Sherlock fic - "Something Understood" 1/1 PG-13

[tukumbe]

Another exploration of Sherlock’s history with Sebastian, prompted by that revealing little moment in TBB where Sherlock calls him ‘Seb’, and by John’s insistence that he’s a colleague, not a friend. spes_unica - I hope you like this!

ETA: annievh made this lovely banner! Thank you so much. :D :D






Something Understood

On his blog, John titles the case ‘The Blind Banker’ - and tells Sherlock it’s because of the portrait in the bank, the one with its eyes sprayed out. But that’s not the real reason. Really, he’s thinking about that git Sebastian, and his original title for the post was ‘The Blind Wanker’ because that’s exactly what he was. Arrogant, ignorant. Blind. And a wanker, of course.

John’s an ordinary bloke from an ordinary family, so he expects men like Sebastian to irritate the hell out of him. He can’t stand their careless privilege and overbearing arrogance, their old boy networks and braying laughter. But in this case it isn’t that so much as Sebastian’s attitude to Sherlock that really pisses him off - or, perhaps, Sherlock’s attitude to Sebastian. He hasn’t quite worked it out yet. Either way, their meeting was the first time he’d seen Sherlock anything other than supremely self-confident. And for some reason, it still bugs him.

They don’t talk about the case for a couple of days, aside from Sherlock complaining about him over-dramatising events in his blog. John’s not sure how those particular events could be any more dramatic than they actually were, but he just shrugs off the complaint because he’s not going to change it anyway. Over-dramatic or not, that’s how it was from where he was sitting - tied to a chair with a gun to his head.

But aside from that, they don’t talk about the case until one night several days later. It’s a cold winter evening with the rain blowing against the windows, and inside it’s warm, dry, and cosy, and going out is the very last thing John wants to do. So he phones for a take-away, paying the extra to have it delivered instead of collecting.

It’s a test of sorts, too, and his heart thumps when the doorbell rings. He knows that Sherlock knows what he’s doing, even if he doesn’t stop reading when John gets up. “Right,” he says, bracing himself, and goes downstairs. The bell rings again and by the time he opens the door his heart is racing.

“Take away for John?” the delivery guy asks.

And he isn’t punched in the face or abducted at gunpoint. Which is good. “Thanks,” he says and takes the food, pays, and shuts the front door. Then he gives himself a moment, lets the adrenaline abate, and climbs back up the stairs. He’s done it now. It won’t freak him out again. Not as much, anyway.

Ostensibly Sherlock’s absorbed in his book when John gets back, but he still feels acutely observed as he goes into the kitchen and rustles up some plates. Perhaps Sherlock’s analysing his breathing or something. “I got a bottle of wine,” he calls over his shoulder, distracting himself from the sensation of eyes boring into the back of his head. “Do you want a glass?”

There’s no answer, so he adds a couple of glasses to the tray and carries everything back into the living room. The table’s cluttered with junk, so he just puts the tray on the coffee table and sits down on the sofa.

“You ordered Indian,” Sherlock says at last, dropping his book on the floor and looking up.

“I know. I asked and you said you didn’t care which.”

“It would have worked better as a test,” he says, ambling over, “if you’d ordered Chinese.”

John just shakes his head and heaps pilau onto his plate. “Because I’m afraid every Chinese delivery guy is going to kidnap me? Come on.”

Folding his legs, Sherlock sits on the floor on the other side of the table and helps himself to a spoonful of pasanda. For some reason he never eats rice. “Even so, next time you will worry.”

“I’ll deal with it,” he says, and snaps off a piece of papadum as if to make the point.

Sherlock smiles briefly. “Of course you will. Oh-” Remembering something, he slips a hand into his jacket pocket. “I meant to give you this.” He slides a piece of paper across the table to John.

It’s a cheque.

It’s a cheque drawn on a Coutts account, made out to Dr. John H. Watson and signed by Sherlock Holmes.

It’s a cheque for ten thousand pounds.

