Fic for slashykink: Surfacing
Title: Surfacing
Recipient: slashykink
Author: machshefa
Characters/Pairings: John/Sherlock
Rating: R
Warnings: None
Summary: He’s here. Of course he is. He can no more stay away than can I.
But my vision blurs, and I know this must be a dream because I’ve come for Moriarty, but it’s John who steps out to greet me.
Surfacing
Lights flicker in the distance; with glittering eyes, the city beckons me to come out of the dark. But I have important work to do and no seduction on earth could draw me away.
The heavy door swings open even before I touch it as if it, too, accepts the inevitability of my goal.
The pool is smaller than I remember, the air, damper. Every sound echoes, ricocheting off slippery tiles like bullets racing to find their targets. My heart pounds in my ears, and it’s all I can do to keep my breathing steady.
He’s here. Of course he is. He can no more stay away than can I.
But my vision blurs, and I know this must be a dream because I’ve come for Moriarty, but it’s John who steps out to greet me.
John? No. It can’t be. He can’t be John.
Everything freezes. If I were capable of turning my head, I’m sure I would see the pool thick with ice, all its secrets trapped beneath the slick surface.
But I cannot move. I’m immobile and John fills the space where my challenger should stand. Before I can speak, the walls behind him melt away and early evening sun spills onto the scuffed concrete floor.
The pool isn’t tiled anymore; it’s bounded by reeds and mud and rocks.
And now I am seven years old. Seven years, eight months and twelve days, precisely.
I am not seven years old, I’m thirty-four, but suddenly, I am seven and am under water. The lake by our house is warm, but I’m cold, the fading sunlight only dimly reaching me here so far below the surface, the little rowboat bobbing above me, tethered to the shore, just out of reach.
He’d thrown my sextant into the water for no good reason. Only because Mummy sent him to bring me home for bed, but I’m not tired.
“Go away, Mycroft,” I’d shouted and stamped my way across the long grass and into the shallow water.
The floor of the lake is slippery, and my sextant is coated in mud. I love the feeling of soft earth in my hands and between my toes. I’d given it hardly a moment’s thought before flinging my body into the water.
Mummy will be angry. My clothes will undoubtedly be soiled beyond repair, but I don’t care. My instrument is more important. It had been my father’s and grandfather’s before him. Father believed I would appreciate a tool to chart the heavens, that the cosmos would make far more sense to me than the movement of humans here below.
It’s nearly twilight and I am about to miss my chance to chart the appearance of Jupiter in the night sky. I will see it. I will, and no big brother, no matter how bossy, can make me leave my sextant here drowning in mud and cloudy water.
I can almost hear Mycroft’s shout when my head dips below the surface without warning. It’s as if the earth below has dropped away, sucking me downdowndown to the bottom of the lake.
It happens too quickly for me to cry out, so Mycroft’s voice will have to do.
In a moment (far too long… feels like an eternity), arms wrap around my body and pull me, lifting me up and out. I think he’s yelling again, but I can only hear the rushing in my head and the whoosh of water behind my harsh gasps for air.
“You’re fine,” he insists, despite all evidence to the contrary. “You’re an idiot, but you’re fine.”
But I’m not. Not an idiot (am I not?) and certainly not fine.
The world collapses around me, and only one thought tethers me to earth.
Dreams never reveal themselves to us whole.
~~**~~
“He’s awake.”
Mycroft.
John’s hand slips around my wrist, unnecessarily checking my pulse. Even I can hear the steady rhythm of the monitor behind the bed.
He’s touching me. Looking for a reason to touch me. Until tonight, I would have welcomed his touch.
Why, John? Why?
I flinch.
“Are you in pain?” he asks, voice warm and concerned.
I am not fooled, but I am also not a fool.
“’m fine,” I say and pull my arm away, tucking it safely beneath the blanket.
John looks puzzled, but Mycroft has his usual mask in place.
Supercilious. Vaguely annoyed.
At least there is one thing in this room about which I can be secure.
John is saying something to me, his words tumbling into the air between us, but I can’t hear a sound beneath the rushing water.
~~**~~
Starlight slips through my window and takes me back with her, long arms twining around me until I’m standing in that white room again, this time, surrounded by water.
John stands across from me in a Westwood suit.
My arm is extended, my sextant in hand, pointing at him as if it were a weapon.
“Run, Sherlock!”
It’s John’s voice.
