Small Families Chapter 15
Title: Small Families
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: T
Summary:
Dr. John Watson is turned into an eight year old child, dealing with
Sherlock who doesn't know him in a world where he was never born. But
now he meets with Dimmock.
Author's Note: Betaed by Caroline and tentacle_love. Thank you to both of you wonderful folks!
It'll be starting very soon now, readers. The Angst. But don't be scared. Angst's just like feeling except there's more persistant flailing.
Lestrade was frowning when they reached the shore, John half begrudgingly using Sherlock hand to balance him as he clamoured over the rocks. They had never seemed so big before. It took a second, blinking to notice the magnificent bruise he was sporting.
“Are you alright?” John asked, brow folded up in concern. His hands were clenching in his pockets, muscles clenching tightly around his rib cage. He wanted to text Dimmock and ask what had happened. He couldn’t blame Dimmock for things going wrong. An exhausted man, who’d been in an interrogation situation, he may not have had the time. There was a low fury burning in his fingertips, in his spine, in the soles of his feel and somewhere where it threatened to turn into a headache. The location was a little different this time, not out on the rocks directly, but half behind pylons tinted mossy green and wet.
“Yeah,” he said irritably. “I had a run in with a bike messenger. How about you, you seem off.”
“Something was wrong with this last call,” Sherlock said absently. “It’s something different.”
“What do you mean something different?” Lestrade barked, suddenly alarmed.
“Nothing,” Sherlock snapped before he descended on the body leaving all questions behind as always, leaving John to loiter next to Lestrade.
“John!” Sherlock shouted over the sound of ships whispering their quick, relentless love songs in passing in all their quick sensible tongues. Small feet trip stepping across the craggy mountain range of the grey shore rocks, John moved to his side. Witha small hand mittened with such tender care in yarn long saved for children that never were, John braced himself on Sherlock, on the dark woolen night of Sherlock’s shoulder. Lestrade, squinting and irritated, watched them. Considering the two of them, heads bent together black and golden, like something out of a fairy story. Lion and the Mouse or something like it. Or some child in the woods making friends with some terrible dragon by sharing biscuits.
John moved business like to start his medical examination while Sherlock scraped the mud off the guard’s shoes and dropped it into small evidence bags he must have lifted off Lestrade. He switched his mittens for his small medical gloves. John paused, narrowing his eyes. Something wasn’t quite right. He was all medical proficiency, face unsettlingly set as any medical examiner with decades of experience. Suddenly he froze, hands covering the man’s ears. John could feel the cold and damp through his glove, but the skin felt too malleable to be post mortem. He yanked off his glove and clamped his fingers over the cold, limp wrist.
Panic and relief spun in his chest. “Medic!” he called out to Lestrade, startling Sherlock from where he was analyzing the guard’s trouser pockets.
Lestrade blinked dumbly as John tore off his jacket to wrap around, what was his name?, the guard’s shoulders.
“We need a medic!”
“What?” Sherlock blinked, clamouring closer to him.
“He’s not dead,” John said quickly.
“John…”
John reached into Sherlock’s pocket, fished his pocket knife out and cut into the meat of the man’s thumb. Blood pooled sluggish but red from the deep cut instead of the clear that signified post-mortem separation. “It can take up to three hours for Livor mortis to start in earnest-” John said quickly.
“But if his strangulation was successful he would have had time to achieve brain death,” he turned toward Lestrade who was almost stammering wide eyed on his radio. “Lestrade! Stop standing around like an idiot! Get blankets before John comes down with hypothermia too!”
There was a rush as Lestrade shouted at a constable back in his element again and soon, John’s triaging was interrupting by Sherlock dragging him close to share body heat now that his small coat was covering his patient. Then there was a pool of orange blankets as John built a protective nest around the guard.
“It’s not unusual Lestrade’s team misses the obvious, but this is something spectacular,” Sherlock muttered, helping John back into his coat. “A better question might be how a professional assassin missed it. You’d think a professional would know the difference.”
Shivering as his body rewarmed, letting Sherlock pull him back and out of the way as the paramedic arrived. “You saw his trouser waist.”
“Hmm,” Sherlock agreed. “Someone was in a hurry.” He paused, looking down at John serious, mouth quirking up a little. “You did good work.”
“It wasn’t anything.”
“You beat the Yard. Not hard to do, granted, but worthy of praise.”
“It was good,” Lestrade said, returning from the deliberate focus of the paramedics and their patient. He looked flustered and almost angry, but if at anyone, not at John. “Forensics can expect to hear the full weight of this.”
“It was fantastic,” Sherlock smirked chest swelling in pride at John’s cleverness leading to a potential dressing down for Anderson.
“Meretricious,” John waved him off, shamming false humility past the tight worried lines on his face.
“And a happy new year,” Lestrade rolled his eyes. “Are we going to talk about who at least attempted to kill this man?”
