Fic: Stranger at the Gate - 2/11 (BBC Sherlock)

[bendingsignpost]

Title: Stranger at the Gate
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 8.8k this part, 81k overall
Beta: seijichan
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: As far as initiation rites go, kidnapping a human doctor from a defended town ought to seem extreme. When James Moriarty offers him the challenge, Sherlock never considers saying no. (Fantasy vampire AU)
Warnings: Vampires, blood, explicit sex, glamour (as in mind control/hypnotism), dubcon.

Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three -  Chapter Four -  Chapter Five -  Chapter Six -  Chapter Seven -  Chapter Eight -  Chapter Nine -  Chapter Ten -  Chapter Eleven

He crosses the stone corridor unescorted. This is how he recognizes the dream, so unlike the reality. In this twisted memory, no footsteps swallow his with combative echoes. There is no steel to his left or right, waiting to be bared. The room ahead contains only one man.

When he approaches, the heavy doors open on their own.

When he enters, they are alone.

The air is thick from a single man’s pipe. The layered fragrance fills his head even now, rich and smooth with a hint of ash, as precious as a painting about to burn.

“Stop where you are,” drawls a bored voice so much like his own. The accent is different, the language the same. This liquid sound raises gooseflesh as it drips down his body, across his skin. It pools low in his gut, promising all things desirable. It gathers high in his head, at the crown of his skull, and whispers to him of his own burning flesh, holly seared and fire ravaged both.

Sherlock takes a step farther.

A leather sole on thick carpet rings out as if upon flagstone.

The man at the window turns his head.

He is smaller than Sherlock, which is of no importance. It’s merely surprising, continually surprising. His short hair is dark, a brown so deep as to be almost black. His scent is obscured beneath the smoke.

When he looks at Sherlock, his eyes are broken glass, sharper by far than the careful cuts of the stained window beside him. The light, filtered, casts colour into his pale shirt, pristine white transformed.

“Come to me,” the man decides after all.

The force of his own refusal nearly sends Sherlock to his knees, the tear of indecision not wholly his own.

The man laughs, a sound fit to shatter him. His smile falls from his face, fit to break upon the floor, and he commands, “Come.”

Sherlock sits heavily rather than comply, half upon thick cloth, half on lush fur. He sets his hands upon the dual textures, assigning meanings, groping toward balance. The cloth is Moriarty. The fur is Sherlock. He touches the one but he grips the other. He centres himself.

His body leans forward all the same.

Slow, his hand trailing down the window, Moriarty sinks to his haunches. Below the stained light, below the flavourful fog, his face becomes clear.

His interest becomes clear.

He holds his hand out to Sherlock, palm downwards.

He says, sweetly, “Please.”

His palm is soft. His fingers curl around Sherlock’s as they stand. His opposite hand rises to stroke down the back of Sherlock’s, down his wrist to dip below the cuffs. Sherlock allows himself to be reeled in, as if he were the prize.

“What would you like me to fix, my dear?”

He curls into the endearment, the motion as inevitable as the smoke furling across his skin. He thinks then, as he thinks in every reiteration, that he will remember this a thousand times before it fades. Before the praise within sharp eyes burns less brightly.

“I’m offering an exchange,” Sherlock murmurs, low and deep. This time, his volume is deliberate. Asleep, he is more in control of himself than he ever was waking.

Moriarty’s smile plays as his gaze strokes up Sherlock’s chest. “It’s always an exchange.”

“In exchange for information, I’m willing to give you an impossibility.”

Smile smears into smirk. “And what would this impossibility be?”

In a world with but the two of them, there is no one to threaten him as he opens his satchel. There is no one to check the wrapped parcel before he offers it to Moriarty.

Moriarty takes it as carefully as he always has, always knowing what it contains. In this lapsed narrative, the knowing becomes impressive, becomes something he wasn’t merely told through another man’s screams.