“Sherlock, run!”
But I’m confused. The sound of the sextant crashing into the water when I drop it blows through the walls, and I am under water again.
Strong arms lift me to safety. I am dripping wet and gasping for air.
**
It feels like the first breath after being submerged nearly too long. I might be able to open my eyes soon; I only need another moment.
“Awake?”
From twilight sleep the voice fills me, and I breathe even more deeply. For an instant, I am bathed in sunlight.
Safe.
And then, I surface again and remember.
“Nearly,” I say.
“Does anything hurt?” he asks me.
Everything. I don’t say it out loud.
I shake my head and catch his eye.
Guileless. Concerned. Unflinching. How is he unflinching?
There’s a flicker of something else I can’t discern, and it’s gone before I can chase it down.
“I…” He clears his throat and that wrinkle pops up on his forehead. “We nearly lost you.” For an instant, he looks bereft, as if the loss of me would be tragic.
Of course it would. The game would end were I to die.
“Nonsense,” I say. “I’m fine.” I try to sit up but the bed is stuck. John props some pillows behind me, and I hold my breath until he steps back.
“He got away,” John says. His brow is furrowed. “I thought it would have been the first thing you’d ask when you woke up.”
He?
My confusion must show (damn these painkillers), and John’s scowl deepens.
“Do you know what I’m talking about, Sherlock?”
“Of course I do,” I huff.
But he’s pulled out a small torch from his pocket and is examining my eyes, one at a time, shining the light into them as if he might discern precisely what I do and don’t know by examination alone.
“Mildly concussed,” he mutters. “But we knew that.” He folds his arms across his chest, and despite it all, I can’t help but feel that tug at the centre of my chest.
The expression on his face is a nearly perfect approximation of someone who cares, who is worried, fretting over one who matters to him.
Me.
How astonishing.
It’s because of my confusion. It must be. Forgetting what I know, or maybe not caring enough, despite it all.
I tell him the truth. (That makes one of us, then.)
“There may be some holes in my memory of that night.”
John frowns.
“What do you mean, holes?” he asks, and his voice is too sharp. “What do you remember?”
I shake my head.
“Just tell me what happened,” I say. His lies will show me what’s real. Lies always do.
He’s fidgeting. How unlike the John I thought I knew. Irritable, yes. Impatient, at times. Fidgety? Nervous?
Never.
Now. Show me how well you hide your truths.
**
But John doesn’t appear to be hiding anything, unless it’s buried beneath ruddy cheeks and a great deal of yelling.
“I know you think you’re invincible,” he’s saying, well, shouting, “but what the hell were you doing, going off alone to meet that maniac-not telling anybody what you were about?” He’s glaring at me but his expression softens for an instant. “Do you remember? Sherlock?”
I’m vaguely surprised a nurse hasn’t come barrelling in to see what the ruckus is about. Perhaps he’s not actually as loud as he seems. My head does hurt quite a lot.
This bit, I do remember.
“I’m a grown man,” I tell him. “I hardly answer to you. And besides, you had your own plans that night, if I’m not mistaken.”
John drops his gaze just for an instant and my eyes narrow.
Guilt. There it is.
I knew it.
“Well, my plans for the evening went about as far off track as plans can possibly go,” he says, and he sounds weary.
I am silent.
“Why didn’t you run? I told you to run.” His voice is raspy, and I’m confused.
Run?
His hand has inched closer to mine on the blanket. It looks as if he wants to take it between his, to keep it there. (Keep it (me) safe.)
No.
I hold my breath.
I blink and move my hand beneath the covers.
Away.
John turns his back to me, taking deep breaths. His shoulders shudder with the effort and my stomach twists into knots.
“I have to go,” he says, and before I can respond, he’s gone.
~~**~~
I’m drifting again.
I’m lying in a little rowboat at the centre of the inlet (at the sea… it happened at the sea, not at the lake), soaking up the last bit of light before twilight falls.
I have my sextant affixed to the side of the boat, ready to sight the horizon and find the first twilight star just as soon as the sun begins to set.
My arms and legs are spread wide, soaking in the sun and the summer air. I am happy and even though I am afloat, I am grounded by the sounds and smells of the water and the birds and the cheese roll Mummy made me take for lunch that’s lying half-eaten in the crumpled paper on the floor.