Just as Sherlock’s mouth opened there was a sudden ring. It caused a strange moment of disorientation, especially in the light of murder victims that weren’t murder victims. It rang a second time and Sherlock was suddenly scrambling for his phone. “Hello?” he said with the same smirky face he always used on the pink phone. There was a moment where he almost froze, eyes widening, and then his mouth twisted again. Lestrade took a step forward in concern, eyes wide, but Sherlock made a motion as if to push him away.
“Why are you changing the game?”
There was a pause where someone was talking and Sherlock let out a quick huff of laughter.
“I don’t need to cheat,” then another pause, “oh, well if you just want to flirt…”
Going ramrod straight where he was held at Sherlock’s side, John tried to pull away, but was met with the gentle resistance of a thumb rubbing circles across his shoulders. Lestrade may have looked confused and worried, but John looked on the knife edge of fury. He shook himself out from under Sherlock’s hand to pace unevenly on the rocks listening to Sherlock start listing off deductions, the ripped off badge, the sensible trousers of rough material, the veins showing in the calves and the distribution of weight, the ticket stub all while he gestured in the air over where the guard had lain. “Conclusion, assassin hired to kill a security guard. Why? He must have known something. What’s a guard going to know that’s worth killing over? That Vermeer, thirty pounds, wasn’t it?”
John stood watching with his arms folded.
“I expect your next call soon then,” as soon as Sherlock rung off his smirky little grin fell off his face.
“Sherlock,” Lestrade said very slowly. “What was that?”
“This last game is five pips again,” he proclaimed, like any prince. “The bomber’s going to call five times during the case to make sure I’m not… cheating.” His face was a perfect moue of distaste, “As if I feel the need.”
“Is he spiraling then?” Lestrade asked quickly.
That was quickly waved off, “Don’t think of this as your usual serial killer Lestrade. He isn’t compelled to strap these people up. This is a puzzle with a set of rules. I doubt he actually wants to kill anyone. It’s just incentive, like in hide and seek. If you’re found, you’re ‘out.’”
“Those are real bombs he has strapped to people,” Lestrade pointed his finger straight at Sherlock’s heart.
“You’re assuming he can beat me,” Sherlock grinned and strolled off, holding out his hand for John. There was nothing to be gained from staying behind. It gave him strategic disadvantage and it made it harder to keep Sherlock safe. His hand hovered out to John longer than he thought it would, but finally Sherlock made a faint, vaguely judgmental sound.
“There are human lives at stake, Sherlock. Actual-” the sense of déjà vu was so strong John had to stop and hold his tongue between his teeth for a few seconds. “Don’t you think it might have helped Lestrade to get that new piece of information, that there are additional hostages?”
“I told him everything he needs to know,” Sherlock tilted his head imperiously as they climbed the stairs to the street level. “Everything that might help him with the case.”
“How can you just-?” he didn’t even know how to finish that sentence.
“What?” Sherlock drawled, almost teasing, with that cruel aristocratic arrogance.
“Do you care about them at all?” Something that stuck like a splinter in his skin, hiding in the back of his mind, shifted against all that soft matter. Because… Because they were puzzles, like John was. John knew it wasn’t the same. But Sherlock had called him a fascinating puzzle enough times he remembered.
“Would caring about them help me save them John?” Sherlock stopped and looked down at him, but this time around John didn’t know what to say, so he just watched. Small and solemn.
Irritated, Sherlock fluffed himself up, sticking the hand that had been held out imperiously toward John in his coat. “Use your head John; I know you’ve got one on your shoulders. Would knowing their names help save them? If I knew their favourite colour? Or what they mindlessly did with their mindless lives. This is probably the most exciting thing that will ever happen to them. You’re a doctor, I shouldn’t have to be telling you this,” he pronounced airily.
It chilled John down to his heart how cold Sherlock sounded. “Being able to put the personal details aside to concentrate is not the same as not caring at all.” It had not escaped John’s notice that Sherlock’s decision to walk instead of immediately call for a cab was probably a concession to John’s post argument strolls.
“Oh, I’ve disappointed you now,” his voice with all its imperial distain rolled off his tongue like a deeply golden honey.
“That’s not-” John started, just desperate to stop this tumble into a conversation that seemed to be chasing him like a skip in a record. Like a dog that wouldn’t let go of a bone and just let things lie.
Sherlock stopped, the thin chill hovering like a moth in the winter air, turning him into even more of a china doll than John could ever hope to be, even as small as he was. There was something suddenly about him, something like Mr. Rochester with his mad wife who raged and raged and would not die locked up in his attic. Something too fierce and ferocious to be sadness, even weighed against the coolness that was inherently Holmesian. He looked down at John, suddenly serious and firm, no longer the twisting insistent will o’ the wisp he was used to chasing. “Don’t turn me into your hero John. Heroes don’t exist. And if they did, I’d hardly be one of them.”
“You’re my friend,” John told him seriously. “The rest is incidental.”
Sherlock pulled his hand out of his pocket and John curled his own around it.