John gapes - probably an unattractive sight, with his mouth full of papadum. “What’s this for?” he says at last.

“Your share,” Sherlock says, tearing off a piece of nan bread with fastidious fingers.

“My share? My share of what, exactly?”

Sherlock sniffs the bread. “Is this garlic?”

“No. Not after last time. Sherlock - my share of what?”

“The fee,” he says, taking a bite. “From the bank case.”

Sitting back on the sofa, John stares at the cheque. It would solve a lot of pressing problems, that’s for sure, but even so… “I can’t take this.”

Sherlock looks up from his plate, eyes sharp. He’s looking for something, John realises. “Why not?”

“Because… You solved the case, you did all the work.”

Clearly it’s not the answer Sherlock wanted; his disappointment is palpable as he puts down his fork and retreats to his chair by the fire. “Not all the work,” he says coolly. “And it caused you some inconvenience.”

John considers him for a moment before he speaks again, watching the feigned nonchalance as Sherlock stretches his legs out toward the heat. He’s not relaxed though, and he’s not bored. There’s a tension in his body that John can’t explain. Cautiously he says, “Inconvenience?”

Firelight casts shadows across Sherlock’s face, making it hard to read his expression. “It’s simply a payment,” he says, and the tension has reached his voice now. “Why are you being so obtuse? It’s normal to pay a colleague for his assistance, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” John agrees, before he registers the slight emphasis on the word colleague. And then he gets it, the pieces falling into place with a clarity that makes him wince.

“This is my friend, John Watson.”
“Friend?” Sebastian’s voice brims with mocking laughter, an in-joke to which John’s not party.
“Colleague,” he corrects.
Sebastian smiles. “Right…”

He closes his eyes, squeezing them shut for a moment to block out the sudden jolt of unease. When he opens them again, Sherlock’s still staring into the fire with an intensity that could rival the flames. John knows that ‘Sorry, of course I’m your friend’ isn’t going to cut it, and anyway that’s not really what they’re talking about. Or, rather, it’s not what they’re not talking about.

The cheque, he realises, is a test. And, perhaps, an invitation. Coming from Sherlock, that’s rare enough to be noticed.

On the coffee table there’s the bottle of red and two glasses - he opens it, pours, and walks over to the fire. He doesn’t ask, just holds a glass out to Sherlock who glances up, surprised. “I don’t-” he begins, but John interrupts him.

“Tell me about Sebastian,” he says, edging his voice with a note of command he’s rarely used in civilian life.

Sherlock is startled and John thinks he might get up and walk away, but he doesn’t. He doesn't move at all for a moment, and then he takes the offered glass and sips the wine. “Vile,” he pronounces, his attention turning back to the fire. But he doesn’t put the glass down, just sits with his long fingers wrapped around it, bloodless against the red of the wine. It’s the first time John’s seen him drink; he hopes this isn’t a bad idea, but guesses that the truth won’t come out without a little artificial persuasion. And better wine than something more damaging.

Settling himself in his own chair, John says nothing until it becomes apparent that Sherlock’s lost somewhere inside his own mind. So he shifts and takes a sip of wine - it is terrible, but it was cheap and he can live with that trade-off - and says, “So you knew Sebastian at Oxford, then?”

“Yes.” He swallows another mouthful of wine and grimaces.

“Was he a friend of yours?”

Sherlock throws him a sharp look. “I don’t have friends, as you know.”

That’s not true, but John lets it slide for the moment and says, “Tell me.”

Sherlock takes another drink; this time he swallows it without complaint. “Tell you what?”

“The story,” John says, settling into his chair. “The story of you and Seb.”

Sherlock reacts to the nick name, which is why John used it, his fingers on the arm of the chair curling as he takes another, longer drink. His glass is almost empty already and John understands why he usually avoids alcohol. “It’s very dull,” Sherlock says, but there’s a softness to his voice that’s unusual. It’s not a slur, but a loss of clarity. He finishes his glass of wine and lets it dangle from his fingers, oddly dissolute as his head falls back and his eyes close. “Is there more?”