There’s shouting in the distance and a loud pop like a car backfiring, but I don’t lift my head. Mummy and Father are at the house we’ve rented for the hols and if they want me, Mycroft will be along soon enough.
I must have dozed, I think, because next thing I hear is Mycroft’s voice.
“Sherlock!”
I lift one leg into the air and wave my foot at him.
“Sherlock!”
Maybe he didn’t see me. I wave the other foot, too.
“Sherlock, hurry! You have to come. Now, Sherlock!”
My heart starts to pound. This is not Mycroft’s bossy voice. I don’t recognise this voice at all.
I sit up. He is calling to me from the shore. His face is red, and it might not be just from running to fetch me.
I’m standing now, and the rowboat is rocking and listing and now I’m in the water. No, I’m under the water, and I can’t breathe, and I can’t find the surface.
The water churns with chunks of debris all around. My arms are flailing and for a moment, I’m sure there is another body here with me beneath the surface. But I am alone. I know I am. I am always alone.
If I don’t find air soon, I will never know what it means when Mycroft uses that voice.
But air finds me, and it’s another broken voice that calls my name (Do I recognize it? I recognize it. How do I recognise it?) and steady hands that wring the moisture from my lungs and bring me more air.
And then it’s Mycroft and his bossy voice (never thought I would ever be relieved to hear it, but I am, especially over that other one) and unpractised arms around me.
“I need my sextant,” I gasp between sucking in great gulping breaths. “It’s still on the boat.”
“Forget the boat,” he says. “Forget the sextant.” His voice cracks, and I know it’s not because he’s worried about the loss of my instrument or ruining my plans.
“It’s mine,” I insist. “I need it.” How else will I ever make sense of the ebb and flow of the universe?
But the boat has sunk below the surface of the water, undoubtedly making its way to the murky bottom. Sinking into the silt. (Sunk, not thrown. But he wouldn’t let me go after it and now it’s gone.)
Lost.
I kick and I hit and I fight him when he tells me. I scream until my voice is raw, and I call him a liar even though I know he’s not. The noises collide in my head-explosions and raging water and high-pitched laughter and “Run! Sherlock, run!” until my own screams drown them all out and I don’t have to listen anymore.
When they put my father into the ground, I imagine my sextant, buried deep beneath the sea.
I never go back to find it.
~~**~~
He’s sitting in the corner of the room when I open my eyes. His head is bowed, and he is staring blankly at the clasped hands resting in his lap.
He looks defeated.
I look at him. Really look, and for a moment I remember how it felt (so long ago… it’s been so very long since I deleted everything I once knew about the movement of the night sky) to finally find an elusive star emerging just above the horizon.
“John?”
He looks up.
It’s John.
“I’m confused,” I tell him.
He nods, and a flash of grief flies across his face.
“What’s the last thing you remember, Sherlock?” he asks, but I think he already knows.
“I remember you stepping out of the stall at the pool. And then everything goes blurry and then it goes black.”
He nods and takes another deep breath. I can’t tell if he’s struggling not to break down or to not scream at me.
Why would he want to scream at me? I’m not the one who might be Moriarty.
“So,” he says, very slowly, “the last thing you remember is walking into the building, expecting to meet Moriarty. And out I come. Is that right?”
“Right.”
“Right,” he echoes.
He turns away from me and for a moment, I think he’s going to leave again.
Oh. He is angry.
“And you’ve allowed me to be here with you, alone, without raising the alarm? Thinking that I’m Moriarty?”
Well, yes. I suppose I have.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Sherlock? Do you have no sense of self-preservation at all?”
It takes me a moment to understand what he means.
“I wasn’t sure,” I explain. “I’ve been confused.”
“All you had to do was tell your brother your suspicions and I’d be… oh, hell, who even knows where I’d be by now.”
True.
“You wanted to figure it out.”
Maybe.
“You wanted to catch me… catch him, yourself.”
I had, yes.
But that’s not it. I shake my head and close my eyes, trying to think. To remember.
“All I know is that you’re dangerous,” I say without thinking.
He snorts and looks away.
“Then why am I still here?” He turns to me again, and his jaw is tight.
“I haven’t sorted it out yet,” I say, and I know I need him to stay. Not to go away. Not until I understand.
“If you think I’m dangerous to you, I can’t stay here, Sherlock,” he says. “I know I’m not, but if you don’t… I can’t. I just can’t.” His voice breaks and it reminds me of Mycroft’s that day so long ago.
Oh, god.
