are you at highly repetitive tasks?”
“I was in the Army.”
Sherlock audibly grins. “Good. Two-two-one-bee Baker Street, quick as you can.”
“What, now?”
“Problem?”
“I... Yeah, sure. Give me half an hour.”
The highly repetitive task is an attempted replication of the murder technique. John spends a great deal of time resetting the mechanism. Sherlock takes notes on everything. When success occurs, John doesn’t even recognize it, but Sherlock makes more noise over it than a bad porno actor. It sounds about the same too.
Sherlock grabs him by the wrist and drags him off to a cab, hurriedly explaining the locked box case as they ride to Scotland Yard. Then up the lift, back to the same floor as last time, and, bemused, John is left to sit outside while Sherlock gestures frantically behind the glass walls of Lestrade’s office.
“Here again?” a woman asks him.
John turns. It’s the same woman from last time, the one who had laughed. “Sorry?”
“Do you let him drag you around?” she asks, nodding toward Lestrade’s office. She leans back in her chair, arms crossed.
“I’m not supposed to be in here, am I?”
“Not so much, no,” she replies. “Why are you?”
“I was helping Sherlock with an experiment. For the case.”
The look of frustration on her face is incredible. “He’s leaking information again. Wonderful.” She leans forward to do something quickly on her laptop. “Look,” she says as she types, “I can understand wanting to help. Police sergeant: I can understand better than most. But getting involved with Sherlock Holmes isn’t the way to do it. What are you doing with him anyway? Did he follow you home?”
“Not all the way,” John replies. “Mostly, I take him for a walk and leave him at a tube station.”
“Do you think this is a joke?”
“No. No, sorry.” He sticks his hands in his pockets. “Do I need to sign some sort of non-disclosure agreement?”
She sighs. She looks very tired. “The problem isn’t you. It’s our friendly neighbourhood sociopath.”
“That’s quite the term to throw around.”
She blinks. “Oh, God. You actually don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“He really is a sociopath,” the sergeant tells him. “No, I mean it. You call him a psychopath, and he’ll correct you. He’s a sociopath.”
“Ah, Sally!” Sherlock warmly exclaims from behind John. Sally jumps in her chair, John does not, and Sherlock sets his hand on the small of John’s back. “Lestrade wants you.”
Sally rolls her eyes and stands. “No guests, freak.”
Sherlock’s fingers curl. “He’s not a guest. He was assisting.”
John decides to keep his mouth shut. It’s not until they’re back in the lift that John turns to the man beside him, intending to speak, to ask, and sees Sherlock leaning heavily against the wall. “Is it always like this?” John asks instead.
“Hm?”
“You go until you’re exhausted.”
Sherlock smiles faintly and shakes his head. His curls don’t quite fall right. “It doesn’t usually take so long.”
“But you do keep going until you’re exhausted.”
“If I have to.”
“Sherlock--”
“No. Listen.” He takes John by the sleeve above the wrist, nearly takes both. His fingers brush against John’s hand on his cane and drop. “The work comes first. It has to.”
“I understand that.”
“I don’t think you do. The work comes first, John. Because it has to. There isn’t a choice in it. It’s not a decision.”
“Why not?”
The lift opens as Sherlock’s mouth does, and the words which come out are, “I’ll tell you back at the flat.”
John hesitates, then nods. The cab ride back is longer than the one out. Traffic, this time of day. Sherlock twitches and fidgets and begins to rant about the sheer number of cars and spill the secrets of everyone he can see. His hands twist in his lap. He seems utterly unaware of it, but when John reaches toward him, Sherlock immediately shifts his hands to the other side of his lap, out of reach. John rests the back of his hand against Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock falls silent. John takes his hand away, and Sherlock snatches it back to leave it at its prior position. There it stays.
On Baker Street, Sherlock abandons John, forcing him to pay the cabbie, but he does wait for John at the street door and again at the top of the stairs. Rather than speak, Sherlock begins to put away the remains of the earlier experiment. Watching, John considers the state of his leg before deciding to sit down in an armchair. It puts his back to Sherlock, but this one is obviously the guest chair. Eventually, Sherlock comes round and sits opposite.
“You were saying,” John prompts.
“Have you ever been good at something?”
“I have, actually.”
“No, don’t be like that. I don’t mean it like that.”
John manually takes hold of his temper. “Then what do you mean?”
Sherlock shifts in his chair, drawing his feet up. He perches rather than sits. “Have you ever encountered an activity at which you excelled? Not a skill, John. Not being handy around the house, not being good at sport. A specific task that was suited to you.”
John thinks, unbidden, of his gun. “How do you mean?”
Hands pressed together, Sherlock looks to the side, staring into the unlit fireplace. He rubs his fingertips against his lips. “There is an activity. To which you are suited. More than suited. Which is suited to you. The performance of it accepts your mind.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Sherlock’s mouth twists. “I didn’t think you would understand.”
“No, keep explaining.” John leans forward, sets his elbows on his knees. “I’m listening.”
Sherlock closes his eyes. His hands move and his lips shape syllables, but not words. He turns his head as if listening to something.