“Yes.”

He holds up the glass and says, “Don’t give me a third.”

Somewhat against his better judgment, John pours him another glass and watches him drink. When it’s half empty Sherlock says, “I wasn’t a victim, if that’s what you think. I knew what I was doing.” He looks at John for a moment and dips his finger into the wine, running it around the edge of the glass before sucking the wine from his fingertip. It’s obscenely suggestive. “I was seventeen and bored,” he says, dropping the act as suddenly as he began. “So I let him seduce me.”

John lifts his eyebrows. “I thought you weren’t interested in all that.”

“Data, John. Can’t reach any conclusions without data.”

“So he was an experiment?”

There’s silence and Sherlock takes another drink, swirling the rest around his glass as though it were an expensive Merlot. “At first.” He pauses, and John notices how his whole body has gone limp, languid with the wine. “The sex was a chore, of course, but... He told me we were friends, and for a while I believed him.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Observation.”

John takes another sip of wine and waits. He’s good at waiting. Sherlock drains his glass and says, “Pour me another.”

“Nope.”

In a flash of irritation Sherlock swirls to his feet and stalks over to the coffee table.

“You said-”

“Do you want to hear about this or not?” he snaps, filling his glass almost to the brim.

Of course it’s not that three glasses of wine will do Sherlock any real harm, it’s the fact that clearly he can’t stop that's the problem. Joining him, John takes the bottle from his hand and empties the rest into his own glass. “I do,” he says. “I do want to hear it.”

Sherlock swallows a mouthful of wine and returns to his chair, sliding so low in it he’s almost horizontal. When he speaks, his voice is low and red-wine rich. “I was very young when I went up to Oxford. Naive too, although I would have denied it at the time…”

Sherlock had no expectation of university beyond the fact that it would be less dull than school. There would be fewer pointless rules, fewer lessons that felt like stuffing his mind into a bell jar and leaving it hanging in a vacuum. And fewer people who knew him, the corollary of which being fewer people who actively disliked him. Of course there were some going up from school, but since he had no interest in rowing or rugby he knew he’d be able to avoid them with ease.

And because he was going a year early - less to do with his proven academic brilliance and more to do with the headmaster wanting to be rid of him - he had some hope that there would be people there bright enough to interest him. People who talked about more than sex and money and how much of both they were going to get once they started working in the city. Actively imagining it would have been too dangerous, so he didn’t permit that, but he couldn’t prevent the blooming of a fragile hope that he’d find a kindred spirit at Oxford. After all, weren’t the country’s most brilliant young minds thronging its halls? Surely at least one of them would be able to keep up with him.

After sitting through his first tutorial, however, he began to doubt that there was anything remarkable about his fellow students. Hope lingered until his third tutorial ended with him arguing the tutor to a standstill and stalking out, crushingly disappointed.

University was going to be just as dull as school. The pace was glacial - he felt like a hobbled race horse, unable to run. It was suffocating and he knew he wouldn’t be able to endure it for three long years unless he found an alternative means of stimulation.

It didn’t take long to locate someone peddling what he needed, and that’s how he met Sebastian.

Seb was in his third year and already making his name as an illegal entrepreneur, filling a gap in the black market with ruthless efficiency. The first time they met, Sherlock told him the coke he was supplying was dirty, that it was only thirty-five percent pure and had recently been cut with phenacetin. It was obvious that Sebastian’s dealer was the one doing the cutting, no doubt pocketing the difference without telling his supplier. Sherlock suggested to Seb that those higher up the chain might not be happy that someone was adulterating their merchandise for personal profit.

Armed with that information, Sebastian renegotiated his price with his dealer and Sherlock renegotiated his price with Sebastian. He assumed that was that, but Sebastian was impressed and intrigued and latched onto Sherlock with a fascination that was familiar. He’d met people like Sebastian before, and he recognised the looks he slipped him from the corner of his eye; appraising and curious. Is he or isn’t he? Will he or won’t he?