Moriarty unwinds the cloth from the fresh sprig of holly, holding it though bunched layers of linen. “I’ve seen gardens like it.” So sure. So dismissive.

Sherlock reaches out and closes his hand around stem, leaves and berries all.

The silence is profound.

They wait.

Sherlock’s hand fails to shake.

His breathing is calm.

His eyes are free of pain.

Delicately, Moriarty places one fingertip against a leaf. He withstands the burning for perhaps a full second, far longer than most ever attempt.

Most.

Not all.

“Your palm,” Moriarty instructs.

He releases crushed leaves. His palm shows the pricks, small dots of red which will slowly fade. He submits to a manual inspection for the sake of the response, for the smallest twitch as it becomes clear Sherlock’s skin is contaminated. When Moriarty gazes up at him with gracefully concealed awe, the moment stretches. This is a good dream.

The sprig traces down his cheek, down the other. He closes his eyes for the slow drag of leaf and wood across his brow. He sees the red trails of irritation as if from outside himself. He remembers the itch.

Moriarty watches the marks fade, his warm gaze as dark and heavy as arterial blood against the tongue.

Sherlock has never felt more magnificent.

Fold by fold, Moriarty conceals the sprig in its wrappings. It returns to Sherlock’s satchel without transition and they are in the corridor alone, always alone together.

Because they are alone, there’s no cause for the whisper. There is no hand on his shoulder, no caressing breath across his ear. The false intimacy and unnecessary seduction are noticeably absent.

Present in their stead is the delusion of dreams. Fingers in his hair with a firm, constant pull that secures them together, brow against brow. His father had held his mother this way, before he died. This moment is calm and steady. This moment is endless.

Moriarty’s abrupt withdrawal is put away forever. There is no questioning of Sherlock’s scent, untempered and childlike. Inexperience and virginity are of no importance, only his mind, only ever his abilities. Here, there is so much that will never happen.

It is, after all, such a lovely dream.

Awareness comes slowly.

First is the ache. His back, his hip. An odd position to sleep in.

Next is the heat. Another body beside his and he thinks, blearily, that he is home and a child and has triumphantly stolen Mycroft’s blankets yet again. He remembers his own age within a heartbeat and thinks, slowly, that he is travelling, that the inn is crowded, and that he has a strange bedmate yet again.

John shifts under his arm and Sherlock’s eyes snap open.

There’s an itch, strange and low, pressing up inside him. The need to move is strong, is desperate, is everything. The rain has stopped. He can hear it. The rain has stopped.

He tries to pull away. His front goes cold, too long pressed against John’s back, and John rolls toward his heat with a soft grunt of discomfort. The pressure pushes Sherlock down against the straw mattress. John reaches for him and the blankets without discrimination, soft and seeking. Ultimately, John rolls over onto his stomach, chest overlapping his, head nestling into the crook of his neck. Sherlock’s hands settle slowly onto his back.

It is dim up in the loft. Predawn birdsong has only just begun, a scattering of sound warning of the cacophony to come. They are warm and dry and John’s breaths across his skin are arresting in a way he struggles to understand.

The feeling of it, the warm rush of the smaller man’s blood through his body, this has largely faded. There are hints of it still, around his edges, creeping into his corners, and he wants to throw himself out under the sunlight and inspect every inch of who he is becoming. He wants to stay here and drink John down until there is nothing else left. He wants to press their skin together in every combination his not inconsiderable intellect can conceive of.

The process isn’t beyond stopping. He knows this from experience, if only just. A month or two feeding exclusively on wildlife and Sherlock’s fingertips will lose this newfound fascination with skin. This irksome way his body seeks to shift and sprawl will never bother him again. His heart won’t pound and his nerves won’t tremble at warm breaths against his collarbone.

He considers it. Angelo isn’t here to insist he’s too young, still a child, always a child. It was accurate then, but not now. Molly isn’t crying, bandage pressed to her neck. Sherlock is fine, not a bruise from shoving hands, not an ache in his mouth from a friend’s unexpected change of heart. There is no panic here. There’s no shame to make him run.