My head is in my hands (they’re shaking so hard), and John is at my side again despite what he’d just said.
I can’t hear what he’s asking me. The pounding in my head is fierce, like the whoosh of water beating against you when you’re submerged too deeply. Somebody is moaning, and someone (John?) injects medicine into my IV until finally the pounding stops enough for me to open my eyes just a bit.
I’m clutching John’s hand now, and in a flash, I see his arms wrapped around Moriarty’s neck.
Sherlock, run!
Words and images are coming to the surface (“You’ve rather shown your hand there, Dr Watson.”), flooding me, overflowing, and I can’t stop them. I don’t want to stop them, what’s the difference, now?
“He took you,” I’m saying, and I remember now. I remember it all. John, red lights dancing over his heart, showing me what it would look like to lose everything. “You let him take you away. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
“Who, Sherlock? Who didn’t you get to say goodbye to?”
“You,” I say. But it’s not just John. I know it’s not. “He was going to kill you, and I never would have been able to say goodbye. Not properly.”
“But he didn’t kill me, Sherlock. I’m here. I’m all right.”
He’s right. He’s here. He’s safe.
But I’m not. I’ll never be safe again, not knowing what I know. Not now that I realise who he is to me. What it means.
“It’s not safe,” I say.
We thought it was safe. I thought the danger had passed. Idiot. I should know better than to let down my guard.
But it’s too late now. I know it as surely as I know that John would throw himself into danger for me again without a second thought. As surely as I know I would do the same for him.
“What if he takes you again? What if something happens to you?” I’d die. I would. I’m sure of it. I nearly had (had wanted to, really) when Father-
“Is that what makes me dangerous, Sherlock?”
“What?”
“When was the last time you cared about what happened to someone?”
The last time?
I close my eyes and see the twilit sky, the moon rising. I remember the warmth of my father’s body standing behind me, his patient voice, and his gentle touch, guiding my hands as we (together, the two of us) explored the night sky.
“When I was seven years old,” I say, and I have to swallow past the tightness in my throat, “my father gave me a sextant. He taught me to chart the movement of the stars.”
~~**~~
I’m clinging to him now, but I’m too exhausted to be embarrassed. (Feels as if I’ve been turned inside out, to be honest.)
He’d climbed into the bed with me right after I told him about how I’d split Mycroft’s lip when he’d come to find me that day. Nobody commented on it, not even at the funeral when we’d been polished up like a matched set, standing like statues at the graveside.
“Did they catch the one who did it?”
I nod. “He didn’t even try to get away.” So intent was he on killing my father, himself a willing sacrifice along the way. “My father was a diplomat. We’d only recently returned to England.”
I pause for the obvious.
John sighs.
“You can say it. ‘Not a very good one, apparently.’ Or maybe, ‘A Holmes? A diplomat?’ That’s what they usually say. One or the other.”
John cups my cheek with his hand and turns my face so that we’re eye to eye. His eyes are such a deep blue. There’s just the narrowest strip of colour ringing pupils wide and deep as the night, as if he’d opened the doors to his soul so I could see. So I’d know for sure.
“He was your father.”
There’s that knot in my throat again, so I just nod.
“He understood me.”
John smiles.
“Such a gift,” he says.
I look at him. I can see now how tired he is. How worn from the effort of caring for me. But there is a light in his eyes, and it smooths away the lines of fatigue and I think I might finally understand.
“Priceless.” I had felt its absence like a physical wound for so very long. It would be unbearable to lose it again.
“Yes.” The word woven into a whisper of air.
“I couldn’t run, John.” He has to know. Has to understand. “I would never leave you there like that. Never.”
He blinks, and I lean in to brush my lips against his eyelids, one at a time. A benediction. A vow.
“Don’t ever run from me, even if I tell you to,” he whispers. “Please. Just don’t.”
I cannot speak. I can only hold him (as he’d held me), his body trembling, shivering with all the power of the spoken and unspoken alike.
When finally, his mouth finds mine, I fall headfirst into the danger… of wanting. Of needing. Of trusting.
His tongue brushes against my lips and the moan comes from deep inside my belly. My arms wrap around him, pulling him flush against my body (I can’t get close enough), and his hands are hot against the skin of my back beneath the hospital gown.
His skin is warm beneath my mouth (mine… mine), and I lean forward to drink him in, every bit of him.
He tastes of saltwater and starlight.
