Above, Below (Through the Cracks) || Part Four ||
//
John led Sherlock through the still crowded streets of Battersea, towards the banks of the river and Chelsea Bridge. Sherlock had asked John which way was the quickest as soon as they had stepped out into the open. There was a time when he had the whole of London mapped inside his head, better than any taxi driver, with every shortcut, side street and alleyway. Then he had been Below and all that mattered of Above anymore was where it intersected with the whole new endless world he now inhabited.
Sherlock had considered the safety of returning Below through the Church and down into the catacombs below but had decided against it while John finished gathering a small, but essential set of his belongings in his flat. There was no doubt that he was still army through and through, as Sherlock watched the quick but efficient way he had folded and stowed away only the most practical of items. Sherlock had turned a blind eye to the careful packing of several photographs of his regiment and the family photograph from Skegness. After all, John had shown Sherlock quite soundly that sentimentality did not always equal weakness.
They travelled in silence.
Sherlock was conflicted. Both glad and resentful of the silence as nothing but the sounds of London Above going about its business rattled between them.
When Sherlock had first slipped through, and the drugs and withdrawal were finally past, he had quickly come to resent Molly for her incessant mindless questions and needless chatter. While Molly had no doubt saved his life, once his mind was functioning adequately he found he had no care for any information that didn’t have practical use. At first he thought she simply did not understand him in any way. When he was bright and sharp again he saw her actions for what they were. Careful, skilled manipulation he had not thought her bright enough to orchestrate, all to the end of keeping him with her.
John, on the other hand, had questions. Real questions. Sherlock could see it in the creases at the corner of his eyes and the line of his shoulders, but he didn’t ask them. He simply kept a fast, but not impossible pace through Battersea and then the park, until Sherlock was able to orientate himself and start to lead.
What John understood was the necessity of putting as much distance between themselves and their last known location to Moriarty and Moran as possible. It was not the time for questions, or for slowing down, and Sherlock reminded himself that he’d do well to remember it.
His heart might quicken, almost imperceptibly, whenever John’s shoulder brushed his own. It was not a reason to risk everything.
Sherlock was taking John to the market, where they would be safe for long enough for all questions to be answered.
//
“Is that a door?” John asked.
It looked like a door. Made of solid oak and iron it was the sort of old looking that John associated with museums and labels that said made in the fourteenth century and didn’t look a bit water damaged. It did not belong in the bank of the Thames, about a hundred meters or so from the base of Chelsea Bridge.
John sunk a little further into the silt and shifted his feet, before it swallowed him any further. The consulting detective looked unperturbed by the whole thing, and barely seemed to leave any footprints.
“Yes,” the consulting detective said, his tone expressing just how much he disliked obvious questions. “It is a door.”
John gave him an unimpressed glare. Doors in the bank of the Thames were hardly general knowledge. Still, it rolled off the consulting detective like water off a duck’s back.
John watched as the consulting detective opened it. “And we’re going through it.”
He stared into the dark tunnel for a moment, then looked at the consulting detective’s expectant face. He was waiting for John to go first.
This was probably the point of no return and John should probably have been having some sort of emotional or moral crisis. He looked back into the dark, damp, tunnel and knew he was long past it.
In fact, he had been past it since he rolled the consulting detective over in the pouring rain. Since he had found someone, something, other than the emptiness that had slowly been consuming him since he left the army.
John’s heart pounded behind his ribs at the thrill of the unknown. He stepped inside.
//
"You have questions," Sherlock said once the access door to the tunnels under the banks of the Thames was closed and the small oil lamp from the entranceway was lit and in his hand. The steady stream of water rushing along the stone floor would wash away any trace of their presence, so long as they were careful.
One glance at John confirmed that Sherlock didn’t need to be explicit about the requirement for caution in the extreme. Sherlock suspected John's last posting was a desert country from his obvious dislike of the rain and the damp, not to mention the ease with which he'd handled himself outside on the sandy bank.