“Sherlock?”
Sherlock doesn’t respond.
After the cab ride, John knows better than to reach for Sherlock’s gesticulating hands, but it is worrying. It’s not a fit, not a spasm. It’s very controlled and it stops as inexplicably as it began.
“Picture the human mind as a body of water,” Sherlock instructs. “A body of water from a spout on the side of a mountain.”
“What’s the mountain?”
“Life.”
“Okay. So it’s going to run down?”
“Yes. It’s not in a basin. It’s simply spouting out and will go in whichever direction it can best follow gravity,” Sherlock narrates. “Now, a small amount of water could form a spring or a creek. The contours of the mountain are such that there are paths for the water to follow. For a small amount of water, a single creek occurs. It stays together. It does not scatter.
“For a larger amount, not so. The water will fill all the paths, but this divides it. It becomes scattered. If there were a contour in the mountain wide and deep enough, a river could occur, bringing it all together. This would be vastly preferable.”
John cocks his head to the side as he listens, watching the rhythm of Sherlock’s hands conduct the flow of his voice. It’s lovely and oddly musical, and the more Sherlock speaks, the more exhaustion fills his words.
“If given a choice, a body of water meant to be a single body would be a river rather than scattered. Does this make any sense to you?”
“You... need the cases to channel your mind,” John summarizes. “It’s how you work best. Think best?”
“Yes! Yes.” His eyes grin. “Do you understand? It’s not a choice. It is my default state, John. My brain is constantly trying to reset to it. I need password permission: a convoluted scenario, something unusual.”
“A locked box murder.”
“Not as good as a serial killer, but close,” Sherlock agrees.
“Okay,” John says slowly. Eventually, he needs to ask if the victims matter to Sherlock at all, but this doesn’t seem the right time. First, he needs to wrap his mind around this.
“Do you understand?” Sherlock asks. He fidgets on the armchair. “Or can you? Will you try?”
“I...” John holds up one hand. He thinks. “Is it, um. Is it like it hurts when you’re not doing it?”
“Not physical pain, no.”
“But it’s not optimal?” John asks.
“No.”
“It’s... It’s like something’s wrong when you’re not doing it. And when you are doing it, it’s extraordinary because of the contrast, but it shouldn’t be,” John says. “It’s supposed to be normal. How you usually are, or how you think of yourself being, except something is stopping you all the time. And it’s really fucking frustrating.”
As John speaks, Sherlock’s eyes focus harder and harder on John’s face. They blaze into him.
“Is that it?” John asks.
“Yes,” Sherlock breathes. He looks as amazed as he often makes John feel. “How did you...?”
John rolls his eyes and gives Sherlock’s leg a hard tap with his cane. “Idiot.”
Slowly, cautiously, Sherlock begins to grin. He visibly stops himself. “The work comes first. That is non-negotiable.”
John thinks of the simple act of standing up from this chair. It’s not the pain he dreads, simply the knowledge that the pain will always be waiting. He can’t even imagine relief. “I know,” he says. “That’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
John nods.
“I need to hear you say it.”
“The work comes first,” John says. “I’d prefer that you tell me when you’re doing it, and you definitely need to eat more, but it comes first.”
Over the next half-minute, Sherlock proves just how long thirty seconds can be. His eyes search John’s, search his face. They investigate the curl of his hands and the set of his shoulders. They analyze and categorize him.
“You mean that,” Sherlock realises, and he looks at John as if seeing a creature of wonder, as if he has no idea what John is willing to do if only to walk again.
previous | next
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 6k this part, 56k overall
Betas: vyctori and seijichan
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: As the newest instructor at St. Bart's, John has been explicitly warned to never do Sherlock Holmes any favours. Too bad the sex is so good.
Warnings: explicit sex, dubcon, PTSD, panic attacks
Chapter One -- Chapter Two -- Chapter Three -- Chapter Four -- Chapter Five -- Chapter Six -- Chapter Seven -- Chapter Eight
“Excellent,” Sherlock announces out of nowhere, appearing at John’s shoulder.
“Jesus Christ.” He successfully refrains from hitting Sherlock with his cane. “Don’t sneak up on me. I mean it.”
“I knew you wouldn’t hit me.”
John shakes his head and resumes his progress toward the exit. “I could have.”
“Yes, but you didn’t,” Sherlock concludes, as if this is solution to John’s complaint.
It’s been a long day, and John is already impatient with him. He’s locked his office door and is already most of the way out of the building. Topic change, now. “What was excellent?”
Sherlock gestures between them. “I caught you on your way out.”
John was hardly about to wait for him again. In fact, the thought that he might need to wait had gone a long way to negate Tuesday’s apology blowjob. Which isn’t very fair, considering Sherlock had only stood him up in the first place in order to save the lives of three children and their father. And then the dead uncle. It’s difficult to be angry about Sherlock’s texting silence when John remembers the uncle. No, not difficult to be angry, exactly. It’s never difficult to be angry, but it’s hell trying to feel justified about it. There is a man dead, killed, and John’s snippy over lack of response from a bloke he’s not technically dating.