“Where to next then?” John asked, hiding from the wind against Sherlock.
“Home,” Sherlock said simply hand lifting, beckoning a cab. Bundling John in before him and staying silent, looking out the window all the way to 221B and then pulling him out after him just as quietly.
“How about a bit of cake?” Sherlock said lifting his nose at the baking spice smell curling pleased as a cat inside Baker Street.
“Is this about my body fat index again?” John asked suspiciously closing the door after them.
“No, this is about Mrs. Hudson most certainly sticking a cake that I have no chance of finishing on my own in the middle of my experiments.” John chased Sherlock up the seventeen steps where the smell of cake was indeed stronger, rich and warm and lovely.
“Shouldn’t you be working on the case?” John handed his coat up to Sherlock when it was snapped for.
“There’s something I’m waiting on,” Sherlock let the words trail behind him on his way to the kitchen. “Not all detective work gets to be chasing bad guys and examining crime scenes.” There was a clink and the soft domestic sounds of things being shifted around in the kitchen. The sort of sounds that usually came from John; it was nice for Sherlock to do something for John.
Snagging the blanket off the back of the chair, he curled up against the arm, facing Sherlock’s black and silver seat. When Sherlock emerged he made a thoughtful sound to himself, half- pleased and nodded John over to the sofa, “Don’t get too settled, it’s only going to be a short stop.”
“You’re really going to let me have cake before lunch?” John raised an eyebrow.
Sherlock raised his own right back. “I’d threaten to eat it in front of you, but with your care mongering that might have the opposite effect. I suggest you enjoy the treat and not second guess me. Now quiet, I need to think.” He promptly curled up on the other side of the sofa, steepling his fingers against his mouth. John didn’t mind letting him think, enjoying a bit of the domesticity of it, even if it seemed unnatural to the expediency of the case.
Mycroft arrived just as John was finishing a bit of cake compliments of Mrs. Hudson; the handle of his elegant umbrella over the sleeve of his elegant suit. Something softer than his usual moneyed and powered armour, his whole demeanor was more passive than usual as well. Sherlock was curled up on the other end of the sofa, taping his thumb against the back of the pink phone, something John was valiantly ignoring. Mycroft made some sort of faint noise, bringing a vapourous attention to the fact that he was there. He tended to fill a room with his presence, like incense, a subtle inescapable presence. Confused, John turned to Sherlock, prodding his foot with his toes to get his attention. Usually Sherlock was up in arms as soon as Mycroft showed himself, not this soft nervousness. “Finish your cake,” Sherlock smiled at him and leaned gently over him in a way that was as close as kissing the crown of John’s head as he ever got. “I’ll be right back.”
“Oh Sherlock,” Mycroft suddenly sighed.
“Don’t preach to me,” Sherlock growled, but without the usual malice. It was more like something lowly wounded and only wanting rest.
John narrowed his eyes. “Are you here about the missile plans?”
“If my brother is too cowardly to say it, then I’m not going to do it for him.”
Sherlock emerged, scowling at his brother, carrying John’s pack. Every muscle in John’s body suddenly went tense. He was suddenly aware of a sudden sharpness, a flush of details, sorted and catalogued. He almost had whiplash from the suddenness of it all. His breath spending up the trembling rabbit brained inconsistency of fear clouding his brain. John took a moment to remind himself that he was a soldier, and a grown man not a child with separation anxiety. He pushed his mind to that cool, calm place where his hands didn’t shake, where he could reach the counter without a stool and pay taxes. Not that he enjoyed paying taxes. But there was something about paying your taxes for the first time, like buying your parents a meal for the first time. Something terribly adult.
Was he getting hysterical in his own head?
“Up,” Sherlock waved at him like he was a lazy dog. “You’re going with Mycroft.”
“What do you mean I’m going with Mycroft?” John set down his plate and fork. He couldn’t go with Mycroft; he still hadn’t handed off his phone to Tim. Whether it was Mycroft or Moriarty that found his phone, it wouldn’t end well. “I’m staying with you.”
“No,” Sherlock spoke sharply reaching out to pull him up, “You’re going with Mycroft. You’ll endure his tedious presence and then you’ll go to a safe house.”
“No!” John nearly shouted, jerking away from Sherlock’s hand. He scrambled up to stand on the sofa.
“You are going with my brother John. This is not a matter of argument or discussion. I don’t have any more time to waste.” It was so business like, so flat and unfeeling, John flinched.
“Is this because of what I said this morning?” John didn’t like how small his voice was, as fragile and breakable as a mouse. His feet shifted on the sofa cushion, his body as unstable as he suddenly felt.
Sherlock looked at him for a moment, almost stunned, before snapping at him, “Don’t be dull.”
John flinched back, wide eyed with a look that more perfectly defined being wounded than a thousand books devoted to the subject. Even Mycroft, who ordered his emotions like distant orbiting satellites, winced a little at that look.