~fin
~~**~~
Recipient: slashykink
Author: machshefa
Characters/Pairings: John/Sherlock
Rating: R
Warnings: None
Summary: He’s here. Of course he is. He can no more stay away than can I.
But my vision blurs, and I know this must be a dream because I’ve come for Moriarty, but it’s John who steps out to greet me.
Surfacing
Lights flicker in the distance; with glittering eyes, the city beckons me to come out of the dark. But I have important work to do and no seduction on earth could draw me away.
The heavy door swings open even before I touch it as if it, too, accepts the inevitability of my goal.
The pool is smaller than I remember, the air, damper. Every sound echoes, ricocheting off slippery tiles like bullets racing to find their targets. My heart pounds in my ears, and it’s all I can do to keep my breathing steady.
He’s here. Of course he is. He can no more stay away than can I.
But my vision blurs, and I know this must be a dream because I’ve come for Moriarty, but it’s John who steps out to greet me.
John? No. It can’t be. He can’t be John.
Everything freezes. If I were capable of turning my head, I’m sure I would see the pool thick with ice, all its secrets trapped beneath the slick surface.
But I cannot move. I’m immobile and John fills the space where my challenger should stand. Before I can speak, the walls behind him melt away and early evening sun spills onto the scuffed concrete floor.
The pool isn’t tiled anymore; it’s bounded by reeds and mud and rocks.
And now I am seven years old. Seven years, eight months and twelve days, precisely.
I am not seven years old, I’m thirty-four, but suddenly, I am seven and am under water. The lake by our house is warm, but I’m cold, the fading sunlight only dimly reaching me here so far below the surface, the little rowboat bobbing above me, tethered to the shore, just out of reach.
He’d thrown my sextant into the water for no good reason. Only because Mummy sent him to bring me home for bed, but I’m not tired.
“Go away, Mycroft,” I’d shouted and stamped my way across the long grass and into the shallow water.
The floor of the lake is slippery, and my sextant is coated in mud. I love the feeling of soft earth in my hands and between my toes. I’d given it hardly a moment’s thought before flinging my body into the water.
Mummy will be angry. My clothes will undoubtedly be soiled beyond repair, but I don’t care. My instrument is more important. It had been my father’s and grandfather’s before him. Father believed I would appreciate a tool to chart the heavens, that the cosmos would make far more sense to me than the movement of humans here below.
It’s nearly twilight and I am about to miss my chance to chart the appearance of Jupiter in the night sky. I will see it. I will, and no big brother, no matter how bossy, can make me leave my sextant here drowning in mud and cloudy water.
I can almost hear Mycroft’s shout when my head dips below the surface without warning. It’s as if the earth below has dropped away, sucking me downdowndown to the bottom of the lake.
It happens too quickly for me to cry out, so Mycroft’s voice will have to do.
In a moment (far too long… feels like an eternity), arms wrap around my body and pull me, lifting me up and out. I think he’s yelling again, but I can only hear the rushing in my head and the whoosh of water behind my harsh gasps for air.
“You’re fine,” he insists, despite all evidence to the contrary. “You’re an idiot, but you’re fine.”
But I’m not. Not an idiot (am I not?) and certainly not fine.
The world collapses around me, and only one thought tethers me to earth.
Dreams never reveal themselves to us whole.
~~**~~
“He’s awake.”
Mycroft.
John’s hand slips around my wrist, unnecessarily checking my pulse. Even I can hear the steady rhythm of the monitor behind the bed.
He’s touching me. Looking for a reason to touch me. Until tonight, I would have welcomed his touch.
Why, John? Why?
I flinch.
“Are you in pain?” he asks, voice warm and concerned.
I am not fooled, but I am also not a fool.
“’m fine,” I say and pull my arm away, tucking it safely beneath the blanket.
John looks puzzled, but Mycroft has his usual mask in place.
Supercilious. Vaguely annoyed.
At least there is one thing in this room about which I can be secure.
John is saying something to me, his words tumbling into the air between us, but I can’t hear a sound beneath the rushing water.
~~**~~
Starlight slips through my window and takes me back with her, long arms twining around me until I’m standing in that white room again, this time, surrounded by water.
John stands across from me in a Westwood suit.
My arm is extended, my sextant in hand, pointing at him as if it were a weapon.
“Run, Sherlock!”
It’s John’s voice.
“Sherlock, run!”