He wasn’t, actually. He wasn’t interested at all. But he was seventeen and bored beyond endurance. If Oxford couldn’t teach him anything he needed to know academically, he reasoned that there were other lessons he could learn. And they at least would prove novel. A distraction. At the very least, it was potentially useful data. He enjoyed unpicking other people, and thought some firsthand experience would help him understand them better. Data was everything, after all.

So he let Sebastian seduce him, one night in his room when everyone else had left and Sebastian was high and free of inhibition. Sherlock was high too, enough to permit Sebastian’s hands on his skin, but not so high that he couldn’t catalogue the data. Kissing, he found distasteful and invasive. The rest was bizarrely undignified, although the final release was enjoyable enough. But not better than he could achieve alone, and certainly not worth the indignity of the whole performance. He decided it was a useful experiment, but not something he wanted to repeat - somewhat like a lacklustre meal at a sub-par restaurant. He wouldn’t bother again.

And he thought that would be the end of the matter until the next day, in Informal Hall, when Sebastian called his name and waved him over to eat with his friends. Now, that was far more interesting than sex. That was something unexpected.

Sebastian didn’t mention what happened between them, which wasn’t surprising as he was clearly in the closet with the door bolted on the inside. But he did make room for Sherlock to sit next to him and introduced him as ‘my new friend’. It provoked an unexpected bolt of pleasure; he’d never been anyone’s friend before and was thrilled by the prospect of something so novel.

The tensions within Sebastian’s cohort were obvious from the start and fascinating as a study of group dynamics. There was a girl called Annabelle who watched Sherlock with sharp suspicion and Sebastian with needy affection. He soon discovered that she was Sebastian’s girlfriend and that her parents were ‘loaded’, but he thought Annabelle must be blind if she didn’t realise that Sebastian’s interest in her was limited to financial greed and social camouflage. She wasn’t his friend, she didn’t help him get the upper hand with his dealer, she didn’t even know he dealt. And she didn’t like Sherlock at all; she liked him even less when he asked her why she called herself Sebastain’s girlfriend when she was sleeping with two of her tutors. She told him to keep his mouth shut or she’d make ‘something bad’ happen to him. She told him she had connections.

He wasn’t afraid. His connections were much better than hers. He didn’t even bother telling Mycroft about the threat; he was sure he already knew.

Over the months that followed, Sherlock discovered that friendship also included a considerable amount of writing other people’s essays and finishing their lab work. He didn’t mind the lab work, because the laboratories were interesting and he could do a lot of independent research while finishing their prescribed labs. But the essays were terminally boring and if he’d had to do more than dictate while his friends transcribed he’d have refused. But as it was everyone’s marks improved - everyone’s except Sherlock’s. The physical act of writing was so laborious he couldn’t bring himself to scrawl five thousand tedious words onto paper.

At night, in the Members’ Bar, Sebastian liked to show Sherlock off, especially when he could observe something salacious or embarrassing about people Sebastian knew, but Sherlock didn’t. He revealed an adulterous tutor’s affair to his wife, and outed a flamboyantly gay third-year who was secretly straight. Everyone thought it was hilarious, they bought Sherlock drinks and asked him to ‘do’ them. He found he could sketch people very easily - mostly because they were all so tediously alike. But they were thrilled when he could identify Eton from Harrow by the way they laced their shoes, or tell them from exactly which part of which town their accent originated.

Some part of his mind told him he was spinning like an engine in neutral, burning fuel and going nowhere, but the narcotics masked the boredom and he enjoyed his brush with popularity. It was new after all, and there was nothing he liked more than new.

But soon there were mutterings among the staff about his failure to complete a single piece of work and disciplinary action was mooted; Sherlock was forced to conform or face the awful prospect of being sent down. Aside from the horror of going home, he really couldn’t bear to give Mycroft the satisfaction. So he scribbled his papers and submitted disorganised nuggets of genius with total indifference. He didn’t even bother to find out if he’d passed.

