Secondary Exposure: 4
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
John was keenly aware that they were excavating a murder victim a mere stone's throw from some one's yard; he could hear children squealing over the baritone boom of what he assumed to be their father. Sherlock was crouched low over the shallow grave, examining the remains of Charlie Bradford, who had disappeared two years ago, and who's skull, along with his left clavicle and several vertebrae, had been viciously bashed in. Sherlock was enthralled, naturally.
"Doesn't it bother you?" Donovan had asked, though not unkindly.
"Yes," John said. In order to maintain his composure today he had carefully and with bullheaded determination cordoned off any of the feelings which had threatened to overwhelm him all weekend. In any case, he noted, when he had been at Bart's he had been no different from Sherlock, really. John and everyone he knew had coveted medical anomalies the way Sherlock coveted curious crimes, so it was hypocritical to judge him for it. John congratulated himself on this newly unearthed equanimity.
Sherlock's weekend had been spent largely combing the wooded areas of Greater London on Google Maps, he'd said. After determining which of them best suited the killer's MO, he had investigated further on foot. Out near Bell Common he had discovered an abandoned out-building that had featured the tell tale stress marks on the wooden cross beam, as though some heavy object had been suspended there by a coarse, low grade rope. Today, the sixth body had been discovered roughly one hundred yards from this structure.
Today, for the first and probably only time, Donovan was more vocal in her displeasure with John's presence than Sherlock's. Her concern was misplaced, because John was preoccupied with Sherlock's health at the moment. As expected, he had managed only a few mouthfuls of soup before lapsing into nervous silence, blue eyes wide and staring intently into something no one else could see. John wished he had some frame of reference for a healthy looking Sherlock, cured of the anemic pallor, so he could tell if he looked sick today. John suspected he did.
Sherlock rose abruptly and turned a tight circle where he stood, nose to the air as though scenting out clues. He made a beeline for John and hustled him to the tree line, and in a moment they were striding across some one's backyard, up the porch steps, and Sherlock was shoving something into John's hands - Lestrade's badge and I.D. - and saying, "Deal with this." John turned and faced a man who had bounded after them, the presumed owner of the house. His stunned children were immobilized on the swings as their father dealt with the two strange men who had so audaciously intruded upon his private property. John flicked open the badge. "Scotland Yard," he said.
The man stuttered to a halt. There was a muffled shriek when Sherlock encountered a woman inside, and John stared steadily at the man, internally cursing his flatmate and fumbling for a way to make what they were doing sound remotely legal.
"There's been a murder," he explained. "We have reason to believe that...this house contains critical evidence." That sounded good.
"Have you got a warrant?" the man demanded.
"No." He wasn't actually with Scotland Yard, either, he didn't say. This was seven different types of illegal. John flipped the badge closed and followed Sherlock inside. He was in the dining room, a large, airy space with hardwood floors, a central carpet, and a large mahogany dining table. Quite nice, actually. Sherlock briskly paced the perimeter, examined the base boards and window sills.
"What the fuck is going on?" The man had followed John into the house. He was tall and thin, going a bit bald, though he couldn't have been much past thirty. His wife seemed to have taken off. In the yard, probably, with the kids. "I haven't killed anyone."
"The floors are new in this room only," Sherlock said. "Why?"
"Look," John said. "We know you haven't killed anyone. You're not under, um, suspicion, or anything like that, but it's vitally important that you cooperate. There are lives at stake." Which was kind of true, probably. John had achieved a kind of distant, floaty feeling about the whole thing. The man looked between John and Sherlock.
"Can I get your badge number?"
"No time! Tell me about the floor." Sherlock was craning his neck now to inspect the ceiling, spinning to catch various angles.
"Of course," John said, and pulled put Lestrade's badge again. He kept up his game of confidence while the man retrieved a pen and copied down the number. As long as he didn't closely examine the photo, John and Lestrade looked passingly similar. At this point Sherlock had climbed onto the table and was running his fingers over a certain spot on the ceiling.
"What was here when you bought the house?"
Placated slightly but still confused, the man answered, "A hook. For a chandelier, I imagine. How did you - "
"Far too large for a chandelier hook. It was probably industrial, steel. That's why you took it down. Was it screwed in fully?"
"N - no. How - what?"
Sherlock jumped down from the table. "The floor is new," he repeated.