But I’m confused. The sound of the sextant crashing into the water when I drop it blows through the walls, and I am under water again.
Strong arms lift me to safety. I am dripping wet and gasping for air.
**
It feels like the first breath after being submerged nearly too long. I might be able to open my eyes soon; I only need another moment.
“Awake?”
From twilight sleep the voice fills me, and I breathe even more deeply. For an instant, I am bathed in sunlight.
Safe.
And then, I surface again and remember.
“Nearly,” I say.
“Does anything hurt?” he asks me.
Everything. I don’t say it out loud.
I shake my head and catch his eye.
Guileless. Concerned. Unflinching. How is he unflinching?
There’s a flicker of something else I can’t discern, and it’s gone before I can chase it down.
“I…” He clears his throat and that wrinkle pops up on his forehead. “We nearly lost you.” For an instant, he looks bereft, as if the loss of me would be tragic.
Of course it would. The game would end were I to die.
“Nonsense,” I say. “I’m fine.” I try to sit up but the bed is stuck. John props some pillows behind me, and I hold my breath until he steps back.
“He got away,” John says. His brow is furrowed. “I thought it would have been the first thing you’d ask when you woke up.”
He?
My confusion must show (damn these painkillers), and John’s scowl deepens.
“Do you know what I’m talking about, Sherlock?”
“Of course I do,” I huff.
But he’s pulled out a small torch from his pocket and is examining my eyes, one at a time, shining the light into them as if he might discern precisely what I do and don’t know by examination alone.
“Mildly concussed,” he mutters. “But we knew that.” He folds his arms across his chest, and despite it all, I can’t help but feel that tug at the centre of my chest.
The expression on his face is a nearly perfect approximation of someone who cares, who is worried, fretting over one who matters to him.
Me.
How astonishing.
It’s because of my confusion. It must be. Forgetting what I know, or maybe not caring enough, despite it all.
I tell him the truth. (That makes one of us, then.)
“There may be some holes in my memory of that night.”
John frowns.
“What do you mean, holes?” he asks, and his voice is too sharp. “What do you remember?”
I shake my head.
“Just tell me what happened,” I say. His lies will show me what’s real. Lies always do.
He’s fidgeting. How unlike the John I thought I knew. Irritable, yes. Impatient, at times. Fidgety? Nervous?
Never.
Now. Show me how well you hide your truths.
**
But John doesn’t appear to be hiding anything, unless it’s buried beneath ruddy cheeks and a great deal of yelling.
“I know you think you’re invincible,” he’s saying, well, shouting, “but what the hell were you doing, going off alone to meet that maniac-not telling anybody what you were about?” He’s glaring at me but his expression softens for an instant. “Do you remember? Sherlock?”
I’m vaguely surprised a nurse hasn’t come barrelling in to see what the ruckus is about. Perhaps he’s not actually as loud as he seems. My head does hurt quite a lot.
This bit, I do remember.
“I’m a grown man,” I tell him. “I hardly answer to you. And besides, you had your own plans that night, if I’m not mistaken.”
John drops his gaze just for an instant and my eyes narrow.
Guilt. There it is.
I knew it.
“Well, my plans for the evening went about as far off track as plans can possibly go,” he says, and he sounds weary.
I am silent.
“Why didn’t you run? I told you to run.” His voice is raspy, and I’m confused.
Run?
His hand has inched closer to mine on the blanket. It looks as if he wants to take it between his, to keep it there. (Keep it (me) safe.)
No.
I hold my breath.
I blink and move my hand beneath the covers.
Away.
John turns his back to me, taking deep breaths. His shoulders shudder with the effort and my stomach twists into knots.
“I have to go,” he says, and before I can respond, he’s gone.
~~**~~
I’m drifting again.
I’m lying in a little rowboat at the centre of the inlet (at the sea… it happened at the sea, not at the lake), soaking up the last bit of light before twilight falls.
I have my sextant affixed to the side of the boat, ready to sight the horizon and find the first twilight star just as soon as the sun begins to set.
My arms and legs are spread wide, soaking in the sun and the summer air. I am happy and even though I am afloat, I am grounded by the sounds and smells of the water and the birds and the cheese roll Mummy made me take for lunch that’s lying half-eaten in the crumpled paper on the floor.
There’s shouting in the distance and a loud pop like a car backfiring, but I don’t lift my head. Mummy and Father are at the house we’ve rented for the hols and if they want me, Mycroft will be along soon enough.