“You’re conflicted,” Sherlock sums up neatly. His hand touches John’s shoulder but does not settle there. Which is good, because it’s aching, the weather as it is.
“And you didn’t bring food,” John replies.
“A strike against me, I know.” Sherlock opens the fire door, which is less an act of pity and more an attempt to make John brush against him on the way through. “I did bring an umbrella.”
“Is there anything you don’t keep in your coat?”
“By all means, check.”
Isn’t that a mental image. Fantasy, more like. Slipping his hands into thick folds, Sherlock’s eyes unwavering on his face.
Fuck, no. Stop that. He’s too old to be getting off in supply closets, even if the one they just passed is incredibly well-located.
Sherlock beams at him.
“No,” John tells him.
“I didn’t suggest anything,” Sherlock replies, so innocent he’s come out the other side. “You expressed interest in the contents of my pockets.”
John refuses to respond. It’s the only way to keep this remotely near stalemate territory. He keeps walking, and Sherlock keeps pace. Rather, Sherlock keeps walking, and John keeps pace. It’s a long stride to match, but John manages, experiencing pain but not difficulty.
They get more than a few looks on their way out, and John is fairly certain the intern at reception just mouthed “Rule One” at him. Seeing as John isn’t currently in a supply closet, Rule One is holding just fine.
Sherlock pulls a compact umbrella from his pocket as they step outside into the steady rain. John keeps close, but it’s coming down hard and not even having an umbrella to himself could get him through this with dry trousers. As they walk, Sherlock’s arm repeatedly brushes against John’s. When they stop for the light to change, the brushing becomes a solid press of contact.
John rolls his eyes. “Stop that.”
The umbrella tilts away, and John is immediately drenched.
John sputters, then laughs.
“Better?” Sherlock asks.
“Much, thanks.”
The umbrella returns over John’s head, though it’s a bit late for that. Sherlock grins down at him. John responds by wiping his face dry on Sherlock’s shoulder. He smiles after, polite as can be.
Sherlock doesn’t lean in. He curls. He stands straight and tall, his chin leading his face downward. Every inch of his body indicates where John ought to be, and something more compelling than obedience bids John’s limbs to obey. John holds himself still, unable to look away from Sherlock’s soft mouth. They are in public, he reminds himself. They are in public.
The light changes and Sherlock anchors him with his eyes. They don’t move. When the crowd around them pushes by, Sherlock grips John at the elbow, forbidding any stranger from coming between them. Sherlock brings his lips to John’s ear and whispers above the rain, “Do you really want me to stop?”
“Which answer keeps the umbrella over my head?”
“Not that one,” Sherlock replies and promptly closes it. With the most impish grin John has ever seen, he sets across the street.
John chokes on a laugh and follows quickly. The time limit is from the lights, not from Sherlock. The man stops at the kerb, striking a silhouette against streetlight. Drenched and grinning, he sets off with a swagger the moment John catches up.
He’s not the man at Bart’s, too soaked, too far in disarray outside of his control. Neither is he the exhausted man from last week, too sharp and without enough bite. He’s not even a cross between the two. He’s someone else entirely and John wonders how many times he’ll come to know this man before he knows him.
They reach the tube station and look at each other in the shelter of the overhang. They drip. Sherlock’s lips are cold, but his breath is warm. John shivers. His coat isn’t soaked through, but his socks certainly are.
“Cold?” Sherlock asks.
“It’ll be warm on the train.” It takes only one step to realize Sherlock isn’t following.
“Humid, too.” Sherlock makes an exaggerated face. “And crowded, can’t forget that.”
“Did you--” He did. Of course he did. “Did you get me soaked just to persuade me into a cab?”
Sherlock’s eyes are round and innocent. “You don’t have an umbrella. You would have been soaked anyway.”
“No, because I wasn’t going to walk here. I--” John sees the verbal trap the moment he walks into it.
“Oh, so you were going to take a cab home. Meaning I haven’t persuaded you at all. If anything, I’ve persuaded you into a walk.”
“True,” John replies and, really, it’s not a very hard trap to get out of. “Thanks, very helpful on the wallet. See you.”
Sherlock’s face twitches in something between a smile and a glare, but he doesn’t follow when John walks away. John knows because he waits for him at the bottom of the escalator, just in case.
I hope you realise you could have come twice by now. SH
John takes and sends a picture of his own hand in the two-finger salute.
Sherlock responds with a picture as well, two fingers between lips.
John inwardly concedes that he was never going to win that argument anyway and commiserates by wanking twice. It takes a while, but it’s worth it when he replies, I started late. Managed it well enough anyway.
Thinking of me? SH
Vain.
Confident. SH
Yes, he is.
It rains through the night, through the morning, and into Friday evening. John brings his own umbrella. They walk to the tube stop, Sherlock leans in but does not kiss him, and John takes the escalator down.
Half a minute later, he takes the other escalator back up. He limps toward the barrier and strains to see over the crowd, but Sherlock is tall and distinctive and has clearly already left.