John waited until they had both passed through the junction that connected their tunnel to another, forming a cavernous crossroads. It minimised the chance of a dangerous and revealing echo when he finally answered, "Don't be daft. Of course I have questions."
Sherlock paused as they reached another junction and listened hard.
All he could hear was the drip twelve feet ahead of them, the two rats behind them and the soft, almost imperceptible sound of John’s steady breaths. The rats said nothing.
No Moriarty and Moran following then, not yet at least.
"What is it you want to know?” Sherlock asked, leading John deeper into the depths of London and the maze of tunnels he knew infinitely better than the roads Above. “I'll tell you what I can until we reach our destination."
John was silent, his face thoughtful as he walked beside Sherlock, each step careful and measured to make as little noise in the running water as possible.
"Where do I start?” He finally said, exasperated. “Who are you, really? What are we doing in mythical tunnels under London? Why are people trying to kill you? What market are we going to? What the bloody hell is going on and why on earth are you dressed like something out of Jane Austen?"
It was a sudden barrage of questions. All uttered in measured, quiet, but ever-increasingly frustrated tones. Though the last was declared with an exasperated sort of frustration, Sherlock still bristled.
As far as fashion went Below, Sherlock was rather dashing. Even if being on the run had left him a little rougher around the edges than he'd prefer. His appearance was the one thing he allowed himself to be vain about (other than his intellect), as he hadn’t been during his drug use. Edge Wear was an excellent tailor, and indebted to Sherlock for exposing the Maids of the Veil’s theft while in her employ.
John was the one who would stand out at the Floating Market as new, as not belonging.
“I’ll have you know that this is hardly out of place,” Sherlock said, nodding down to his attire. “Where I come from.”
“And where is that exactly?” John asked, with an amused mix of confusion and disbelief. “I know you sound a bit posh, but I didn’t know there were bits of England left stuck that far in the past.”
“I’m from London,” Sherlock answered, truthfully. “I was born in Charing Cross Hospital and I was raised in Kensington, but that isn’t relevant. Most things up there have been irrelevant for some time.”
John stopped and looked briefly at the ceiling of the tunnel before turning his attention back to Sherlock, head cocked just slightly to one side. “Up there?”
“Yes, Above,” Sherlock answered with another nod, this time upwards. “We are, very obviously, Below. Though in more sense than one.”
John’s face contorted into something new, and unmistakably angry. “How about you stop talking in riddles and just tell me,” he snapped. He crossed his arms over his chest and stopped their advancement.
Sherlock stared at him.
John sighed, and dropped his arms to his side. “Whatever it is, it can’t be madder than what’s already happened this morning, alright? I just-. I need to know and I think I’ve been really bloody patient until now.”
Sherlock could not argue with the vast majority of John’s sentiment. He simply found that in the face of having to tell John the truth, he was suddenly horribly afraid that he would think Sherlock was entirely barking mad and then would turn around and go. Leave Sherlock alone and most likely be found and killed by Moriarty and Moran, two things Sherlock could not want less than anything in the world.
Only, there wasn’t much choice left.
“I’m not sure you’ll agree with that statement once I am done, but here it is. There are two Londons, or perhaps better put, there is one city and she has two faces. There is Above, where I was born and you have just come from, and there is the Underside, which is Below.”
John considered this information for a moment. “And so we’re in the Underside?”
“Simply, yes,” Sherlock agreed. Then dug his own grave by adding, “Though it is far more complex than that.”
“I imagine that’s why I’ve never heard about another city underneath London before, right?” John asked, with a dry chuckle and began to move forward, but with slower steps.
Sherlock smirked and walked with him, glad to be on the move again, putting more distance between themselves and their hunters.
“Quite. Below is for the lost, the forgotten and the broken. There are the native peoples, who operate outside of most the conventional laws of science and sometimes even nature and then are the people like us.” Sherlock ensures he betrays no emotion when he says it. He is as good as confessing to John that no one Above cared about him enough to stop it from happening, and it will not take John long to realise that the same is true of himself.
