[fic: bbc sherlock] Double Cross: Chapter One
Title: Double Cross
Rating: R
Warnings (for this chapter): None
Summary: There are patriots and there are traitors, and then there is Sherlock Holmes. Cold War spy AU.
Author's Notes: irisbleufic is a saint of patience, end of story. As always, I give this with my apologies.
Prologue
One
He has the world in him.
He was born in Sussex, in the dead of a howling winter, to a pale-skinned mother and a father departed. Grey-eyed and somber, officially nonexistent. Sometimes he is named Sigerson, and smokes pipes and takes his liquor hard, and sometimes he is Sherry Vernet, soft spoken and light-fingered. He was Victor Trevor once, but those files are ash, and he claims to have deleted the incident from memory.
He speaks French like a native, speaks German like a Frenchman, Russian like an old-fashioned Muscovite. There is Italian, and Spanish, and sprinkles of languages born further east, too. Changing names and faces and nationalities comes naturally to him. He sheds skins like a snake.
And sometimes, in a blue moon, he is himself: Sherlock Holmes, thirty-five, isolated, brilliant.
‘Government employee.’
“You must’ve heard the name before.”
John turns his file over and over in his hands, careful to keep his sweaty fingertips from leaving any smudges on the thin paper. “Can’t say that I have, no,” he mutters, staring out the car window, his mouth a rigid line.
Beside him, Mike Stamford laughs, folding his arms over his chest. “No, of course not. It’s the job, you know. You sort of forget about the rest of the world, now and again. Get to assuming everybody knows what you’re talking about.”
“Dangerous habit.”
Another laugh. “You’ve changed. Gone all serious. That bad, was it?”
Bad, of course, doesn’t begin to describe it. John grits his teeth and clenches his fists, blinking rapidly, willing his breath to still.
He turns to see Mike’s round face pinched tight with concern. Sunlight is pouring into the now-stopped car. In the background, he can hear the hum of traffic as it loops around the Cambridge Circus.
“Just a job,” John says, before wrenching open the door.
He waits at the mouth of the corridor, hands in his pockets, head held high, eyes wide open. The corpse of a cigarette between his lips dribbles ash all over the floor and onto his shoes; he glances down, taps the toes of his feet against the ground. Snatches of conversation are bouncing off the walls; he picks out relevant threads, the high-pitched waver of half familiar voices.
“He told me it was authorized.”
“You need to stop trusting him. It’s a bad sort of custom to get into.”
The doors at the end of the corridor snap open, and for a moment, the light of outside glows so white all he can see is a dark, misshappen silhouette. Then it reshapes itself, separating into two, (mitosis) one of them smiling, bounding forward, hand outstretched.
The other half lingers, alone and stiff, wobbly on three legs.
“Sherlock!”
“Mike.” Sherlock loosely holds the other man’s fingers in his own for three seconds-he counts-before letting them drop. “And Dr. Watson.”
“Of course! Of course, yes, Dr. John Watson.”
“Pleasure,” says Dr. John Watson, hobbling forward. Sherlock looks him up and down, scuffed shoes to too-neat hair.
“I suppose you know by now that you’re quite the wanted commodity,” he remarks, sucking one more lungful of smoke from his cigarette before tossing it down onto the floor, crushing it with a twist of his heel. “Is the weather in Normandy as sordid as always?”
“I can’t… I can’t say I was paying much attention. Look, here’s my, um. Here’s my file.” He holds out a pathetically thin little stack of papers, settled neatly between a manila folder. “I was told you hadn’t seen it yet.”
Sherlock takes one look at the man, making it a good one. “There’s no need,” he says, dragging his eyes from top to bottom. “I know enough to be getting on with.”
Enough, of course, translates to everything. (Or does everything translate to enough?) He waits until John Watson looks suitably confused before indulging in a smile, watching as the folder is lowered and tucked under a stiff arm.
“Come this way,” Sherlock murmurs, and he sweeps down the corridor with two shadows in his wake.