He might be stalking Sherlock’s pretentious website. A bit. Maybe. When there are no updates all weekend, John’s somewhat disappointed.
This is probably a bad sign.
It’s not raining on Tuesday and Sherlock still doesn’t drop by John’s office. Not that it would be a terribly good idea to have Sherlock back in his office. There’s only so much sex two people can have without it becoming a bit obvious. Which is a shame, especially considering how nicely Sherlock fits under his desk.
He limps to his tube stop only to see a familiar figure leaning by the entrance.
“Fancy meeting you here,” John says. Even with his cane, he doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands.
Sherlock smiles. “Dinner?”
“Starving.”
They go for Indian, walking to a place close by. John’s sure they’ll need a reservation, but the hostess recognizes Sherlock. Almost immediately, they’re seated and before John can ask what’s going on, the owner comes out to hand them a free starter. She shakes Sherlock’s hand, Sherlock asks her about her dog, and she shakes Sherlock’s hand a bit harder. That finished, Sherlock opens his menu as if nothing has happened.
John considers staring at him until the answers fall out. He tries it for a bit, but ultimately says, “I’m missing something.”
“Don’t worry, most people are.”
“No, what was that about? The table and the, um. These.”
“Dahi puri,” Sherlock provides without glancing up. “They’re very good.”
“What was that about the dog?”
Sherlock waves his hand. “It was a case.”
“Where you saved her dog?”
“Not intentionally.”
On second thought, staring at him until the answers fall out is a much more productive tactic. It turns Sherlock smug, an unfortunately good look for him. They order, John eats the dahi puri, and Sherlock watches him in turn. Sherlock leans back in his seat, his forearms on the tablecloth. The fingertips of one hand stroke the side of his glass, gliding through condensation. They’re very nice hands.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Sherlock murmurs. His eyes belong in a bedroom or three inches above a cock. Preferably both.
“You know what I’m thinking.”
“Enough to want it said aloud, yes.”
“Not in public,” John tells him.
“Especially in public.”
John smiles into his glass, freezing his teeth on ice. Bit unpleasant, certainly enough to push him through this warm, slightly flustered haze. “And what are you thinking?”
“That three dates in a month is less than I’d hoped.”
“Three? No, last week under the desk doesn’t count.”
“I brought food,” Sherlock reasons.
“We didn’t eat it.”
“Hardly my fault.”
John thinks about this. Possibly, he thinks about this longer than strictly necessary. “Still not a date,” he says.
“Fine,” Sherlock says. “How’s Friday?”
A giggle wells up John’s throat and pops out his mouth.
Sherlock waits, eyes locked on John’s face.
The giggle worsens. The giggle itself becomes funny, and John tries not to laugh at it. He puts his hand over his mouth and keeps it there until adult function returns. There is a short stage of biting his lip and snickering before this occurs. Finally, he says, “Friday’s fine.”
“Then why did you laugh?”
John nearly laughs again before Sherlock’s tone registers. Instead, he clears his throat. “Nerves? Let’s go with nerves.”
“Nerves? Why nerves?”
“Being asked like that would do it for most people,” John points out mildly.
Sherlock waves a dismissive hand. “You’re not most people. Why nerves?”
Christ. “Look, it’s fine. It’s not-I didn’t say it was bad nerves.”
“Oh.” That seems to please him immensely.
“Though I do have to ask why Friday. Are we skipping Thursday?”
“We don’t have to. You simply have work Friday morning.”
John wets his lips with a dry tongue. “Um. True.”
“Saturday morning is open, I presume.”
John nods.
Sherlock smiles.
John becomes much less certain of his ability to wait for Friday.
“Of course...” Sherlock adds.
John has time for the briefest moment of confusion before he feels Sherlock’s foot press down on his. “Sherlock,” he hisses.
“Yes?” Toes behind his ankle now.
“You really can’t do that here.”
“Technically, I can. You simply can’t be quiet through it.”
John’s warning glare has taken down drunken soldiers. It manages basic restraint against Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock sulks and lets his shin rest against John’s.
“Thank you,” John says.
Sherlock’s eyebrows shoot up.
“What?”
“Thanking me for not giving you an orgasm. That’s precedent I’d rather you didn’t set.”
“Thank you for not getting us thrown out of the restaurant,” John amends, glancing around to make sure no one heard Sherlock.
“Much better.”
Their food arrives. John eats. Sherlock talks. John prods Sherlock to eat. Sherlock picks at his food. John wagers he can distract Sherlock from eating, Sherlock scoffs, and that is how John Watson plays footsie on a second date at the age of thirty-seven. It is exactly the type of thing he will never put on his blog. It makes Sherlock eat, so John counts it as a victory.
They eat largely in silence, which is fine. The contact under the table is steadying, now that they’ve gone still. It’s quiet and comfortable, and if Sherlock would come to his office to simply sit with a book, John can’t imagine how much he could get done. He realises with a bit of a jump that he’s not sure where all the exits are. Without missing a beat, Sherlock gestures, indicating them with all the bored patience of an airline stewardess.