"We had to put it in when we bought the place - "
"When? Why?"
"Almost two years ago. Some vandals got in and poured paints and solvent on it. It was ruined."
Sherlock's brow wrinkled. "Solvent." He looked about the room again. "These things were stored in the house, prior to the sale."
"I don't know - yes, actually. They were in the hall closet."
"Good. Thank you." Sherlock swept out of the room, and with a nod to the poor gentleman, John followed.
He had to jog to catch up with Sherlock, who looked to be heading straight for the cab they had left waiting. "So?" he said, when he had come abreast. "What was all that? Just so I know when Lestrade arrests me tomorrow."
Sherlock was panting lightly and a thin sheen of perspiration had broken out across his brow and upper lip. He swallowed thickly. "It was too far," he breathed, stuttered and began again. "The body was too far from the shack. That house was empty two years ago. New paint, new mailbox, new parents." He swallowed again.
"Are you alright?"
Sherlock took a shallow breath. "It was unexpected. The boy woke up while the killer was preparing the hook. He hadn't secured him to anything, the struggle was violent, the boy would have bled a great deal. He disposed of the body quickly, hence the shallow grave, the proximity to the house. He returned to cover up the blood. He used what he could find in the house. It was unplanned, careless. Why was he careless?" He asked this of himself, and lapsed into a silence that wouldn't be broken for most of the cab ride back to London, which Sherlock had better be billing to Scotland Yard; the fare was astronomical.
In the cab Sherlock pulled his feet up on the seat, curled in towards his knees and stared fixedly at nothing. Twenty minutes later, when he had begun to tremble slightly, John placed a hand on his clammy forehead and took his pulse at the wrist. It was light and quick, skimming through his veins, and John's stomach turned over. At the flat he had only checked the one arm for patches. He pulled up Sherlock's other sleeve and found two more on the smooth skin at the crook of his elbow. John cursed feebly and tore them off. That made eight, altogether.
"Are you wearing any more of these? Sherlock?"
Sherlock didn't answer. His nostrils dilated as he sucked in quick breaths through his nose.
"I said, are you wearing any more of these? Answer me!"
Sherlock twitched his head in an approximation of no. John felt himself beginning to panic. "We have to get you to a hospital." He leaned forward to tell the driver, but Sherlock superseded him with a firm denial.
"It's fine," he added.
"No, it's not fine! It is so fucking far from fine, Sherlock." John's voice choked off. He turned away and tried to steady himself, but was hit instead with a flood of images, Charlie Bradford, fifteen years old, his cooling body curled beneath the earth. Himself, running blindly into the forest, slipping, cracking his head against a rock. He saw flashes of memories, men in Afghanistan who'd had their jaws blown off, their muscles shredded from their bones, their skulls caved in in explosions; all of them dead, bled out into the ground miles from home, miles away from anyone who loved them.
"Okay," John said. His eyes were clenched tightly shut and he forced himself to open them. "Okay." Until they reached London, there was nothing to be done. Afghanistan was behind him. Theydon Bois was behind him. Charlie Bradford, Jackson Long, those boys were dead already. John reached again for Sherlock's wrist, seeking out his pulse once more. There it was, skittering beneath the skin. Everything else was insignificant.
"You're a bloody idiot," John shouted from the cab. Upon pulling up outside 221, Sherlock had handed John his card, leaped from the cab, blanched, swooned, and caught himself, then hurried up to the flat while John was still waiting for the payment to process. When John finally caught up with him he was already whipping about the sitting room, two fingers to each temple, muttering breathlessly to himself, "think, think!" John stood in the doorway at an utter loss. He wanted to cry. Instead he trudged up to his bedroom and dug out a small bottle of prescription pills from his nightstand. They still had a few months left on them; after moving into 221B, he had never bothered to renew his prescription. In the kitchen he crushed one into a glass of milk, then stood watching Sherlock in all his frenzy.
"His seventh victim, including John. Why did that happen? He knew how long he had. He wanted it to happen." He stopped in front of the map, fingers steepled before his lips. "He beat the first, the seventh, John - "
"He didn't hit me," John said. Sherlock jerked around to face him, and he continued cautiously, prodding the edges of the faint memory which had arisen in the cab. He forgot for the moment the task he had set himself. "I slipped. When I ran. I slid and cracked my head on a rock. I threw up. I don't know why I didn't remember until now. Is that important?"