“I didn’t-” John started, each word landing like birds made from spun glass. “I won’t get in your way. I didn’t mean anything.”
The scent of Sherlock, of home, suddenly surrounded him as Sherlock circled him in long arms. John was tucked into the concave line of Sherlock’s long body. Sherlock’s chin resting on the crown of his head, his arms bracing him, still him. His shirt was silky against John’s heated face. He tried to grab hold of Sherlock around his waist, but his arms were too short. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Sherlock whispered, shifting his head so his cheek rested on John’s head, facing away from Mycroft’s ever watchful eye. “You are good. Don’t censor yourself for me. This is only temporary, do you understand? This is only until the game is over and then everything will be back the way it was.”
He peeled himself away from John, with John as a very resistant part of that separation.
“I said I won’t send you away,” Sherlock had that voice he used when he was getting bored of explaining. “This is only for a little while. Lunch with Mycroft; some heads of state don’t dine so well. And suffering through his idea of lunch conversation will prepare you to resist advanced torture techniques.”
“Well when you put it that way,” John tried to smile.
Sherlock scanned over his face, large hands framing his head, thumbs rubbing gentle circles at his temples. “I need to concentrate on the case, and you’re a distraction. I’ll be watching you to see your reactions instead of paying attention. You wanted me to care about the hostages. Well this is the way I can care about them, by only focusing on those things that need my focus.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” John was able to come back to himself a little, seeing Sherlock shamming so obviously, his eyes always went funny when he was shamming.
The earnest face fell like snow off a roof, “I’m a fabulous liar. You’re the one who can’t sham to save his life. Something we need to work on.”
“If you’re done encouraging children to take up lives of dishonesty, I really am a busy man,”
Mycroft interjected from the doorway.
“Off the furniture then,” Sherlock drawled, holding out his hand for John brace his jump down with. While John headed over to the coat rack to fetch down his coat and mittens Sherlock carefully folded up the plaid blanket and tenderly tucked it into his bag.
“I’m still not happy about this,” John reminded him.
“I’m not particularly pleased at inflicting my brother on you.”
Mycroft made a faint sound.
“But needs must,” Sherlock sighed, picking up John’s little woolen hat and gently snugging it over his head, then presented him before his brother.
“Hmm,” Mycroft started as an opening to what would prove to be a compressed discourse. “His body fat index.”
“I know. I can’t get him to gain him any weight.”
“Just as long as you’re not letting him keep your own eating schedule.”
The Holmes brothers stared at each other intensely until John had to clear his throat for fear that the combined force of their gazes would cause some sort of gravity well.
“He is not to be carried under any circumstances. He likes milky tea in the morning. Sometimes he screams in his sleep,” John’s shoulders tensed under Sherlock’s hands, turning pink from below his collar all the way up to his hair line. “Don’t bother him, just call his name until he wakes up and then leave him alone.”
“Very good,” Mycroft returned, as calm as if they were discussing the weather. “Come along John.”
He baulked back against Sherlock’s legs for a moment before reminding himself again that he was an adult and above hiding against people. At Mycroft’s nod, John went brave faced into the fray and followed him down the stairs, watching the solid straight lines of his tall back. When Mycroft reached the bottom of the stairs he turned, a pivot as elegant as the planets’ and made a genteel sort of leading expression. “It really won’t be so bad. No need to look like you’re marching to your execution.”
John lifted his chin, pulling every ounce of the adult that kept trying hide just behind every little corner in his brain and bringing it to the surface.
“I thought as much,” Mycroft replied, face shifting sinuous and serious the layers he carefully created and composed to minute perfection fitting him as well as his fine suits. Standing in front of Mycroft gave John the delicate sensation of being precisely plucked apart.
“If we’re going to go, we should go. Otherwise he’ll hide up there until the whole of London blows.”
Mycroft’s mouth tilted up ever so slightly. Whether that actually meant he was amused or not was anyone’s guess. “Very well,” he held the door open for John, a gesture that clearly indicated he controlled the door, not that he was subservient to anyone. “You do realize the way you conduct yourself differs between my brother and myself.”
“If you think I’m trying to manipulate you, why do you ask?”
“Maybe not manipulate,” Mycroft made minute shifts in his posture, so it almost looked like he did something that may have been a shrug.
John gave one look back to 221, before crawling through the door held open by the driver. “Is this going to turn into an interrogation?”
Mycroft let out an even cascade of refined chuckles, “Of course not John. We’re only going to lunch.”
Wonderful.
Tell Grendel we’ve found Watson’s son. Coordinates incoming. E4
D- following messages intercepted, coordinates in London. CCTV show JW with MH both priority 1. - A
Copy. Don’t let message get through. Don’t try track G, 2 dangerous. -D
Send false reply. -D
Good. Observe, no other actions at this time.
Command, please repeat orders. E4
Do not act at this time.