John pushes rice and lamb around his plate, smiling faintly down at it. He considers his phrasing, tries to, but about that lack of orgasm is too blunt and it’s a bit too early to pull off fancy a coffee. Any attempt at fancy a coffee looks odd unless it’s to begin the date or there’s already a flat in sight.
Before John can make up his mind, Sherlock’s mobile rings.
“Hello,” Sherlock answers in the instant it takes John to look up. How the hell did he get his mobile out so quickly? Whatever the response is, Sherlock sits up straighter to hear it. His eyes focus on a spot past John. “Have you confirmed that it’s locked box? If it doesn’t lock only from the inside, it doesn’t count.”
John pushes his rice and lamb around a bit more. His own phone is on silent, the way it ought to be on a date.
“Good. Now, why don’t you think it was a suicide?”
John looks up. Oh.
Sherlock nods along for a moment. “Do the details of the note check out?” A pause. “Read it to me.” A far longer pause. Sherlock rolls his eyes. “That’s an atrociously common grammatical error. Why would-”
Whatever the person down the line says, Sherlock’s face lights up. John smiles back, but Sherlock isn’t paying attention.
“To be fair, that is a perfectly legitimate reason for a copy-editor to kill herself. Where did she work?” A pause. “Check for Oxford commas.” A pause. “No, the opposite of a Cambridge comma. The one before the ‘and,’ yes, that one.” A pause. “Oh? Definitely fabricated. Brilliant. Who’s on forensics?” Sherlock nods. “Good.” Another pause. “Yes, obviously,” Sherlock says, and it’s the happiest condescension John’s ever heard.
Sherlock hangs up, pockets his mobile, and is halfway out of his chair before he realises John is still there. John smiles tightly.
“Locked box as in, everything locked from the inside?” John asks.
Sherlock nods, eyes bright. “We have a spatially-aware killer who can’t tell a possessive pronoun from a contraction.” He takes his coat from the back of his chair and pulls it on, shaking it the once so it falls in line. He pulls out his wallet and throws a pair of twenties onto the table.
“Right,” John says. He puts down his knife and fork.
“No, take your time.” He sweeps around the table, comes in for a kiss, and John startles back. John’s never kissed a man in public before, let alone one running out in the middle of a date. Sherlock stares at him, eyes narrowing. “Do you mind?” Sherlock asks. “You do. You mind.”
“No,” John says. He’s been on the other side of this too many times to say anything else. Too many nights on call, too many times interrupted. Sherlock’s sudden joy isn’t exactly on par with John’s past reactions, however.
Sherlock frowns, gaze flicking between John’s eyes. “You’re a very bad liar,” he notes.
John pats him on the chest. “Go catch the bad guy. It’s important.”
“I know it’s important,” Sherlock says. “Do you know it’s important?”
“I just said it was.” John gives him a slight push. “Go on.”
All hesitation gone, Sherlock grins and darts away.
John limps back to the tube stop and experiences a bit of nausea at the sight of the station. No, he’ll keep walking. He needs to clear his head. Cool off. Just keep moving and not let the thoughts catch up.
His leg hurts. It really does. It hurts. It is very painful and maybe it will get better and maybe it won’t, and this is good, really. Realising this. Not realising the pain, John knows the pain well, but about Sherlock. Because, broken as he is, and as interesting as Sherlock claims that this makes him, John still can’t compare with an unusual murder. Which is not something John typically looks for in his love life.
If it were a real injury, John might respect the pain. Real pain is a warning to stop. It’s all in his head, and that means John can press on without damaging himself. He can push through it. Never to the other side. There is no other side. But he can keep pushing.
He walks half of the way back to his flat before he realises the ringing noise isn’t from a mobile. It’s not someone keeping pace with him, it’s the phone booths. They’re ringing as John walks.
John watches one man approach the booth and open the door, and the ringing immediately stops. The man looks at John, and John looks at the man. They shrug at each other, and the man moves on.
The phone resumes ringing.
John opens the door.
The ringing continues.
John weighs how shit his night has been so far against the possibility of having a James Bond-esque moment. Considering he’s already been stupid enough to shag Sherlock Holmes not just once but four times, he’s also stupid enough for this. He climbs into the booth and picks up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Good evening, Doctor Watson.” The voice is posh and polished. The title is audibly not abbreviated. “It’s time we had a talk.”
The car pulls to a stop on the empty third floor of a parking garage. John climbs out. He fights the urge to look for more security cameras.
Across the concrete floor, standing on one painted line, there is a man in a suit. He carries an umbrella. Before him is a folding chair. Beyond him is a concrete railing and the sky, cloudy and dark beyond the yellow light of the garage.
“Good evening, John. Would you care to sit down?” The man indicates the chair with his umbrella. “Your leg must be hurting you.”
“I’ve had a nice sit on the ride over,” John replies. He sets his cane solidly against the floor. When he’d wanted a Bond moment, he hadn’t actually expected to be threatened into a car.
The man’s polite smile doesn’t falter.
Neither does John’s.