Sherlock blinked at him, hard. Swaying a bit, he turned back to the map, and John remembered about his milk. He threaded through the mess on the floor and stood beside Sherlock, whose breaths were still shallow and irregular. He shouldn't have said anything about the sudden recollection, not today. He had spoken before realizing the consequence.
"Drink this," John told him, and was ignored. "Sherlock, I'm your doctor. You need to get something into your stomach, alright? I'm not making you eat actual food, so please just drink the milk." Sherlock snatched it from him and downed it in a matter of seconds. He handed the glass back to John without speaking, and John slowly returned to the kitchen.
"If he didn't hit you, then he kept you unconscious chemically. You would have awoken in the car, you would remember, unless he did know how quickly it would wear off, and he dosed you again. He was driving. He was...driving. In the car." Sherlock wiped his mouth on the back of his shaking hand and stared at the floor. John watched him from the kitchen. It was ten minutes of increasingly meandering tangents before Sherlock collapsed against the table, struggling weakly to support himself. "Oh, you bastard," he hissed. John caught him under the arms and towed him to the couch, arranging his long limbs to fit there comfortably. In a moment he was completely unconscious.
"I'm sorry," John murmured, and stroked his hair. He sat down in the hollow formed between Sherlock's stomach and knees, and then he did cry, crouched tightly forward, his knuckles pressed against his teeth, because he was in love and it hurt.
The day was waning. A light cloud cover had cast the city into premature twilight, and 221B grew steadily darker. Still John sat nestled against Sherlock, and when he had brought himself under control, he drew his friend's wrist into his lap, checking again for the pulse. It had leveled out considerably since the cab, and John wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. He fetched the spare blanket and draped it over Sherlock, and as an afterthought, tugged off his shoes as well. He would hopefully sleep at least until tomorrow.
John glanced at the ruin Sherlock had wrought of the flat, then poured a glass of milk for himself. He felt weak and empty, like a rag that'd had all the water wrung out. He retreated to the hall, settled down on the stairs to his room, and called his sister.
He tried to play it off, at first, asking Harry about her life as though they had spoken at any point in the last six months. Finally she said, "What is it, John?" and he balked.
"Do you remember," he began, and breathed. "Do you remember the time when...um, when I was abducted?"
Harry was silent for a long time. "Yes."
John groped for words. He wasn't sure why he had actually called, now that it was too late.
"John," Harry prompted.
"Right, well, it turns out that that was a serial killer, and a lot of bodies have turned up recently, from him, and I was wondering if perhaps I said anything that you can recall that may have been important that I don't remember, because...um...I don't seem to remember anything useful, and they haven't caught him yet, so I thought perhaps I said something back then...that you recall. That might be useful."
Another long silence descended over the line. John was folded onto the second step, elbows tucked against his body and his forehead brushing the wall.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly. He felt like a child. "I know that was a long time ago - "
"I was thinking," Harry said. John heard the chink of ice in the glass as it was raised close to the phone. "I can't really remember too much about that, John."
"Right." John nodded dumbly. "Sorry."
"You were...you acted like you had a hangover. Didn't say much. You had a headache. You also had about fifteen stitches in the back of your head, so no surprise there."
"Was there anything unusual, though? Like, you thought was odd."
Harry paused for another drink. What was it, four on a Sunday? "You followed me around a lot."
John felt the tightness return to his throat. "Sorry."
"What the fuck are you sorry about? You've got nothing to be sorry for."
When he was sixteen, after all the questions, after the photographs, examinations, and reports, he had latched onto Harry, who would either smoke in silence or talk about the upcoming football championships, never about what had happened. She had been nineteen at the time and living at home, working part time at the local pharmacy. When their parents announced their intention to move to Manchester, Harry had refused to come. They hadn't really spoken after that.
"You said he's been killing people this whole time? How many?"
"They've found six so far."
"Well what about that detective bloke you've shacked up with, hasn't he done anything?"
"We're working on it."
"Christ. Jesus fucking Christ, Johnny." When she spoke again her voice was tremulous. "You acted like you were hungover, so I pretended that's all it was. I was a real bastard, John, I'm sorry."
It was almost entirely dark in the hall now. John rested his head against his knees. "You don't have to be sorry. I did mess up your life a bit."