I must have dozed, I think, because next thing I hear is Mycroft’s voice.
“Sherlock!”
I lift one leg into the air and wave my foot at him.
“Sherlock!”
Maybe he didn’t see me. I wave the other foot, too.
“Sherlock, hurry! You have to come. Now, Sherlock!”
My heart starts to pound. This is not Mycroft’s bossy voice. I don’t recognise this voice at all.
I sit up. He is calling to me from the shore. His face is red, and it might not be just from running to fetch me.
I’m standing now, and the rowboat is rocking and listing and now I’m in the water. No, I’m under the water, and I can’t breathe, and I can’t find the surface.
The water churns with chunks of debris all around. My arms are flailing and for a moment, I’m sure there is another body here with me beneath the surface. But I am alone. I know I am. I am always alone.
If I don’t find air soon, I will never know what it means when Mycroft uses that voice.
But air finds me, and it’s another broken voice that calls my name (Do I recognize it? I recognize it. How do I recognise it?) and steady hands that wring the moisture from my lungs and bring me more air.
And then it’s Mycroft and his bossy voice (never thought I would ever be relieved to hear it, but I am, especially over that other one) and unpractised arms around me.
“I need my sextant,” I gasp between sucking in great gulping breaths. “It’s still on the boat.”
“Forget the boat,” he says. “Forget the sextant.” His voice cracks, and I know it’s not because he’s worried about the loss of my instrument or ruining my plans.
“It’s mine,” I insist. “I need it.” How else will I ever make sense of the ebb and flow of the universe?
But the boat has sunk below the surface of the water, undoubtedly making its way to the murky bottom. Sinking into the silt. (Sunk, not thrown. But he wouldn’t let me go after it and now it’s gone.)
Lost.
I kick and I hit and I fight him when he tells me. I scream until my voice is raw, and I call him a liar even though I know he’s not. The noises collide in my head-explosions and raging water and high-pitched laughter and “Run! Sherlock, run!” until my own screams drown them all out and I don’t have to listen anymore.
When they put my father into the ground, I imagine my sextant, buried deep beneath the sea.
I never go back to find it.
~~**~~
He’s sitting in the corner of the room when I open my eyes. His head is bowed, and he is staring blankly at the clasped hands resting in his lap.
He looks defeated.
I look at him. Really look, and for a moment I remember how it felt (so long ago… it’s been so very long since I deleted everything I once knew about the movement of the night sky) to finally find an elusive star emerging just above the horizon.
“John?”
He looks up.
It’s John.
“I’m confused,” I tell him.
He nods, and a flash of grief flies across his face.
“What’s the last thing you remember, Sherlock?” he asks, but I think he already knows.
“I remember you stepping out of the stall at the pool. And then everything goes blurry and then it goes black.”
He nods and takes another deep breath. I can’t tell if he’s struggling not to break down or to not scream at me.
Why would he want to scream at me? I’m not the one who might be Moriarty.
“So,” he says, very slowly, “the last thing you remember is walking into the building, expecting to meet Moriarty. And out I come. Is that right?”
“Right.”
“Right,” he echoes.
He turns away from me and for a moment, I think he’s going to leave again.
Oh. He is angry.
“And you’ve allowed me to be here with you, alone, without raising the alarm? Thinking that I’m Moriarty?”
Well, yes. I suppose I have.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Sherlock? Do you have no sense of self-preservation at all?”
It takes me a moment to understand what he means.
“I wasn’t sure,” I explain. “I’ve been confused.”
“All you had to do was tell your brother your suspicions and I’d be… oh, hell, who even knows where I’d be by now.”
True.
“You wanted to figure it out.”
Maybe.
“You wanted to catch me… catch him, yourself.”
I had, yes.
But that’s not it. I shake my head and close my eyes, trying to think. To remember.
“All I know is that you’re dangerous,” I say without thinking.
He snorts and looks away.
“Then why am I still here?” He turns to me again, and his jaw is tight.
“I haven’t sorted it out yet,” I say, and I know I need him to stay. Not to go away. Not until I understand.
“If you think I’m dangerous to you, I can’t stay here, Sherlock,” he says. “I know I’m not, but if you don’t… I can’t. I just can’t.” His voice breaks and it reminds me of Mycroft’s that day so long ago.
Oh, god.