Small room, terrible coffee, bad light. No window. Mr. Sherlock Holmes presses himself into the darkest corner and speaks slowly, as though he is talking to a child. John tries to concentrate, to focus his mind on what is being asked of him, but everything he thinks is contaminated with the way the metal chair digs into his thighs, and how heavy the cane feels laid across his knees.
He lifts the cup of coffee to his mouth and bravely takes a sip.
“…you decided to interrogate the German?”
“I’m sorry,” John says, cringing. “Could you say that again?”
There is a silence that throbs with impatience. “Tell me why you decided to interrogate the German,” Mr. Holmes repeats, stiffly, morosely.
“Ah. Well, um. The whole thing seemed awfully suspicious.” He stares down at his hand, sees his face reflected in a mud-colored pool. “We were told the Jerries were elsewhere, further south. It was quite the…” A cough. It will sound flippant if he says ‘surprise.’ They didn’t jump out of the grass with banners and party hats on. There’s a thought.
“Dr. Watson.”
“Quite the shock. To see them there. I thought, if I could get information, and if I lived…”
“Yes, of course. And I’m sure you’ve been suitably commended.”
A medal, gathering dust at the bottom of his drawer. He hasn’t looked at it since they gave it to him.
John clears his throat, and waits.
“This name. ‘Moriarty.’” The syllables snap and crackle their way off of the other man’s tongue. “Familiar?”
“No.”
“Another shock, was it?”
“It was certainly unexpected. Irish?”
He hears papers rustling and the scratch of fabric on fabric. “Possibly,” is Mr. Holmes’ reply, though he sounds distracted. He steps forward; John can just make out a raised wrist. “It’s getting late. Perhaps we could resume tomorrow.”
“You… still need me then?”
A sniff. “Obviously.”
Back in the corridor, eyes stinging as they readjust to the light, Sherlock digs into his pocket, removes the box of cigarettes, and sets one between his lips. Mike is clapping him on the shoulder, amiable. “Gave him a good old school grillin’, eh?”
He turns in time to see John step out, blinking, leaning heavily on his cane.
“Have a place to stay, do you?” he asks, fishing for his lighter.
“I’ve got a room. Hotel.”
“Which?”
John tells him; he laughs, says, “Nonsense.”; finds the lighter; raises it. Fwick. Deep lungful. Marvelous. “You’ll stay with me.”
The other men freeze. Mike lets loose a nervous, high pitched giggle. “Sherlock, that’s… That’s not regulation.”
“I’m protecting a business investment. This job was given to me; I intend to see it through. He’s no good to us dead. Have a bit of a gambling problem, do you?”
“How-?!”
“How I know doesn’t matter; what matters is, you’re vulnerable; all people are. I need to keep you safe; only one person I trust for the task, and that’s me.” He exhales towards the ceiling, watching a mushroom cloud form. “221-b Baker Street, seven o’ clock sharp. Or else I’ll be forced to assemble a search team.”
“I…”
“Evening!”
“Is he always like this?” John asks, hands folded, eyes lowered.
“Afraid so,” says Mike, who has the decency to look somewhat abashed.
The night is cool, but not uncomfortably so. A sharp breeze makes itself known as it rolls through the mews and alleyways and tugs at the edges of his coat, nips at his neck and cheeks. He walks with purpose, and no time to waste.
Someone else is in the phone booth when he arrives-Twenty-one, newlywed, but already five months pregnant; tch!- and so he loiters, smokes another cigarette, letting the warmth burst through him.
She leaves some minutes later in a flurry of cheap perfume and high spirits, her spare change jangling against the soft fabric her gloves. He holds the door open as she passes.
“Evening.”
“Pardon me!”
Inside, he pulls the change from his coat pocket, sliding the coins into the slot with brusque efficiency. The sputtering stub of his cigarette still clamped between his lips, he dials the number, and riases the phone to his ear.
Three rings, same as always, before there’s a click and a beat of breathless silence.
“Hello, dear!” he enthuses. “Roast for dinner, I think.”
The pause extends for a moment longer. Then a bored female voice drawls through the earpiece, “Did you find that tie, darling?”
“Yes, I did as a matter of fact. Not where I expected it to be, though- took a bit of a search.”
“Jolly good.” She coughs. “Will you be home soon?”