He has always known himself to be difficult, unlovable. He doesn’t think that John will accept the notion of being forgotten as easily.
“The world Above forgets about us and we fall through the cracks. Once you are part of Below, there is no going back, you cease to exist Above. As you become part of Below, you learn to see all the things in the dark places of the city you could never have seen before.”
“And you fell through?” John questioned softly, stopping Sherlock with a gentle hand on his forearm.
“Yes,” Sherlock answered, taken unawares. He attempted to process the turn in the conversation, that John was… concerned for Sherlock?
“Can I ask you how?” John continued, releasing Sherlock before adding, “You don’t have to answer, obviously.”
“Obviously I don’t,” Sherlock snapped, an automatic defence he quickly thinks better of when he sees injury flash in John’s eyes. “Though I will,” he offered, more softly. As I’m sure you suspected, it was drugs. Cocaine and then heroin, of which I am both clean of.”
“I know,” John assured, gently. “I can see. How long?”
Of course he would be able to see, he was a doctor after all. Sherlock looked away from John, attempted to pull his thoughts together and remain the cold, intellectual creature he had always been.
The one that seemed to enthral John.
“Five years, the same amount of time since I fell through the cracks.”
“That’s good,” John said with a smile. Sherlock lost brief control of himself and it did not slip past John unnoticed. “No, don’t look at me like that, it is good. Coming off heroin is hard enough with the right help and support, let alone down here and on your own. I’m surprised it didn’t kill you.”
“I was rather determined that I was not going to die,” Sherlock explained. Sometimes he suspected it was the determination alone that kept him going through the most difficult parts. “However, I wasn’t alone. I was taken in by one of the natives, a rat-speaker named Molly and she…assisted me, though more for her own benefit than mine. She was hoping to earn my gratitude.”
“And you weren’t grateful?” John asked, though Sherlock was unsure if he sounded disapproving or disbelieving.
“I was,” Sherlock said. He did not want John’s disapproval, not when for once it was not deserved. “I would mostly certainly have died in the first week if not for her care. However, once I returned to myself, it became obvious what she had in mind for repayment was not something I was willing, or able to give.”
“Oh, wow.” John’s eyes widened. “That’s a bit awkward.”
“Very much so,” Sherlock agreed. Molly had been persistent and he had not wanted to hurt her feelings, not initially at least. Not until it had become the most effective way to put an end to her extremely misplaced affections.
John was silent for several more metres. Sherlock noted the marks on the walls and mapped their location and their route until John finally said, “And what about me?”
“You saved my life, twice, I believe the balance of debt is still in your favour,” Sherlock answered. He did not say that he would in fact welcome all or any affections that John might have for him, though it was certainly a sentiment he felt.
“No.” John shook his head and stopped Sherlock again, turning to look him in the eyes through the dim light Sherlock’s light was providing. “That’s not what I meant. I want to be clear on this. There’s London Above and London Below.”
“Yes,” Sherlock agreed.
“And you can’t be part of both of them.”
“Correct,” Sherlock agreed again, watching John carefully.
Sherlock could tell John was processing all the information he had, collating it with the fact that he was with Sherlock in tunnels that did not exist in Above and that not a single person flinched when he killed a man on a busy street.
It was written all over his face the moment he came to the conclusion that his life had changed forever. That Sherlock coming into his life had changed it forever.
“And I’m part of Below now,” John said with the gravity it deserved.
“Yes,” Sherlock confirmed and hoped that John would not blame him, would not turn around and walk away. Not when Sherlock was beginning to appreciate the true, and extremely high value of what he had found. Not when there was so much more for men like Sherlock, and John, Below.
“Right. Okay. Um. Right,” John muttered, stopping again.
Sherlock hesitated for moment, before stepping forward. Mirroring John’s own earlier actions, he placed a careful hand on his arm as he asked, “Are you alright?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” John assured him, though he did not seem to believe it himself. Sherlock didn’t either. It would take time for John to see Below the way Sherlock did.