“I do have a phone,” John says, breaking the silence. “Right here. In my pocket. It works and everything.”
“Yes. It’s also on silent.”
So it is. John knows it’s true but still has to fight the urge to disprove him. He keeps his hand out of his pocket. “And what was so terribly urgent?”
The man sets the tip of his umbrella against the floor and shifts, standing on both feet rather than crossing one behind the other. His stance mirrors John’s. “A matter of concern,” the man says. “What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?”
“None of your business,” John answers simply.
“How very wrong you are. It is my business. Moreover, it may yet become my concern. What are your intentions toward him?”
John tightens his grip on his cane. “I don’t have any.”
The man’s eyebrows arch. “Curious. How is it you keep sleeping with him? If it’s not your intention to--”
“It’s casual.”
If anything, the eyebrows arch higher. “Is it now?”
“It’s still none of your business.”
“You’re very loyal for a casual man without intentions.”
“I’m very private,” John corrects.
The man laughs. It is not a pleasant sound. “Oh, John. When near Sherlock Holmes, there is no such condition.”
“Because he sees everything, or because you have the CCTV?” John asks.
The man smiles. It’s not very pleasant either. “Would you like a way out, John?”
“I can see the exit sign fine from here.”
“Perhaps, but when will you go?”
“When I need to,” John replies. He stands his ground.
The man shakes his head. “I see you don’t understand, John. That will be much too late. I’m offering you an immediate way out.”
“I’ll be fine with the stairs.”
“Perhaps.” He swings the umbrella a small, flicking distance. “Perhaps not.”
“You’re not going to tell me who you are, are you?”
“An interested party.”
“I could see that for myself, thanks.”
The man smirks. It plucks at something in the back of John’s mind. “If you have no intentions, John, why are you so determined to stay with him?”
“I’m not with him.”
“Not at the moment, no. But, should the opportunity present itself...?” He tilts his head, looking at John as if bidding him to be reasonable. To be a good boy and confess.
“It will still be none of your business.”
“Should you decide otherwise,” the man informs him, “my number is already on your phone. If you suffer any change of heart, do call as quickly as you can.”
“I’m not interested.”
“That is the question, isn’t it?” The man gives him another polite smile, one which suggests John is wearisome. “Do decide soon, Doctor Watson. I hate for matters to become... messy.”
A sharp bang splits the air.
John snaps around, facing the direction of the shot. No, not a gunshot.
“A car backfiring,” the man tells him.
“I know.” His body won’t move. He’s trapped at attention, three feet to the left of where he was just standing. Once he realises what he’s doing, he unfreezes. There is no need to be a human shield for a civilian. Certainly not here, and certainly not this civilian.
John turns around to face the man. He expects the amusement of a Bond villain, but finds instead consideration. His gaze is long and weighing.
“Be careful of your instincts, John,” the man advises. “They may not always apply.”
John sets his jaw.
“Until we meet again.” He gestures to the car.
John gets in it, if only because he hasn’t the cash for a taxi.
He hears the beep and says, “Mike, hi. It’s John. Um. I was wondering if, I mean. In the time you’ve known Sherlock, have you ever... Well, have you ever been kidnapped off the street?” He groans and presses the pound key. He selects to re-record his message.
“Mike, hi. It’s John. I was wondering. I know we have Rule One about Sherlock and all that, but is there anything actually, I don’t know. Anything off about him. I mean beyond the obvious. In a bad way. I only ask because he’s been dropping by, and someone tried to warn me off him today. Bit odd, thought I’d get a second opinion. Right. Thanks.”
Mike meets him for lunch. They have a bit of shoptalk before Mike nudges the conversation toward Sherlock. He looks a bit concerned. “What kind of warning?”
“Sort of a ‘get out now’ type of deal,” John admits.
Mike gives him an odd look. “Get out of what?”
As a grown man, John absolutely does not experience the urge to fidget. “He’s been dropping by a bit. I think he’s trying to date me as an excuse to experiment on my leg.”
Mike laughs a bit. “We all wondered what the next stage would be. Flirting body parts out of the morgue-we couldn’t tell how he’d escalate from that.”
That is a bit funny, John has to admit. “It’s a little strange.”
“Yes, but you’re smiling,” Mike replies, pointing his fork at John. “Don’t think I’ve seen that since uni.”
“Right, well.” He searches for a rebuttal but only winds up smiling a bit more. He covers his mouth when the smiling won’t stop. “Shit.”
“Not following that warning, then.”
“No, but it was more of a threat than a warning, really,” John says.
“Have you told Sherlock yet?”
John shakes his head. “He’s on a case.”
“A case?”
“Detecting,” John says. “He’s a detective.”
“Oh, that’s what he does. I’d wondered.” Mike Stamford: incredibly friendly, incredibly unobtrusive.
“I’ll pass it along on Friday and then maybe we’ll go to the police,” John continues. “There’s a DI Sherlock works with.” Somehow, this sets John off explaining Sherlock. He knows more about the man than he’d thought, and he tells Mike all about the double-kidnapping case. He talks and he keeps talking until he feels a bit silly, but Mike nods along in amused fascination. Eventually, John winds down and the conversation turns to more usual things, but not with nearly the same enthusiasm.