"Don't you fucking apologise to me, John. That's mental." Clink clink, the ice on the glass. John could tell she was crying - a first in the thirty-six years he'd known her. There was a restive pause while she collected herself. "You went off onions afterwards. I remember that."
"What?"
"I remember because it irritated the life out of me. You used to eat them."
Onions. He ate them now, though he didn't go out of his way to use them if he cooked. He vaguely recalled not liking them when he was younger, but it wasn't associated with anything in his mind. That was strange, it was the sort of thing Sherlock would want to know when he woke up.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"No. I'll call if I remember something. And you didn't mess up my life, alright?"
"Yeah. Okay."
"I mean it, John. I was being selfish. I should have come with you to Manchester. I'm sorry."
John sighed. "It was a long time ago, Harry."
"It doesn't matter. I was a bitch, I still am. I was really angry with you. And it wasn't your fault. I was really angry." She was crying again. That at nineteen Harry had opted to stay behind should have come as no surprise: she'd never gotten on with their parents. But John had been terrified. He'd needed her. He'd looked up to her for a long time. God, that was so long ago. "And this detective, he's good, yeah?"
"Yeah. Really good. The best."
"If I remember something I'll ring you. Have you talked to Mum?"
"No."
"Do you intend to?"
John was silent.
"I'll ask if she remembers anything, alright?"
"Okay. Yeah, thanks, Harry. That would be great, actually." John had begun to work a fingernail into the seam of the phone casing. His bum was sore from sitting on the wooden step. "I've got to get going," he said.
"Alright."
When he had hung up the phone, John returned the sofa. He leaned back against Sherlock and checked his pulse one more time, then held onto the long, cool hand because Sherlock was unconscious and couldn't protest. Tomorrow he would wake up, pick up where he'd left off: the same whirlwind of nervous energy. He would be furious, too, John knew. He buried his fingers in the curls at the nape of Sherlock's neck. They were damp, and John fanned them out against the cushion. For a moment he thought he would cry again out of sheer exhaustion, but he didn't. He looked up at the ceiling; pretended that Sherlock was asleep instead of unconscious, that what John was doing was fine, because he needed it to be, just for right now.
Chapter Five
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
John was keenly aware that they were excavating a murder victim a mere stone's throw from some one's yard; he could hear children squealing over the baritone boom of what he assumed to be their father. Sherlock was crouched low over the shallow grave, examining the remains of Charlie Bradford, who had disappeared two years ago, and who's skull, along with his left clavicle and several vertebrae, had been viciously bashed in. Sherlock was enthralled, naturally.
"Doesn't it bother you?" Donovan had asked, though not unkindly.
"Yes," John said. In order to maintain his composure today he had carefully and with bullheaded determination cordoned off any of the feelings which had threatened to overwhelm him all weekend. In any case, he noted, when he had been at Bart's he had been no different from Sherlock, really. John and everyone he knew had coveted medical anomalies the way Sherlock coveted curious crimes, so it was hypocritical to judge him for it. John congratulated himself on this newly unearthed equanimity.
Sherlock's weekend had been spent largely combing the wooded areas of Greater London on Google Maps, he'd said. After determining which of them best suited the killer's MO, he had investigated further on foot. Out near Bell Common he had discovered an abandoned out-building that had featured the tell tale stress marks on the wooden cross beam, as though some heavy object had been suspended there by a coarse, low grade rope. Today, the sixth body had been discovered roughly one hundred yards from this structure.
Today, for the first and probably only time, Donovan was more vocal in her displeasure with John's presence than Sherlock's. Her concern was misplaced, because John was preoccupied with Sherlock's health at the moment. As expected, he had managed only a few mouthfuls of soup before lapsing into nervous silence, blue eyes wide and staring intently into something no one else could see. John wished he had some frame of reference for a healthy looking Sherlock, cured of the anemic pallor, so he could tell if he looked sick today. John suspected he did.
Sherlock rose abruptly and turned a tight circle where he stood, nose to the air as though scenting out clues. He made a beeline for John and hustled him to the tree line, and in a moment they were striding across some one's backyard, up the porch steps, and Sherlock was shoving something into John's hands - Lestrade's badge and I.D. - and saying, "Deal with this." John turned and faced a man who had bounded after them, the presumed owner of the house. His stunned children were immobilized on the swings as their father dealt with the two strange men who had so audaciously intruded upon his private property. John flicked open the badge. "Scotland Yard," he said.