“Right. Erm, no, actually. No. I’m not,” John said, shaking his head and stepping back and away from Sherlock. “Can you give me a minute?”
Sherlock nodded and stepped back.
John bent over, rested his hands on his knees carefully so he would not over-balance with the full army rucksack on his shoulders. Sherlock watched as he took several long, deep breaths and his whole body trembled ever so slightly.
Sherlock wanted to go to him, to offer well-meant assurances and platitudes that everything would be fine, all of which John would not yet believe. Sherlock didn’t. Instead, he did as John asked and gave him what Molly had denied him.
The space he needed without letting him out of his peripheral vision.
//
The consulting detective waited as John tried to control his breathing and fought the violent urge to empty the contents of his stomach onto the floor.
He wanted to rail against the consulting detective, call him fucking mental and go back to daylight and his flat and the real world. Only, there was no real world. Not for him. Not anymore.
It should have been impossible to believe. John had never had any faith in superstition or magic, or even religion. He believed in what he could touch and see and feel.
John had known something wasn’t right the moment he’d shot the giant. When there had been no flinches or screams or sirens as a man lay dead in the street and John tended to the consulting detective with the murder weapon beside him.
He had simply allowed himself to be dragged along by the air of confidence the consulting detective was surrounded in, heady and addictive. He had followed the promise of danger and the deep, heavy pull of adrenaline and purpose in his stomach.
Only-. Wait a bloody second!
“And you were just going to leave me?” He demanded, head snapping up to glare in accusation at the consulting detective. “Knowing that no one can see me anymore, that I’m part of some mad underground world now and I wouldn’t have a bloody clue?”
“Yes,” the consulting detective said carefully, as though John were something dangerous himself, about to explode.
He was right to.
John was bloody furious. “You’re a right bastard, you know,” he said, scrubbing his hand over his face. He thought about turning around. Leaving the consulting detective to fend for himself as he’d left John.
He barely entertained the notion for more than a second.
Even if he didn’t need the consulting detective as much as he needed John - even if he didn’t know it yet - he just couldn’t. Just like he couldn’t leave Donovan bleeding out in the middle of an Afghan road, bullets flying around them from the insurgent’s ambush.
“It’s been said,” the consulting detective agreed and John had no trouble believing it.
He took a deep breath. Asked the important question. “Then why did you bother coming back?”
“You know why,” the consulting detective said. His tone sounded frustrated, though John was certain he could see a hint of a blush creeping up his cheeks in the dim light. “I realised I was wrong about you. You aren’t going to slow me down.”
“And what if you hadn’t realised? What would have happened to me? Or didn’t you think about that? Or is it that you just didn’t care?” John demanded, not satisfied.
He needed to know if there was more to it than what the consulting detective had said in his flat, what he was saying now. Or if it was little more than a cheap line and empty platitudes.
Even if there was nothing he could say that would make John leave him, he needed to know if there was a reason for him to stay with the consulting detective once this was all over.
John wanted there to be a reason to stay. Even though he was angry he couldn’t deny the way the consulting detective made him feel alive. The way his whole body had hummed when he’d pressed close in John’s flat, just how bloody brilliant he was. John didn’t want to let that go, not if there was something more. The chance of something more.
“You’re angry,” the consulting detective said, a little too calmly for John’s liking. He wondered just how seriously he was taking this. “Of course you are, and I am sorry you have been brought into this. I wanted to spare you, but, I think that perhaps you were already on the edge.”
It effectively stopped John in his tracks. “On the edge of what?” he questioned cautiously although he had a horrible feeling he already knew what the consulting detective was going to say. And he wasn’t going to like it.
The consulting detective moved closer to John, but didn’t reach out to touch him again. “Falling through. You saw me when by all rights you should have just passed me by.”
“You were collapsed in the middle of the pavement, of course I was going to bloody see you.”