“Same time as usual.”
“Later, then.”
“Yes, later,” and he hangs up.
The street is growing ever busier. He steps out through the open door, not bothering to check the dispenser for change, knowing there will be none. Precision is its own reward.
He melts into the crowd.
It’s a nice place. Would be, at least, if it weren’t for the horrendous amount of dust and unpacked boxes crammed into every spare spot.
“Lots of travel in your line of work, I’m guessing?” John says, clunking up the stairs and wincing at the noise. Something about this man makes him want to hide all his weaknesses even more than usual. ‘Call me Sherlock,’ he’d said at the door. Spies. All the same. False familiarity.
The man himself turns to stare over his shoulder and drone, “How very astute of you.” Another door is pushed open. “Sitting room.”
More boxes. Books, piled high in leaning stacks. A sofa functioning as a dining table, a dining table functioning as the base of a haphazard looking chemistry lab. In the dim light, every object takes on another shape. The whole flat smells of cigarette smoke.
“Don’t. Touch. Anything,” John is told, so he sets his suitcase down, stands in the doorway and allows his new- host? flatmate? - to brush by and start knocking items about.
“It’s… cozy,” he says.
“Yes, well, let’s just pretend I’ve already apologized for the clutter and move on, shall we?” Sherlock peers out from behind a mountain of texts, a strange, guarded look in his eyes. “Guest room’s upstairs. You’ll have to produce your own sheets.”
“That’s fine.”
“Only one bathroom. But I’m sure that won’t be a problem, you being a military man.” He picks his way through the rubble and into the kitchen, where he sets about placing a dinged up kettle onto the gas stove. “Make yourself at home,” he says, rummaging through cupboards, pushing aside odd-looking jars that can’t possibly be holding food.
John, finding himself faced with the two contradictory orders to leave things be while simultaneously settling in, steps slowly into the room and sweeps it from left to right. The thin rectangles of lamplight pushing through the still-shuttered window illuminate a vast and random migration of dust motes. There are cobwebs in every corner, newspapers dating back to before the war, and a myriad of suspicious stains in the strangest of places.
“Don’t you have a cleaning lady?” he asks, tentatively removing a pile of books from the nearest armchair.
“No,” Sherlock intones. The kettle starts shrieking; he flicks off the stove and, in the same fluid movement, opens the oven door, ducking down to peer inside. John hears a few soft scraping noises, looking up in time to see the other man emerge with two mugs of dubious cleanliness in his hands.
The tea he makes tastes bland and bitter. John drinks it down out of politeness, careful to avoid the chips in the china.
“So,” he starts to say. The seat he’s in is too soft, the room too quiet, the company too surreal. Sherlock Holmes arches his eyebrows and sets his own cup down.
“Yes?”
“How long do you think you’ll need me?”
“That depends.”
John hesitates, and takes another sip of tea. “On?”
“You, of course.”
Of course. John resists the urge to roll his eyes. He steels himself, and tips the cup back all the way, kicking back the rest of the brew the way he would’ve kicked back hard liquor. It had more or less the same effect- his spine shuddered and his stomach felt like it’d just been pinched very hard from the inside. “I won’t be much use to you,” he says, tongue still prickling with the aftertaste. “I’ve told you everything I know.”
Something flickers across the other man’s face, leaving as quickly as it came. “Perhaps, perhaps not,” he says breezily. “Time will tell.”
Sherlock recommends they turn in early, saying something about having work to do in the morning. What kind, he does not specify, and John doesn’t bother wasting breath to ask.
He mounts the second set of stairs as he mounted the first, with his cane in one hand and his suitcase in the other. His room is small and bare, the way he likes it, with a window opposite the door. Silently, John lays his case open on the floor and spreads his sheets upon the bed, then spreads himself upon the sheets.
It is dark, it is cool. Outside, the traffic moves.
He dozes.
Some hours later, John wakes from the burning image of a gaping mouth filled to the brim with bluebottles and dried blood. There are voices downstairs.
“…not sanctioned; what were you thinking…”
“…necessary… likes of you to understand…”
“…back at the Circus by morning…”
A door slams shut. John turns and buries his face into the mattress, welcoming the corpse back into his head.