Mike swears abruptly. “Sorry, I just remembered. Percy Phelps. He was in my year, do you remember him?”
“Vaguely.” To be honest, he’d only vaguely remembered Mike. Mike had always been the odd man out type, someone who stood off to the side at parties and was approached by those more awkward than himself. It does mean John trusts Mike’s word as to Sherlock’s particular brand of strangeness.
“No, I remember,” Mike continues. “He asked me once if you liked men and I told him no. God, he was put out.”
“Ah.” John struggles to remember anything remotely like this. “It wasn’t going to happen anyway.”
“Oh.” The guilt visibly lifts. “Well, that’s good, I suppose.” The conversation turns to other things. All told, it’s probably the smoothest John has ever come out to anyone.
On Friday, John walks to the tube stop, waits for about five minutes, and rings him up.
“Sherlock Holmes.”
“Hi.”
“Hello. I’m still on the case.”
“Okay.”
Sherlock hangs up and John goes home.
Later that night, he remembers to send a text about the warning in the parking garage.
Hours later, he’s startled out of a nightmare by his mobile chiming. Once the shaking stops, he manages to grab it. He squints at the blazing screen through the dark.
I’ve taken care of it. Won’t happen again. He had no right to involve you. SH
The timestamp is 4:28 am. He rolls over and slowly drifts back to sleep.
“John.”
“Oh, hello. Case solved?”
“Not yet. How are you at highly repetitive tasks?”
“I was in the Army.”
Sherlock audibly grins. “Good. Two-two-one-bee Baker Street, quick as you can.”
“What, now?”
“Problem?”
“I... Yeah, sure. Give me half an hour.”
The highly repetitive task is an attempted replication of the murder technique. John spends a great deal of time resetting the mechanism. Sherlock takes notes on everything. When success occurs, John doesn’t even recognize it, but Sherlock makes more noise over it than a bad porno actor. It sounds about the same too.
Sherlock grabs him by the wrist and drags him off to a cab, hurriedly explaining the locked box case as they ride to Scotland Yard. Then up the lift, back to the same floor as last time, and, bemused, John is left to sit outside while Sherlock gestures frantically behind the glass walls of Lestrade’s office.
“Here again?” a woman asks him.
John turns. It’s the same woman from last time, the one who had laughed. “Sorry?”
“Do you let him drag you around?” she asks, nodding toward Lestrade’s office. She leans back in her chair, arms crossed.
“I’m not supposed to be in here, am I?”
“Not so much, no,” she replies. “Why are you?”
“I was helping Sherlock with an experiment. For the case.”
The look of frustration on her face is incredible. “He’s leaking information again. Wonderful.” She leans forward to do something quickly on her laptop. “Look,” she says as she types, “I can understand wanting to help. Police sergeant: I can understand better than most. But getting involved with Sherlock Holmes isn’t the way to do it. What are you doing with him anyway? Did he follow you home?”
“Not all the way,” John replies. “Mostly, I take him for a walk and leave him at a tube station.”
“Do you think this is a joke?”
“No. No, sorry.” He sticks his hands in his pockets. “Do I need to sign some sort of non-disclosure agreement?”
She sighs. She looks very tired. “The problem isn’t you. It’s our friendly neighbourhood sociopath.”
“That’s quite the term to throw around.”
She blinks. “Oh, God. You actually don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“He really is a sociopath,” the sergeant tells him. “No, I mean it. You call him a psychopath, and he’ll correct you. He’s a sociopath.”
“Ah, Sally!” Sherlock warmly exclaims from behind John. Sally jumps in her chair, John does not, and Sherlock sets his hand on the small of John’s back. “Lestrade wants you.”
Sally rolls her eyes and stands. “No guests, freak.”
Sherlock’s fingers curl. “He’s not a guest. He was assisting.”
John decides to keep his mouth shut. It’s not until they’re back in the lift that John turns to the man beside him, intending to speak, to ask, and sees Sherlock leaning heavily against the wall. “Is it always like this?” John asks instead.
“Hm?”
“You go until you’re exhausted.”
Sherlock smiles faintly and shakes his head. His curls don’t quite fall right. “It doesn’t usually take so long.”
“But you do keep going until you’re exhausted.”
“If I have to.”
“Sherlock--”
“No. Listen.” He takes John by the sleeve above the wrist, nearly takes both. His fingers brush against John’s hand on his cane and drop. “The work comes first. It has to.”
“I understand that.”
“I don’t think you do. The work comes first, John. Because it has to. There isn’t a choice in it. It’s not a decision.”
“Why not?”
The lift opens as Sherlock’s mouth does, and the words which come out are, “I’ll tell you back at the flat.”
John hesitates, then nods. The cab ride back is longer than the one out. Traffic, this time of day. Sherlock twitches and fidgets and begins to rant about the sheer number of cars and spill the secrets of everyone he can see. His hands twist in his lap. He seems utterly unaware of it, but when John reaches toward him, Sherlock immediately shifts his hands to the other side of his lap, out of reach. John rests the back of his hand against Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock falls silent. John takes his hand away, and Sherlock snatches it back to leave it at its prior position. There it stays.