I can do it, please I can. Tell him I can do it. E4
I can. I can catch him. Tell Grendel I can. E4
D - We might have a problem. - A
Previous Next
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: T
Summary:
Dr. John Watson is turned into an eight year old child, dealing with
Sherlock who doesn't know him in a world where he was never born. But
now he meets with Dimmock.
Author's Note: Betaed by Caroline and tentacle_love. Thank you to both of you wonderful folks!
It'll be starting very soon now, readers. The Angst. But don't be scared. Angst's just like feeling except there's more persistant flailing.
Lestrade was frowning when they reached the shore, John half begrudgingly using Sherlock hand to balance him as he clamoured over the rocks. They had never seemed so big before. It took a second, blinking to notice the magnificent bruise he was sporting.
“Are you alright?” John asked, brow folded up in concern. His hands were clenching in his pockets, muscles clenching tightly around his rib cage. He wanted to text Dimmock and ask what had happened. He couldn’t blame Dimmock for things going wrong. An exhausted man, who’d been in an interrogation situation, he may not have had the time. There was a low fury burning in his fingertips, in his spine, in the soles of his feel and somewhere where it threatened to turn into a headache. The location was a little different this time, not out on the rocks directly, but half behind pylons tinted mossy green and wet.
“Yeah,” he said irritably. “I had a run in with a bike messenger. How about you, you seem off.”
“Something was wrong with this last call,” Sherlock said absently. “It’s something different.”
“What do you mean something different?” Lestrade barked, suddenly alarmed.
“Nothing,” Sherlock snapped before he descended on the body leaving all questions behind as always, leaving John to loiter next to Lestrade.
“John!” Sherlock shouted over the sound of ships whispering their quick, relentless love songs in passing in all their quick sensible tongues. Small feet trip stepping across the craggy mountain range of the grey shore rocks, John moved to his side. Witha small hand mittened with such tender care in yarn long saved for children that never were, John braced himself on Sherlock, on the dark woolen night of Sherlock’s shoulder. Lestrade, squinting and irritated, watched them. Considering the two of them, heads bent together black and golden, like something out of a fairy story. Lion and the Mouse or something like it. Or some child in the woods making friends with some terrible dragon by sharing biscuits.
John moved business like to start his medical examination while Sherlock scraped the mud off the guard’s shoes and dropped it into small evidence bags he must have lifted off Lestrade. He switched his mittens for his small medical gloves. John paused, narrowing his eyes. Something wasn’t quite right. He was all medical proficiency, face unsettlingly set as any medical examiner with decades of experience. Suddenly he froze, hands covering the man’s ears. John could feel the cold and damp through his glove, but the skin felt too malleable to be post mortem. He yanked off his glove and clamped his fingers over the cold, limp wrist.
Panic and relief spun in his chest. “Medic!” he called out to Lestrade, startling Sherlock from where he was analyzing the guard’s trouser pockets.
Lestrade blinked dumbly as John tore off his jacket to wrap around, what was his name?, the guard’s shoulders.
“We need a medic!”
“What?” Sherlock blinked, clamouring closer to him.
“He’s not dead,” John said quickly.
“John…”
John reached into Sherlock’s pocket, fished his pocket knife out and cut into the meat of the man’s thumb. Blood pooled sluggish but red from the deep cut instead of the clear that signified post-mortem separation. “It can take up to three hours for Livor mortis to start in earnest-” John said quickly.
“But if his strangulation was successful he would have had time to achieve brain death,” he turned toward Lestrade who was almost stammering wide eyed on his radio. “Lestrade! Stop standing around like an idiot! Get blankets before John comes down with hypothermia too!”
There was a rush as Lestrade shouted at a constable back in his element again and soon, John’s triaging was interrupting by Sherlock dragging him close to share body heat now that his small coat was covering his patient. Then there was a pool of orange blankets as John built a protective nest around the guard.
“It’s not unusual Lestrade’s team misses the obvious, but this is something spectacular,” Sherlock muttered, helping John back into his coat. “A better question might be how a professional assassin missed it. You’d think a professional would know the difference.”
Shivering as his body rewarmed, letting Sherlock pull him back and out of the way as the paramedic arrived. “You saw his trouser waist.”
“Hmm,” Sherlock agreed. “Someone was in a hurry.” He paused, looking down at John serious, mouth quirking up a little. “You did good work.”
“It wasn’t anything.”
“You beat the Yard. Not hard to do, granted, but worthy of praise.”
“It was good,” Lestrade said, returning from the deliberate focus of the paramedics and their patient. He looked flustered and almost angry, but if at anyone, not at John. “Forensics can expect to hear the full weight of this.”
“It was fantastic,” Sherlock smirked chest swelling in pride at John’s cleverness leading to a potential dressing down for Anderson.
“Meretricious,” John waved him off, shamming false humility past the tight worried lines on his face.
“And a happy new year,” Lestrade rolled his eyes. “Are we going to talk about who at least attempted to kill this man?”