My head is in my hands (they’re shaking so hard), and John is at my side again despite what he’d just said.
I can’t hear what he’s asking me. The pounding in my head is fierce, like the whoosh of water beating against you when you’re submerged too deeply. Somebody is moaning, and someone (John?) injects medicine into my IV until finally the pounding stops enough for me to open my eyes just a bit.
I’m clutching John’s hand now, and in a flash, I see his arms wrapped around Moriarty’s neck.
Sherlock, run!
Words and images are coming to the surface (“You’ve rather shown your hand there, Dr Watson.”), flooding me, overflowing, and I can’t stop them. I don’t want to stop them, what’s the difference, now?
“He took you,” I’m saying, and I remember now. I remember it all. John, red lights dancing over his heart, showing me what it would look like to lose everything. “You let him take you away. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
“Who, Sherlock? Who didn’t you get to say goodbye to?”
“You,” I say. But it’s not just John. I know it’s not. “He was going to kill you, and I never would have been able to say goodbye. Not properly.”
“But he didn’t kill me, Sherlock. I’m here. I’m all right.”
He’s right. He’s here. He’s safe.
But I’m not. I’ll never be safe again, not knowing what I know. Not now that I realise who he is to me. What it means.
“It’s not safe,” I say.
We thought it was safe. I thought the danger had passed. Idiot. I should know better than to let down my guard.
But it’s too late now. I know it as surely as I know that John would throw himself into danger for me again without a second thought. As surely as I know I would do the same for him.
“What if he takes you again? What if something happens to you?” I’d die. I would. I’m sure of it. I nearly had (had wanted to, really) when Father-
“Is that what makes me dangerous, Sherlock?”
“What?”
“When was the last time you cared about what happened to someone?”
The last time?
I close my eyes and see the twilit sky, the moon rising. I remember the warmth of my father’s body standing behind me, his patient voice, and his gentle touch, guiding my hands as we (together, the two of us) explored the night sky.
“When I was seven years old,” I say, and I have to swallow past the tightness in my throat, “my father gave me a sextant. He taught me to chart the movement of the stars.”
~~**~~
I’m clinging to him now, but I’m too exhausted to be embarrassed. (Feels as if I’ve been turned inside out, to be honest.)
He’d climbed into the bed with me right after I told him about how I’d split Mycroft’s lip when he’d come to find me that day. Nobody commented on it, not even at the funeral when we’d been polished up like a matched set, standing like statues at the graveside.
“Did they catch the one who did it?”
I nod. “He didn’t even try to get away.” So intent was he on killing my father, himself a willing sacrifice along the way. “My father was a diplomat. We’d only recently returned to England.”
I pause for the obvious.
John sighs.
“You can say it. ‘Not a very good one, apparently.’ Or maybe, ‘A Holmes? A diplomat?’ That’s what they usually say. One or the other.”
John cups my cheek with his hand and turns my face so that we’re eye to eye. His eyes are such a deep blue. There’s just the narrowest strip of colour ringing pupils wide and deep as the night, as if he’d opened the doors to his soul so I could see. So I’d know for sure.
“He was your father.”
There’s that knot in my throat again, so I just nod.
“He understood me.”
John smiles.
“Such a gift,” he says.
I look at him. I can see now how tired he is. How worn from the effort of caring for me. But there is a light in his eyes, and it smooths away the lines of fatigue and I think I might finally understand.
“Priceless.” I had felt its absence like a physical wound for so very long. It would be unbearable to lose it again.
“Yes.” The word woven into a whisper of air.
“I couldn’t run, John.” He has to know. Has to understand. “I would never leave you there like that. Never.”
He blinks, and I lean in to brush my lips against his eyelids, one at a time. A benediction. A vow.
“Don’t ever run from me, even if I tell you to,” he whispers. “Please. Just don’t.”
I cannot speak. I can only hold him (as he’d held me), his body trembling, shivering with all the power of the spoken and unspoken alike.
When finally, his mouth finds mine, I fall headfirst into the danger… of wanting. Of needing. Of trusting.
His tongue brushes against my lips and the moan comes from deep inside my belly. My arms wrap around him, pulling him flush against my body (I can’t get close enough), and his hands are hot against the skin of my back beneath the hospital gown.
His skin is warm beneath my mouth (mine… mine), and I lean forward to drink him in, every bit of him.
He tastes of saltwater and starlight.
~fin
~~**~~