The man stuttered to a halt. There was a muffled shriek when Sherlock encountered a woman inside, and John stared steadily at the man, internally cursing his flatmate and fumbling for a way to make what they were doing sound remotely legal.
"There's been a murder," he explained. "We have reason to believe that...this house contains critical evidence." That sounded good.
"Have you got a warrant?" the man demanded.
"No." He wasn't actually with Scotland Yard, either, he didn't say. This was seven different types of illegal. John flipped the badge closed and followed Sherlock inside. He was in the dining room, a large, airy space with hardwood floors, a central carpet, and a large mahogany dining table. Quite nice, actually. Sherlock briskly paced the perimeter, examined the base boards and window sills.
"What the fuck is going on?" The man had followed John into the house. He was tall and thin, going a bit bald, though he couldn't have been much past thirty. His wife seemed to have taken off. In the yard, probably, with the kids. "I haven't killed anyone."
"The floors are new in this room only," Sherlock said. "Why?"
"Look," John said. "We know you haven't killed anyone. You're not under, um, suspicion, or anything like that, but it's vitally important that you cooperate. There are lives at stake." Which was kind of true, probably. John had achieved a kind of distant, floaty feeling about the whole thing. The man looked between John and Sherlock.
"Can I get your badge number?"
"No time! Tell me about the floor." Sherlock was craning his neck now to inspect the ceiling, spinning to catch various angles.
"Of course," John said, and pulled put Lestrade's badge again. He kept up his game of confidence while the man retrieved a pen and copied down the number. As long as he didn't closely examine the photo, John and Lestrade looked passingly similar. At this point Sherlock had climbed onto the table and was running his fingers over a certain spot on the ceiling.
"What was here when you bought the house?"
Placated slightly but still confused, the man answered, "A hook. For a chandelier, I imagine. How did you - "
"Far too large for a chandelier hook. It was probably industrial, steel. That's why you took it down. Was it screwed in fully?"
"N - no. How - what?"
Sherlock jumped down from the table. "The floor is new," he repeated.
"We had to put it in when we bought the place - "
"When? Why?"
"Almost two years ago. Some vandals got in and poured paints and solvent on it. It was ruined."
Sherlock's brow wrinkled. "Solvent." He looked about the room again. "These things were stored in the house, prior to the sale."
"I don't know - yes, actually. They were in the hall closet."
"Good. Thank you." Sherlock swept out of the room, and with a nod to the poor gentleman, John followed.
He had to jog to catch up with Sherlock, who looked to be heading straight for the cab they had left waiting. "So?" he said, when he had come abreast. "What was all that? Just so I know when Lestrade arrests me tomorrow."
Sherlock was panting lightly and a thin sheen of perspiration had broken out across his brow and upper lip. He swallowed thickly. "It was too far," he breathed, stuttered and began again. "The body was too far from the shack. That house was empty two years ago. New paint, new mailbox, new parents." He swallowed again.
"Are you alright?"
Sherlock took a shallow breath. "It was unexpected. The boy woke up while the killer was preparing the hook. He hadn't secured him to anything, the struggle was violent, the boy would have bled a great deal. He disposed of the body quickly, hence the shallow grave, the proximity to the house. He returned to cover up the blood. He used what he could find in the house. It was unplanned, careless. Why was he careless?" He asked this of himself, and lapsed into a silence that wouldn't be broken for most of the cab ride back to London, which Sherlock had better be billing to Scotland Yard; the fare was astronomical.
In the cab Sherlock pulled his feet up on the seat, curled in towards his knees and stared fixedly at nothing. Twenty minutes later, when he had begun to tremble slightly, John placed a hand on his clammy forehead and took his pulse at the wrist. It was light and quick, skimming through his veins, and John's stomach turned over. At the flat he had only checked the one arm for patches. He pulled up Sherlock's other sleeve and found two more on the smooth skin at the crook of his elbow. John cursed feebly and tore them off. That made eight, altogether.
"Are you wearing any more of these? Sherlock?"
Sherlock didn't answer. His nostrils dilated as he sucked in quick breaths through his nose.
"I said, are you wearing any more of these? Answer me!"