Just as Sherlock’s mouth opened there was a sudden ring. It caused a strange moment of disorientation, especially in the light of murder victims that weren’t murder victims. It rang a second time and Sherlock was suddenly scrambling for his phone. “Hello?” he said with the same smirky face he always used on the pink phone. There was a moment where he almost froze, eyes widening, and then his mouth twisted again. Lestrade took a step forward in concern, eyes wide, but Sherlock made a motion as if to push him away.
“Why are you changing the game?”
There was a pause where someone was talking and Sherlock let out a quick huff of laughter.
“I don’t need to cheat,” then another pause, “oh, well if you just want to flirt…”
Going ramrod straight where he was held at Sherlock’s side, John tried to pull away, but was met with the gentle resistance of a thumb rubbing circles across his shoulders. Lestrade may have looked confused and worried, but John looked on the knife edge of fury. He shook himself out from under Sherlock’s hand to pace unevenly on the rocks listening to Sherlock start listing off deductions, the ripped off badge, the sensible trousers of rough material, the veins showing in the calves and the distribution of weight, the ticket stub all while he gestured in the air over where the guard had lain. “Conclusion, assassin hired to kill a security guard. Why? He must have known something. What’s a guard going to know that’s worth killing over? That Vermeer, thirty pounds, wasn’t it?”
John stood watching with his arms folded.
“I expect your next call soon then,” as soon as Sherlock rung off his smirky little grin fell off his face.
“Sherlock,” Lestrade said very slowly. “What was that?”
“This last game is five pips again,” he proclaimed, like any prince. “The bomber’s going to call five times during the case to make sure I’m not… cheating.” His face was a perfect moue of distaste, “As if I feel the need.”
“Is he spiraling then?” Lestrade asked quickly.
That was quickly waved off, “Don’t think of this as your usual serial killer Lestrade. He isn’t compelled to strap these people up. This is a puzzle with a set of rules. I doubt he actually wants to kill anyone. It’s just incentive, like in hide and seek. If you’re found, you’re ‘out.’”
“Those are real bombs he has strapped to people,” Lestrade pointed his finger straight at Sherlock’s heart.
“You’re assuming he can beat me,” Sherlock grinned and strolled off, holding out his hand for John. There was nothing to be gained from staying behind. It gave him strategic disadvantage and it made it harder to keep Sherlock safe. His hand hovered out to John longer than he thought it would, but finally Sherlock made a faint, vaguely judgmental sound.
“There are human lives at stake, Sherlock. Actual-” the sense of déjà vu was so strong John had to stop and hold his tongue between his teeth for a few seconds. “Don’t you think it might have helped Lestrade to get that new piece of information, that there are additional hostages?”
“I told him everything he needs to know,” Sherlock tilted his head imperiously as they climbed the stairs to the street level. “Everything that might help him with the case.”
“How can you just-?” he didn’t even know how to finish that sentence.
“What?” Sherlock drawled, almost teasing, with that cruel aristocratic arrogance.
“Do you care about them at all?” Something that stuck like a splinter in his skin, hiding in the back of his mind, shifted against all that soft matter. Because… Because they were puzzles, like John was. John knew it wasn’t the same. But Sherlock had called him a fascinating puzzle enough times he remembered.
“Would caring about them help me save them John?” Sherlock stopped and looked down at him, but this time around John didn’t know what to say, so he just watched. Small and solemn.
Irritated, Sherlock fluffed himself up, sticking the hand that had been held out imperiously toward John in his coat. “Use your head John; I know you’ve got one on your shoulders. Would knowing their names help save them? If I knew their favourite colour? Or what they mindlessly did with their mindless lives. This is probably the most exciting thing that will ever happen to them. You’re a doctor, I shouldn’t have to be telling you this,” he pronounced airily.
It chilled John down to his heart how cold Sherlock sounded. “Being able to put the personal details aside to concentrate is not the same as not caring at all.” It had not escaped John’s notice that Sherlock’s decision to walk instead of immediately call for a cab was probably a concession to John’s post argument strolls.
“Oh, I’ve disappointed you now,” his voice with all its imperial distain rolled off his tongue like a deeply golden honey.
“That’s not-” John started, just desperate to stop this tumble into a conversation that seemed to be chasing him like a skip in a record. Like a dog that wouldn’t let go of a bone and just let things lie.
Sherlock stopped, the thin chill hovering like a moth in the winter air, turning him into even more of a china doll than John could ever hope to be, even as small as he was. There was something suddenly about him, something like Mr. Rochester with his mad wife who raged and raged and would not die locked up in his attic. Something too fierce and ferocious to be sadness, even weighed against the coolness that was inherently Holmesian. He looked down at John, suddenly serious and firm, no longer the twisting insistent will o’ the wisp he was used to chasing. “Don’t turn me into your hero John. Heroes don’t exist. And if they did, I’d hardly be one of them.”
“You’re my friend,” John told him seriously. “The rest is incidental.”
Sherlock pulled his hand out of his pocket and John curled his own around it.