Rating: R
Warnings (for this chapter): None
Summary: There are patriots and there are traitors, and then there is Sherlock Holmes. Cold War spy AU.
Author's Notes: irisbleufic is a saint of patience, end of story. As always, I give this with my apologies.
Prologue
One
He has the world in him.
He was born in Sussex, in the dead of a howling winter, to a pale-skinned mother and a father departed. Grey-eyed and somber, officially nonexistent. Sometimes he is named Sigerson, and smokes pipes and takes his liquor hard, and sometimes he is Sherry Vernet, soft spoken and light-fingered. He was Victor Trevor once, but those files are ash, and he claims to have deleted the incident from memory.
He speaks French like a native, speaks German like a Frenchman, Russian like an old-fashioned Muscovite. There is Italian, and Spanish, and sprinkles of languages born further east, too. Changing names and faces and nationalities comes naturally to him. He sheds skins like a snake.
And sometimes, in a blue moon, he is himself: Sherlock Holmes, thirty-five, isolated, brilliant.
‘Government employee.’
“You must’ve heard the name before.”
John turns his file over and over in his hands, careful to keep his sweaty fingertips from leaving any smudges on the thin paper. “Can’t say that I have, no,” he mutters, staring out the car window, his mouth a rigid line.
Beside him, Mike Stamford laughs, folding his arms over his chest. “No, of course not. It’s the job, you know. You sort of forget about the rest of the world, now and again. Get to assuming everybody knows what you’re talking about.”
“Dangerous habit.”
Another laugh. “You’ve changed. Gone all serious. That bad, was it?”
Bad, of course, doesn’t begin to describe it. John grits his teeth and clenches his fists, blinking rapidly, willing his breath to still.
He turns to see Mike’s round face pinched tight with concern. Sunlight is pouring into the now-stopped car. In the background, he can hear the hum of traffic as it loops around the Cambridge Circus.
“Just a job,” John says, before wrenching open the door.
He waits at the mouth of the corridor, hands in his pockets, head held high, eyes wide open. The corpse of a cigarette between his lips dribbles ash all over the floor and onto his shoes; he glances down, taps the toes of his feet against the ground. Snatches of conversation are bouncing off the walls; he picks out relevant threads, the high-pitched waver of half familiar voices.
“He told me it was authorized.”
“You need to stop trusting him. It’s a bad sort of custom to get into.”
The doors at the end of the corridor snap open, and for a moment, the light of outside glows so white all he can see is a dark, misshappen silhouette. Then it reshapes itself, separating into two, (mitosis) one of them smiling, bounding forward, hand outstretched.
The other half lingers, alone and stiff, wobbly on three legs.
“Sherlock!”
“Mike.” Sherlock loosely holds the other man’s fingers in his own for three seconds-he counts-before letting them drop. “And Dr. Watson.”
“Of course! Of course, yes, Dr. John Watson.”
“Pleasure,” says Dr. John Watson, hobbling forward. Sherlock looks him up and down, scuffed shoes to too-neat hair.
“I suppose you know by now that you’re quite the wanted commodity,” he remarks, sucking one more lungful of smoke from his cigarette before tossing it down onto the floor, crushing it with a twist of his heel. “Is the weather in Normandy as sordid as always?”
“I can’t… I can’t say I was paying much attention. Look, here’s my, um. Here’s my file.” He holds out a pathetically thin little stack of papers, settled neatly between a manila folder. “I was told you hadn’t seen it yet.”
Sherlock takes one look at the man, making it a good one. “There’s no need,” he says, dragging his eyes from top to bottom. “I know enough to be getting on with.”
Enough, of course, translates to everything. (Or does everything translate to enough?) He waits until John Watson looks suitably confused before indulging in a smile, watching as the folder is lowered and tucked under a stiff arm.
“Come this way,” Sherlock murmurs, and he sweeps down the corridor with two shadows in his wake.
Small room, terrible coffee, bad light. No window. Mr. Sherlock Holmes presses himself into the darkest corner and speaks slowly, as though he is talking to a child. John tries to concentrate, to focus his mind on what is being asked of him, but everything he thinks is contaminated with the way the metal chair digs into his thighs, and how heavy the cane feels laid across his knees.