Sherlock twitched his head in an approximation of no. John felt himself beginning to panic. "We have to get you to a hospital." He leaned forward to tell the driver, but Sherlock superseded him with a firm denial.
"It's fine," he added.
"No, it's not fine! It is so fucking far from fine, Sherlock." John's voice choked off. He turned away and tried to steady himself, but was hit instead with a flood of images, Charlie Bradford, fifteen years old, his cooling body curled beneath the earth. Himself, running blindly into the forest, slipping, cracking his head against a rock. He saw flashes of memories, men in Afghanistan who'd had their jaws blown off, their muscles shredded from their bones, their skulls caved in in explosions; all of them dead, bled out into the ground miles from home, miles away from anyone who loved them.
"Okay," John said. His eyes were clenched tightly shut and he forced himself to open them. "Okay." Until they reached London, there was nothing to be done. Afghanistan was behind him. Theydon Bois was behind him. Charlie Bradford, Jackson Long, those boys were dead already. John reached again for Sherlock's wrist, seeking out his pulse once more. There it was, skittering beneath the skin. Everything else was insignificant.
"You're a bloody idiot," John shouted from the cab. Upon pulling up outside 221, Sherlock had handed John his card, leaped from the cab, blanched, swooned, and caught himself, then hurried up to the flat while John was still waiting for the payment to process. When John finally caught up with him he was already whipping about the sitting room, two fingers to each temple, muttering breathlessly to himself, "think, think!" John stood in the doorway at an utter loss. He wanted to cry. Instead he trudged up to his bedroom and dug out a small bottle of prescription pills from his nightstand. They still had a few months left on them; after moving into 221B, he had never bothered to renew his prescription. In the kitchen he crushed one into a glass of milk, then stood watching Sherlock in all his frenzy.
"His seventh victim, including John. Why did that happen? He knew how long he had. He wanted it to happen." He stopped in front of the map, fingers steepled before his lips. "He beat the first, the seventh, John - "
"He didn't hit me," John said. Sherlock jerked around to face him, and he continued cautiously, prodding the edges of the faint memory which had arisen in the cab. He forgot for the moment the task he had set himself. "I slipped. When I ran. I slid and cracked my head on a rock. I threw up. I don't know why I didn't remember until now. Is that important?"
Sherlock blinked at him, hard. Swaying a bit, he turned back to the map, and John remembered about his milk. He threaded through the mess on the floor and stood beside Sherlock, whose breaths were still shallow and irregular. He shouldn't have said anything about the sudden recollection, not today. He had spoken before realizing the consequence.
"Drink this," John told him, and was ignored. "Sherlock, I'm your doctor. You need to get something into your stomach, alright? I'm not making you eat actual food, so please just drink the milk." Sherlock snatched it from him and downed it in a matter of seconds. He handed the glass back to John without speaking, and John slowly returned to the kitchen.
"If he didn't hit you, then he kept you unconscious chemically. You would have awoken in the car, you would remember, unless he did know how quickly it would wear off, and he dosed you again. He was driving. He was...driving. In the car." Sherlock wiped his mouth on the back of his shaking hand and stared at the floor. John watched him from the kitchen. It was ten minutes of increasingly meandering tangents before Sherlock collapsed against the table, struggling weakly to support himself. "Oh, you bastard," he hissed. John caught him under the arms and towed him to the couch, arranging his long limbs to fit there comfortably. In a moment he was completely unconscious.
"I'm sorry," John murmured, and stroked his hair. He sat down in the hollow formed between Sherlock's stomach and knees, and then he did cry, crouched tightly forward, his knuckles pressed against his teeth, because he was in love and it hurt.
The day was waning. A light cloud cover had cast the city into premature twilight, and 221B grew steadily darker. Still John sat nestled against Sherlock, and when he had brought himself under control, he drew his friend's wrist into his lap, checking again for the pulse. It had leveled out considerably since the cab, and John wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. He fetched the spare blanket and draped it over Sherlock, and as an afterthought, tugged off his shoes as well. He would hopefully sleep at least until tomorrow.
John glanced at the ruin Sherlock had wrought of the flat, then poured a glass of milk for himself. He felt weak and empty, like a rag that'd had all the water wrung out. He retreated to the hall, settled down on the stairs to his room, and called his sister.
He tried to play it off, at first, asking Harry about her life as though they had spoken at any point in the last six months. Finally she said, "What is it, John?" and he balked.