Grumbling about the unfairness of it all one night in Hall, shortly before the end of the Michaelmas term, he told Sebastian that it would be infinitely better if they did away with written papers and were simply examined orally.

Seb smirked, sharing a look with a newcomer to their group - one Giles James Galbraith - and said he'd be more than happy to help Sherlock study for all his oral exams. The comment was crude and he didn’t like the way they laughed. That night Seb invited him into his room again and kissed him so forcefully it felt like violence. Sherlock panicked, shoving him away, and Seb accused him of ‘playing hard to get’. Sherlock told him he wasn’t playing at all.

He spent the night alone in his own room. He found that he liked the solitude a great deal.

At breakfast the next day it was obvious that Seb had tempted someone else into his room, because he was eating bacon and eggs, relaxed in the way he always was the morning after. Sherlock wasn't jealous of the sex; at best he found it a tedious chore, at worst it made him feel angry and violated. But he didn’t like the way Sebastian was looking at him as if he’d scored a victory, as if he were gloating. So Sherlock said, quite loudly, “Who did you shag, then, last night?”

Sebastian choked on his tea. So did Giles Galbraith. “Ah,” Sherlock said, glancing between them. “Interesting.”

Annabelle got up and left the hall in a flurry of tears.

“You little freak,” Sebastian hissed across the table. “Were you spying on me?”

“Hardly.” The very notion was an insult. “I simply observed.”

“Don’t play your little games with me, Sherlock,” Sebastian snapped. “Or you’ll bloody well regret it.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Shut the fuck up,” Sebastian hissed again, glancing after Annabelle. “How am I going to sort this out? I’m meant to be spending Christmas with her family.”

But he wasn’t talking to Sherlock, he was talking to Giles.

“I’ll handle it,” Giles said, getting to his feet with a politician’s ease. He glanced down at Sherlock. “No one will believe this little freak anyway - everyone knows it’s just a silly party trick.”

“It’s not a trick,” Sherlock insisted, looking to Sebastian for support.

None was forthcoming. Sebastian and Giles just exchanged a look before Giles strolled out of the hall after Annabelle.

Seb turned on him then. “What the fuck were you thinking, outing me in front of her?”

“You outed yourself,” Sherlock pointed out. “I simply asked-”

“You asked who I’d been shagging!”

“It could have been Annabelle…”

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. “You bloody well knew it wasn’t.”

That was true, and Sherlock didn’t deny it. Instead, he said, “You were gloating.”

“So this was some kind of childish revenge?”

He didn’t answer that, looking down instead at the marmalade congealing on his toast. He wasn’t sure why he'd done it, but he doubted he was capable of anything so prosaic as revenge.

Sebastian got to his feet. “You’ll have to stay away from me now,” he said. “I’ve got to kill this thing dead.”

“What thing?”

“How dense are you?” Sebastian hissed. “Do you have any idea who Annabelle’s father is?”

“Something in the city…”

“He is the fucking city, you moron. Christ...” He waved his hand between them. “Do you think this means anything compared with that?”

Sherlock blinked and before he could censor himself he said, “I thought we were friends…”

“Friends?” Sebastian snorted. “Grow up, Sherlock. Fucking grow up.”

That night, in the Members’ Bar, Seb had his arm around Annabelle. Giles was with them and took a long drag on his cigarette when he saw Sherlock approaching, blowing smoke in his face before pointedly turning his back. Sherlock found himself abandoned in the crowd, ostracised so fast he couldn’t catch his breath.

There were eyes on him, whispers and laughter all around - freak, stalker, weirdo - a closing of ranks, a shutting of doors. Giles had been busy.

It was all very familiar. After all, sitting on the outside looking in was the customary place for the boy who sees too much. He reminded himself that it was fine, that the outside was the place from which one got the best view. But there was a hard lump in his throat that was more than disappointment; it tasted a bit like humiliation.

And he vowed he’d never feel it again.