On Baker Street, Sherlock abandons John, forcing him to pay the cabbie, but he does wait for John at the street door and again at the top of the stairs. Rather than speak, Sherlock begins to put away the remains of the earlier experiment. Watching, John considers the state of his leg before deciding to sit down in an armchair. It puts his back to Sherlock, but this one is obviously the guest chair. Eventually, Sherlock comes round and sits opposite.
“You were saying,” John prompts.
“Have you ever been good at something?”
“I have, actually.”
“No, don’t be like that. I don’t mean it like that.”
John manually takes hold of his temper. “Then what do you mean?”
Sherlock shifts in his chair, drawing his feet up. He perches rather than sits. “Have you ever encountered an activity at which you excelled? Not a skill, John. Not being handy around the house, not being good at sport. A specific task that was suited to you.”
John thinks, unbidden, of his gun. “How do you mean?”
Hands pressed together, Sherlock looks to the side, staring into the unlit fireplace. He rubs his fingertips against his lips. “There is an activity. To which you are suited. More than suited. Which is suited to you. The performance of it accepts your mind.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Sherlock’s mouth twists. “I didn’t think you would understand.”
“No, keep explaining.” John leans forward, sets his elbows on his knees. “I’m listening.”
Sherlock closes his eyes. His hands move and his lips shape syllables, but not words. He turns his head as if listening to something.
“Sherlock?”
Sherlock doesn’t respond.
After the cab ride, John knows better than to reach for Sherlock’s gesticulating hands, but it is worrying. It’s not a fit, not a spasm. It’s very controlled and it stops as inexplicably as it began.
“Picture the human mind as a body of water,” Sherlock instructs. “A body of water from a spout on the side of a mountain.”
“What’s the mountain?”
“Life.”
“Okay. So it’s going to run down?”
“Yes. It’s not in a basin. It’s simply spouting out and will go in whichever direction it can best follow gravity,” Sherlock narrates. “Now, a small amount of water could form a spring or a creek. The contours of the mountain are such that there are paths for the water to follow. For a small amount of water, a single creek occurs. It stays together. It does not scatter.
“For a larger amount, not so. The water will fill all the paths, but this divides it. It becomes scattered. If there were a contour in the mountain wide and deep enough, a river could occur, bringing it all together. This would be vastly preferable.”
John cocks his head to the side as he listens, watching the rhythm of Sherlock’s hands conduct the flow of his voice. It’s lovely and oddly musical, and the more Sherlock speaks, the more exhaustion fills his words.
“If given a choice, a body of water meant to be a single body would be a river rather than scattered. Does this make any sense to you?”
“You... need the cases to channel your mind,” John summarizes. “It’s how you work best. Think best?”
“Yes! Yes.” His eyes grin. “Do you understand? It’s not a choice. It is my default state, John. My brain is constantly trying to reset to it. I need password permission: a convoluted scenario, something unusual.”
“A locked box murder.”
“Not as good as a serial killer, but close,” Sherlock agrees.
“Okay,” John says slowly. Eventually, he needs to ask if the victims matter to Sherlock at all, but this doesn’t seem the right time. First, he needs to wrap his mind around this.
“Do you understand?” Sherlock asks. He fidgets on the armchair. “Or can you? Will you try?”
“I...” John holds up one hand. He thinks. “Is it, um. Is it like it hurts when you’re not doing it?”
“Not physical pain, no.”
“But it’s not optimal?” John asks.
“No.”
“It’s... It’s like something’s wrong when you’re not doing it. And when you are doing it, it’s extraordinary because of the contrast, but it shouldn’t be,” John says. “It’s supposed to be normal. How you usually are, or how you think of yourself being, except something is stopping you all the time. And it’s really fucking frustrating.”
As John speaks, Sherlock’s eyes focus harder and harder on John’s face. They blaze into him.
“Is that it?” John asks.
“Yes,” Sherlock breathes. He looks as amazed as he often makes John feel. “How did you...?”
John rolls his eyes and gives Sherlock’s leg a hard tap with his cane. “Idiot.”
Slowly, cautiously, Sherlock begins to grin. He visibly stops himself. “The work comes first. That is non-negotiable.”
John thinks of the simple act of standing up from this chair. It’s not the pain he dreads, simply the knowledge that the pain will always be waiting. He can’t even imagine relief. “I know,” he says. “That’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
John nods.
“I need to hear you say it.”
“The work comes first,” John says. “I’d prefer that you tell me when you’re doing it, and you definitely need to eat more, but it comes first.”
Over the next half-minute, Sherlock proves just how long thirty seconds can be. His eyes search John’s, search his face. They investigate the curl of his hands and the set of his shoulders. They analyze and categorize him.
“You mean that,” Sherlock realises, and he looks at John as if seeing a creature of wonder, as if he has no idea what John is willing to do if only to walk again.
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