“Where to next then?” John asked, hiding from the wind against Sherlock.
“Home,” Sherlock said simply hand lifting, beckoning a cab. Bundling John in before him and staying silent, looking out the window all the way to 221B and then pulling him out after him just as quietly.
“How about a bit of cake?” Sherlock said lifting his nose at the baking spice smell curling pleased as a cat inside Baker Street.
“Is this about my body fat index again?” John asked suspiciously closing the door after them.
“No, this is about Mrs. Hudson most certainly sticking a cake that I have no chance of finishing on my own in the middle of my experiments.” John chased Sherlock up the seventeen steps where the smell of cake was indeed stronger, rich and warm and lovely.
“Shouldn’t you be working on the case?” John handed his coat up to Sherlock when it was snapped for.
“There’s something I’m waiting on,” Sherlock let the words trail behind him on his way to the kitchen. “Not all detective work gets to be chasing bad guys and examining crime scenes.” There was a clink and the soft domestic sounds of things being shifted around in the kitchen. The sort of sounds that usually came from John; it was nice for Sherlock to do something for John.
Snagging the blanket off the back of the chair, he curled up against the arm, facing Sherlock’s black and silver seat. When Sherlock emerged he made a thoughtful sound to himself, half- pleased and nodded John over to the sofa, “Don’t get too settled, it’s only going to be a short stop.”
“You’re really going to let me have cake before lunch?” John raised an eyebrow.
Sherlock raised his own right back. “I’d threaten to eat it in front of you, but with your care mongering that might have the opposite effect. I suggest you enjoy the treat and not second guess me. Now quiet, I need to think.” He promptly curled up on the other side of the sofa, steepling his fingers against his mouth. John didn’t mind letting him think, enjoying a bit of the domesticity of it, even if it seemed unnatural to the expediency of the case.
Mycroft arrived just as John was finishing a bit of cake compliments of Mrs. Hudson; the handle of his elegant umbrella over the sleeve of his elegant suit. Something softer than his usual moneyed and powered armour, his whole demeanor was more passive than usual as well. Sherlock was curled up on the other end of the sofa, taping his thumb against the back of the pink phone, something John was valiantly ignoring. Mycroft made some sort of faint noise, bringing a vapourous attention to the fact that he was there. He tended to fill a room with his presence, like incense, a subtle inescapable presence. Confused, John turned to Sherlock, prodding his foot with his toes to get his attention. Usually Sherlock was up in arms as soon as Mycroft showed himself, not this soft nervousness. “Finish your cake,” Sherlock smiled at him and leaned gently over him in a way that was as close as kissing the crown of John’s head as he ever got. “I’ll be right back.”
“Oh Sherlock,” Mycroft suddenly sighed.
“Don’t preach to me,” Sherlock growled, but without the usual malice. It was more like something lowly wounded and only wanting rest.
John narrowed his eyes. “Are you here about the missile plans?”
“If my brother is too cowardly to say it, then I’m not going to do it for him.”
Sherlock emerged, scowling at his brother, carrying John’s pack. Every muscle in John’s body suddenly went tense. He was suddenly aware of a sudden sharpness, a flush of details, sorted and catalogued. He almost had whiplash from the suddenness of it all. His breath spending up the trembling rabbit brained inconsistency of fear clouding his brain. John took a moment to remind himself that he was a soldier, and a grown man not a child with separation anxiety. He pushed his mind to that cool, calm place where his hands didn’t shake, where he could reach the counter without a stool and pay taxes. Not that he enjoyed paying taxes. But there was something about paying your taxes for the first time, like buying your parents a meal for the first time. Something terribly adult.
Was he getting hysterical in his own head?
“Up,” Sherlock waved at him like he was a lazy dog. “You’re going with Mycroft.”
“What do you mean I’m going with Mycroft?” John set down his plate and fork. He couldn’t go with Mycroft; he still hadn’t handed off his phone to Tim. Whether it was Mycroft or Moriarty that found his phone, it wouldn’t end well. “I’m staying with you.”
“No,” Sherlock spoke sharply reaching out to pull him up, “You’re going with Mycroft. You’ll endure his tedious presence and then you’ll go to a safe house.”
“No!” John nearly shouted, jerking away from Sherlock’s hand. He scrambled up to stand on the sofa.
“You are going with my brother John. This is not a matter of argument or discussion. I don’t have any more time to waste.” It was so business like, so flat and unfeeling, John flinched.
“Is this because of what I said this morning?” John didn’t like how small his voice was, as fragile and breakable as a mouse. His feet shifted on the sofa cushion, his body as unstable as he suddenly felt.
Sherlock looked at him for a moment, almost stunned, before snapping at him, “Don’t be dull.”
John flinched back, wide eyed with a look that more perfectly defined being wounded than a thousand books devoted to the subject. Even Mycroft, who ordered his emotions like distant orbiting satellites, winced a little at that look.