When Sherlock stops talking John lets the noise of the traffic and rain fill the room. Sherlock is drunk, not obviously, but his gaze is less penetrating and his expression more open than usual. It suits him. “You see?” he says, staring into the fire. “Dull, dull, dull.”

“Well no one died,” John says, “if that’s what you mean.”

A smile twitches Sherlock’s lips then flees before the oncoming frown. “But as lessons go, it was a valuable one.”

“I suppose so,” John says. “If the lesson was ‘don’t make friends with arrogant pricks’…”

“Partly correct,” Sherlock agrees, fixing him with a measured look.

John leans forward, capturing his gaze and not letting go. Perhaps because of the wine, Sherlock seems less able than usual to escape - perhaps he doesn’t want to. “Sherlock, whatever Sebastian was, he wasn’t your friend. He was just playing with you.”

Sherlock flinches and it’s enough to break their gaze. He looks away. “Obviously.”

“What I mean,” John says, “is that you can’t draw any lessons from that - he’s a tosser. He was then and he is now.”

“His friends didn’t think so…” Sherlock says, but there’s an invitation in his voice for John to continue.

So he does. “Well, Giles and Rupert, or whoever they hell they were, sound like tossers too. No offence.”

"Why should I be offended?” He cocks his head and the smile returns, stronger this time. “Ah, you’re making assumptions based on class prejudice. How very illiberal of you. Not everyone at Oxford is a ‘tosser’ you know.”

“No,” John mirrors his smile, “not everyone. You’re not.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “Most people would disagree.”

“And since when do you care what most people think?”

“I don’t,” he says, looking away. He studies the fire again, and then in a light tone, as if it doesn’t really matter, adds, “But there are a few people - one or two people - whose good opinion I do… value.”

“Let me guess, Mycroft and Lestrade?”

Sherlock glares, affronted. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

John smiles because they both know who he means. “Listen,” he says, reaching into his pocket and fishing out Sherlock’s cheque. “Take this back.”

Frowning, Sherlock makes no move to touch it. “Why?”

“Because… Oh, come on, you know why.”

“Let’s imagine I don’t.”

John shakes his head. “Fine,” he says. “I can’t take it because we’re not partners in this. I’m not a detective, I’m a doctor. And I’m definitely not your colleague.”

Sherlock blinks, it’s the only movement in his entire body. He’s gone very, very still.

“Sherlock,” John says, speaking carefully. “I helped you out with this because it was fun - well, mostly fun - and because I was doing you a favour.”

“A favour?” His expression is carefully neutral, but it still looks like he’s holding his breath.

“Yes,” John says. “That’s what friends do, Sherlock. They help each other out.”

After a pause, Sherlock says, “When I introduced you as my friend you said-”

“Yeah, I know what I said. I’m sorry.” He sighs. “It’s just he was looking at me like ‘friend’ was some kind of joke between you and I didn’t-”

“You didn’t realise that I was the butt of the joke, not you.”

“Yeah. Well, now I get it.” He huffs a small laugh. “I might go and edit my last post - change the title back to the original.”

“Which was what?”

“Well, it rhymed with banker.”

Sherlock barks a laugh. “At least it would be more accurate than the rest of the sensationalist prose you pass off as reportage.”

“People like my blog,” John says, draining his glass. “They don’t want to read pages and pages about how you worked out the chemical content of a can of paint. They want to know how the story ends.”

“Story!” Sherlock snorts, shifting in his chair and dangling his own glass between his fingers. “As if that matters.” He glances at John. “Is there any of that vile wine left?”

John shakes his head. “Nope.”

“You could go out and get another bottle.”

“I could, yeah.”

“But you won’t. Why not?”

John drops the cheque onto the fire and watches it burn. “You know why not, Sherlock.”

Sherlock huffs and looks away, but John catches the smile he can’t quite hide and knows that they understand each other.

Friends don’t let friends drink themselves stupid, after all.

~END~

Thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this and felt it did the show justice. :)