"Do you remember," he began, and breathed. "Do you remember the time when...um, when I was abducted?"
Harry was silent for a long time. "Yes."
John groped for words. He wasn't sure why he had actually called, now that it was too late.
"John," Harry prompted.
"Right, well, it turns out that that was a serial killer, and a lot of bodies have turned up recently, from him, and I was wondering if perhaps I said anything that you can recall that may have been important that I don't remember, because...um...I don't seem to remember anything useful, and they haven't caught him yet, so I thought perhaps I said something back then...that you recall. That might be useful."
Another long silence descended over the line. John was folded onto the second step, elbows tucked against his body and his forehead brushing the wall.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly. He felt like a child. "I know that was a long time ago - "
"I was thinking," Harry said. John heard the chink of ice in the glass as it was raised close to the phone. "I can't really remember too much about that, John."
"Right." John nodded dumbly. "Sorry."
"You were...you acted like you had a hangover. Didn't say much. You had a headache. You also had about fifteen stitches in the back of your head, so no surprise there."
"Was there anything unusual, though? Like, you thought was odd."
Harry paused for another drink. What was it, four on a Sunday? "You followed me around a lot."
John felt the tightness return to his throat. "Sorry."
"What the fuck are you sorry about? You've got nothing to be sorry for."
When he was sixteen, after all the questions, after the photographs, examinations, and reports, he had latched onto Harry, who would either smoke in silence or talk about the upcoming football championships, never about what had happened. She had been nineteen at the time and living at home, working part time at the local pharmacy. When their parents announced their intention to move to Manchester, Harry had refused to come. They hadn't really spoken after that.
"You said he's been killing people this whole time? How many?"
"They've found six so far."
"Well what about that detective bloke you've shacked up with, hasn't he done anything?"
"We're working on it."
"Christ. Jesus fucking Christ, Johnny." When she spoke again her voice was tremulous. "You acted like you were hungover, so I pretended that's all it was. I was a real bastard, John, I'm sorry."
It was almost entirely dark in the hall now. John rested his head against his knees. "You don't have to be sorry. I did mess up your life a bit."
"Don't you fucking apologise to me, John. That's mental." Clink clink, the ice on the glass. John could tell she was crying - a first in the thirty-six years he'd known her. There was a restive pause while she collected herself. "You went off onions afterwards. I remember that."
"What?"
"I remember because it irritated the life out of me. You used to eat them."
Onions. He ate them now, though he didn't go out of his way to use them if he cooked. He vaguely recalled not liking them when he was younger, but it wasn't associated with anything in his mind. That was strange, it was the sort of thing Sherlock would want to know when he woke up.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"No. I'll call if I remember something. And you didn't mess up my life, alright?"
"Yeah. Okay."
"I mean it, John. I was being selfish. I should have come with you to Manchester. I'm sorry."
John sighed. "It was a long time ago, Harry."
"It doesn't matter. I was a bitch, I still am. I was really angry with you. And it wasn't your fault. I was really angry." She was crying again. That at nineteen Harry had opted to stay behind should have come as no surprise: she'd never gotten on with their parents. But John had been terrified. He'd needed her. He'd looked up to her for a long time. God, that was so long ago. "And this detective, he's good, yeah?"
"Yeah. Really good. The best."
"If I remember something I'll ring you. Have you talked to Mum?"
"No."
"Do you intend to?"
John was silent.
"I'll ask if she remembers anything, alright?"
"Okay. Yeah, thanks, Harry. That would be great, actually." John had begun to work a fingernail into the seam of the phone casing. His bum was sore from sitting on the wooden step. "I've got to get going," he said.
"Alright."
When he had hung up the phone, John returned the sofa. He leaned back against Sherlock and checked his pulse one more time, then held onto the long, cool hand because Sherlock was unconscious and couldn't protest. Tomorrow he would wake up, pick up where he'd left off: the same whirlwind of nervous energy. He would be furious, too, John knew. He buried his fingers in the curls at the nape of Sherlock's neck. They were damp, and John fanned them out against the cushion. For a moment he thought he would cry again out of sheer exhaustion, but he didn't. He looked up at the ceiling; pretended that Sherlock was asleep instead of unconscious, that what John was doing was fine, because he needed it to be, just for right now.
Chapter Five