“I don’t pass in your world anymore, John. None of the other people who passed me as I lost consciousness noticed, neither did those who stood near as I stumbled through the rain with a knife in my shoulder. I’m only seen when I demand a person’s attention and yet you, you noticed me and you didn’t forget me.”
There was something almost soft in the consulting detective’s voice as he stepped into John’s personal space, kept just enough distance between them so they didn’t touch. John’s heart skipped a beat, then pounded even harder behind his ribs.
“I was foolish to try and deny what had happened to you out of hope that it had not, that you were safe from this. I was even more foolish to believe that I would be better off without you. Naturally, I will understand if you want to part company and I will not try to stop you. However, I hope that you do not. I came back for a reason.”
//
There was nothing more for Sherlock to say. Nothing he was willing to, or thought John would welcome hearing, at least.
He turned, and continued his journey through the winding, senseless tunnels that made up just a small, little known part of London Below and hoped.
He had progressed perhaps thirty feet when he heard John’s footsteps. He breathed a sigh of relief. John was following. He was coming with Sherlock, even if the treads of his feet seemed to indicate that he was wary, unsure that he was making the correct choice.
//
John lost track of how long they walked through the tunnels under London. They met no one and John presumed it was directly related to his occasional sense of going around in circles. The consulting detective was making sure they weren't seen, or heard by anyone else from Below.
Every so often he'd catch the consulting detective looking at him. Just a curious, fleeting glance out the corner of his eye. John had thought he'd been imagining it, until the third time he'd caught him at it.
John was tempted to tell the consulting detective he wasn't exactly mad anymore. Just a bit disappointed. Only he probably deserved to stew a little more, even after his speech. The effects of which John was working very hard on pretending he didn’t feel.
//
They did not take the most direct route to the Floating Market.
Sherlock suspected the reason Moriarty and Moran were not following them was because they had guessed Sherlock’s intended destination. They would not violate the market truce. Not even Moriarty and Moran would take such a risk as to try and attack at the market. Not even they would escape the retribution of the people of Below.
No.
They would lay in wait and make their move outside the market. Either on his and John's approach or exit.
It called for even more caution on their journey to the market's newest location. The extra time was worth it, to ensure that they did not have to show themselves until they were within the market’s bounds, and it’s protection.
//
They daylight burned John's eyes as they climbed out of the sewer access. He raised his arm to block out the sun, high and bright in the London sky as the consulting detective closed the manhole back up with the spine-jarring scrape of metal on metal. The air was fresh and clean and cold after being trapped in the damp, stuffy tunnels of Below.
"Where are we?" John asked, squinting at the consulting detective, while his eyes tried to adapt to the sudden increase in light.
"The market," he replied and John could just make out a smirk as he nodded up at the building looming over them.
John looked up and blinked. He instantly recognised the red brick, the smoked glass and the tall, distinctive white smokestacks.
"The Tate Modern?" He said and frowned. “Since when do they have markets in the modern art museum?”
“They don’t,” the consulting detective said, pointing to the large sign that had been erected by the entrance.
Tate Modern, closed for refurbishment October 1st - 9th, we apologise for any inconvenience caused.
“Remember what we agreed about being less cryptic,” John said, catching the consulting detective by the arm again. He wasn’t just going to let the consulting detective walk into a building until he was sure it was safe.
“It is called the Floating Market, not like it’s namesake in Asia because it takes place on water, but because it’s time and location are ever-changing. In all other regards, it is like any other market. People come to buy and to sell, only this is a market for the people of Below. It is usually held at night, but it has been deemed too dangerous in the current climate, which is fortuitous for us.”
“So why are we here?” John asked, holding his ground as the consulting detective attempted to lead him towards the museum. “It can’t be safe, going into a crowded market when there are two bloody lunatics out there very keen on seeing us dead.”
The consulting detective stopped and looked John straight in the eye. He was unflinching and intimidating. John’s pulse quickened with excitement.
“There is nowhere safer, Above or Below, than inside the boundaries of the Floating Market. I promised you answers, come inside and I will tell you. Everything.”
// Part Five //