He lifts the cup of coffee to his mouth and bravely takes a sip.
“…you decided to interrogate the German?”
“I’m sorry,” John says, cringing. “Could you say that again?”
There is a silence that throbs with impatience. “Tell me why you decided to interrogate the German,” Mr. Holmes repeats, stiffly, morosely.
“Ah. Well, um. The whole thing seemed awfully suspicious.” He stares down at his hand, sees his face reflected in a mud-colored pool. “We were told the Jerries were elsewhere, further south. It was quite the…” A cough. It will sound flippant if he says ‘surprise.’ They didn’t jump out of the grass with banners and party hats on. There’s a thought.
“Dr. Watson.”
“Quite the shock. To see them there. I thought, if I could get information, and if I lived…”
“Yes, of course. And I’m sure you’ve been suitably commended.”
A medal, gathering dust at the bottom of his drawer. He hasn’t looked at it since they gave it to him.
John clears his throat, and waits.
“This name. ‘Moriarty.’” The syllables snap and crackle their way off of the other man’s tongue. “Familiar?”
“No.”
“Another shock, was it?”
“It was certainly unexpected. Irish?”
He hears papers rustling and the scratch of fabric on fabric. “Possibly,” is Mr. Holmes’ reply, though he sounds distracted. He steps forward; John can just make out a raised wrist. “It’s getting late. Perhaps we could resume tomorrow.”
“You… still need me then?”
A sniff. “Obviously.”
Back in the corridor, eyes stinging as they readjust to the light, Sherlock digs into his pocket, removes the box of cigarettes, and sets one between his lips. Mike is clapping him on the shoulder, amiable. “Gave him a good old school grillin’, eh?”
He turns in time to see John step out, blinking, leaning heavily on his cane.
“Have a place to stay, do you?” he asks, fishing for his lighter.
“I’ve got a room. Hotel.”
“Which?”
John tells him; he laughs, says, “Nonsense.”; finds the lighter; raises it. Fwick. Deep lungful. Marvelous. “You’ll stay with me.”
The other men freeze. Mike lets loose a nervous, high pitched giggle. “Sherlock, that’s… That’s not regulation.”
“I’m protecting a business investment. This job was given to me; I intend to see it through. He’s no good to us dead. Have a bit of a gambling problem, do you?”
“How-?!”
“How I know doesn’t matter; what matters is, you’re vulnerable; all people are. I need to keep you safe; only one person I trust for the task, and that’s me.” He exhales towards the ceiling, watching a mushroom cloud form. “221-b Baker Street, seven o’ clock sharp. Or else I’ll be forced to assemble a search team.”
“I…”
“Evening!”
“Is he always like this?” John asks, hands folded, eyes lowered.
“Afraid so,” says Mike, who has the decency to look somewhat abashed.
The night is cool, but not uncomfortably so. A sharp breeze makes itself known as it rolls through the mews and alleyways and tugs at the edges of his coat, nips at his neck and cheeks. He walks with purpose, and no time to waste.
Someone else is in the phone booth when he arrives-Twenty-one, newlywed, but already five months pregnant; tch!- and so he loiters, smokes another cigarette, letting the warmth burst through him.
She leaves some minutes later in a flurry of cheap perfume and high spirits, her spare change jangling against the soft fabric her gloves. He holds the door open as she passes.
“Evening.”
“Pardon me!”
Inside, he pulls the change from his coat pocket, sliding the coins into the slot with brusque efficiency. The sputtering stub of his cigarette still clamped between his lips, he dials the number, and riases the phone to his ear.
Three rings, same as always, before there’s a click and a beat of breathless silence.
“Hello, dear!” he enthuses. “Roast for dinner, I think.”
The pause extends for a moment longer. Then a bored female voice drawls through the earpiece, “Did you find that tie, darling?”
“Yes, I did as a matter of fact. Not where I expected it to be, though- took a bit of a search.”
“Jolly good.” She coughs. “Will you be home soon?”
“Same time as usual.”
“Later, then.”