“I didn’t-” John started, each word landing like birds made from spun glass. “I won’t get in your way. I didn’t mean anything.”
The scent of Sherlock, of home, suddenly surrounded him as Sherlock circled him in long arms. John was tucked into the concave line of Sherlock’s long body. Sherlock’s chin resting on the crown of his head, his arms bracing him, still him. His shirt was silky against John’s heated face. He tried to grab hold of Sherlock around his waist, but his arms were too short. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Sherlock whispered, shifting his head so his cheek rested on John’s head, facing away from Mycroft’s ever watchful eye. “You are good. Don’t censor yourself for me. This is only temporary, do you understand? This is only until the game is over and then everything will be back the way it was.”
He peeled himself away from John, with John as a very resistant part of that separation.
“I said I won’t send you away,” Sherlock had that voice he used when he was getting bored of explaining. “This is only for a little while. Lunch with Mycroft; some heads of state don’t dine so well. And suffering through his idea of lunch conversation will prepare you to resist advanced torture techniques.”
“Well when you put it that way,” John tried to smile.
Sherlock scanned over his face, large hands framing his head, thumbs rubbing gentle circles at his temples. “I need to concentrate on the case, and you’re a distraction. I’ll be watching you to see your reactions instead of paying attention. You wanted me to care about the hostages. Well this is the way I can care about them, by only focusing on those things that need my focus.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” John was able to come back to himself a little, seeing Sherlock shamming so obviously, his eyes always went funny when he was shamming.
The earnest face fell like snow off a roof, “I’m a fabulous liar. You’re the one who can’t sham to save his life. Something we need to work on.”
“If you’re done encouraging children to take up lives of dishonesty, I really am a busy man,”
Mycroft interjected from the doorway.
“Off the furniture then,” Sherlock drawled, holding out his hand for John brace his jump down with. While John headed over to the coat rack to fetch down his coat and mittens Sherlock carefully folded up the plaid blanket and tenderly tucked it into his bag.
“I’m still not happy about this,” John reminded him.
“I’m not particularly pleased at inflicting my brother on you.”
Mycroft made a faint sound.
“But needs must,” Sherlock sighed, picking up John’s little woolen hat and gently snugging it over his head, then presented him before his brother.
“Hmm,” Mycroft started as an opening to what would prove to be a compressed discourse. “His body fat index.”
“I know. I can’t get him to gain him any weight.”
“Just as long as you’re not letting him keep your own eating schedule.”
The Holmes brothers stared at each other intensely until John had to clear his throat for fear that the combined force of their gazes would cause some sort of gravity well.
“He is not to be carried under any circumstances. He likes milky tea in the morning. Sometimes he screams in his sleep,” John’s shoulders tensed under Sherlock’s hands, turning pink from below his collar all the way up to his hair line. “Don’t bother him, just call his name until he wakes up and then leave him alone.”
“Very good,” Mycroft returned, as calm as if they were discussing the weather. “Come along John.”
He baulked back against Sherlock’s legs for a moment before reminding himself again that he was an adult and above hiding against people. At Mycroft’s nod, John went brave faced into the fray and followed him down the stairs, watching the solid straight lines of his tall back. When Mycroft reached the bottom of the stairs he turned, a pivot as elegant as the planets’ and made a genteel sort of leading expression. “It really won’t be so bad. No need to look like you’re marching to your execution.”
John lifted his chin, pulling every ounce of the adult that kept trying hide just behind every little corner in his brain and bringing it to the surface.
“I thought as much,” Mycroft replied, face shifting sinuous and serious the layers he carefully created and composed to minute perfection fitting him as well as his fine suits. Standing in front of Mycroft gave John the delicate sensation of being precisely plucked apart.
“If we’re going to go, we should go. Otherwise he’ll hide up there until the whole of London blows.”
Mycroft’s mouth tilted up ever so slightly. Whether that actually meant he was amused or not was anyone’s guess. “Very well,” he held the door open for John, a gesture that clearly indicated he controlled the door, not that he was subservient to anyone. “You do realize the way you conduct yourself differs between my brother and myself.”
“If you think I’m trying to manipulate you, why do you ask?”
“Maybe not manipulate,” Mycroft made minute shifts in his posture, so it almost looked like he did something that may have been a shrug.
John gave one look back to 221, before crawling through the door held open by the driver. “Is this going to turn into an interrogation?”
Mycroft let out an even cascade of refined chuckles, “Of course not John. We’re only going to lunch.”
Wonderful.
Tell Grendel we’ve found Watson’s son. Coordinates incoming. E4
D- following messages intercepted, coordinates in London. CCTV show JW with MH both priority 1. - A
Copy. Don’t let message get through. Don’t try track G, 2 dangerous. -D
Send false reply. -D
Good. Observe, no other actions at this time.
Command, please repeat orders. E4
Do not act at this time.
I can do it, please I can. Tell him I can do it. E4
I can. I can catch him. Tell Grendel I can. E4
D - We might have a problem. - A
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