“Yes, later,” and he hangs up.
The street is growing ever busier. He steps out through the open door, not bothering to check the dispenser for change, knowing there will be none. Precision is its own reward.
He melts into the crowd.
It’s a nice place. Would be, at least, if it weren’t for the horrendous amount of dust and unpacked boxes crammed into every spare spot.
“Lots of travel in your line of work, I’m guessing?” John says, clunking up the stairs and wincing at the noise. Something about this man makes him want to hide all his weaknesses even more than usual. ‘Call me Sherlock,’ he’d said at the door. Spies. All the same. False familiarity.
The man himself turns to stare over his shoulder and drone, “How very astute of you.” Another door is pushed open. “Sitting room.”
More boxes. Books, piled high in leaning stacks. A sofa functioning as a dining table, a dining table functioning as the base of a haphazard looking chemistry lab. In the dim light, every object takes on another shape. The whole flat smells of cigarette smoke.
“Don’t. Touch. Anything,” John is told, so he sets his suitcase down, stands in the doorway and allows his new- host? flatmate? - to brush by and start knocking items about.
“It’s… cozy,” he says.
“Yes, well, let’s just pretend I’ve already apologized for the clutter and move on, shall we?” Sherlock peers out from behind a mountain of texts, a strange, guarded look in his eyes. “Guest room’s upstairs. You’ll have to produce your own sheets.”
“That’s fine.”
“Only one bathroom. But I’m sure that won’t be a problem, you being a military man.” He picks his way through the rubble and into the kitchen, where he sets about placing a dinged up kettle onto the gas stove. “Make yourself at home,” he says, rummaging through cupboards, pushing aside odd-looking jars that can’t possibly be holding food.
John, finding himself faced with the two contradictory orders to leave things be while simultaneously settling in, steps slowly into the room and sweeps it from left to right. The thin rectangles of lamplight pushing through the still-shuttered window illuminate a vast and random migration of dust motes. There are cobwebs in every corner, newspapers dating back to before the war, and a myriad of suspicious stains in the strangest of places.
“Don’t you have a cleaning lady?” he asks, tentatively removing a pile of books from the nearest armchair.
“No,” Sherlock intones. The kettle starts shrieking; he flicks off the stove and, in the same fluid movement, opens the oven door, ducking down to peer inside. John hears a few soft scraping noises, looking up in time to see the other man emerge with two mugs of dubious cleanliness in his hands.
The tea he makes tastes bland and bitter. John drinks it down out of politeness, careful to avoid the chips in the china.
“So,” he starts to say. The seat he’s in is too soft, the room too quiet, the company too surreal. Sherlock Holmes arches his eyebrows and sets his own cup down.
“Yes?”
“How long do you think you’ll need me?”
“That depends.”
John hesitates, and takes another sip of tea. “On?”
“You, of course.”
Of course. John resists the urge to roll his eyes. He steels himself, and tips the cup back all the way, kicking back the rest of the brew the way he would’ve kicked back hard liquor. It had more or less the same effect- his spine shuddered and his stomach felt like it’d just been pinched very hard from the inside. “I won’t be much use to you,” he says, tongue still prickling with the aftertaste. “I’ve told you everything I know.”
Something flickers across the other man’s face, leaving as quickly as it came. “Perhaps, perhaps not,” he says breezily. “Time will tell.”
Sherlock recommends they turn in early, saying something about having work to do in the morning. What kind, he does not specify, and John doesn’t bother wasting breath to ask.
He mounts the second set of stairs as he mounted the first, with his cane in one hand and his suitcase in the other. His room is small and bare, the way he likes it, with a window opposite the door. Silently, John lays his case open on the floor and spreads his sheets upon the bed, then spreads himself upon the sheets.
It is dark, it is cool. Outside, the traffic moves.
He dozes.
Some hours later, John wakes from the burning image of a gaping mouth filled to the brim with bluebottles and dried blood. There are voices downstairs.
“…not sanctioned; what were you thinking…”
“…necessary… likes of you to understand…”
“…back at the Circus by morning…”
A door slams shut. John turns and buries his face into the mattress, welcoming the corpse back into his head.