John is simple, that way. Even asleep, the human man is full of praise. Wandering touches across John’s shoulders call a low hum from his throat. The inspection of his body is quick, a matter of tracing cheekbone and ear and neck, all Sherlock can comfortably reach. Time and ill-use have scattered scars across his skin, the left shoulder in particular. For long minutes, his fingers dwell in the indent cast into John’s flesh.

Sherlock leaves his hair alone. The thought of such intimacy seems inappropriate.

Beneath his hands, John shifts yet again. His lips discover Sherlock’s clavicle and he mouths there, vague yet purposeful, as if he has forgotten some specific use for tongue and teeth upon Sherlock’s person. With luck, he’ll never remember and so be forced to continue. That, there, that is lovely. Stay there.

“You’re awake,” Sherlock attempts to say. Rough with sleep, his voice turns strange. His inane words ride a low rumble, practically a purr. He doesn’t recognize the sound in the slightest.

John hums, adjusting himself atop of Sherlock. He noses up Sherlock’s neck, his breath spilling, warm and wet. Sherlock has all of a moment to worry about this sort of damp before there are lips and tongue and a hint of teeth. The taste is foul and irrelevant.

If his own speech had been strange, the noise he makes now is absolutely foreign.

When he can spare a thought, he thinks of hands. His own on John: secure behind his neck, stroking along his side. John touching him: the palm on his shoulder, the fingertips circling his pectoral. The shock of a quick swipe across his nipple. Pieces of his body which have always existed but now which are.

He can’t stop the noises. Some are low and long and languid. Some tear from his throat, some pop and others escape with such desperate bids for freedom.

Is this normal?

“John?” he faintly asks, torn between his curiosities. Bidding the man to speak would interrupt John’s titillating trail up his neck.

John hums against his skin, directly against his skin, and Sherlock clutches at him. Heat stretches his groin. It is of vital importance that something be done about this.

His hands slip down the body partially atop his, insufficiently atop his. His palms cup firm muscle through cloth. He pulls.

Another groan, this time from John. The man draws back - no, don’t stop - only to push down his own smallclothes, blue eyes locked upon Sherlock’s face. There’s a terrible amount of movement, all lost beneath the blankets, and so little of it involves Sherlock being touched.

“Look at you,” John breathes. He drags his thumb around Sherlock’s nipple, skirting it and skirting it and Sherlock’s body strains for a thousand unknown wants. “You’re gorgeous, god, look at you.” John’s thigh presses between his own, warm, thick, heavy.

His legs tense, his hips strain. There’s motion to this, there must be some sort of motion to this, and Sherlock loses himself finding it.

John mouths at his ear, pushing an easy rhythm against Sherlock’s body, into it. The boards of the loft creak in low agreement. “Fuck, your voice.” The vulgar praise presses into his skin. “God, yes. Tell me what you want, what you want this time.”

“John,” he answers, concise.

John understands, or else he guesses well. That mouth against his and the gentle art of kissing roughens. Sherlock follows as best he can only to have his focus shatter. Hands surprise his thighs, the backs of his knees. His legs part themselves. His hips thrust upward, are met. Are pressed down, the motion fluid. Heat, heat, so much heat, lying alongside his cock.

That’s John, isn’t it? That touch, that’s John. John who knows things, good things, things like this, like two pricks in one rough hand. John breaks the kiss, John rears up, John guides him. His legs wrap around John, twitch and skid off John. His hands pull at John, grip his edges.

Only when John kisses him again does Sherlock realize he’s been panting the name.

John moves, somehow deeper, on top of him yet deeper, and everything spills with a startled shout. The mounting pressure in his groin jolts, then presses no more.

But that jolt.

Those seconds.

Glorious.

Glorious and not shameful at all, not when John groans as loudly as he does. John works himself, watching Sherlock watch him. John says things, beautiful words that make no sense, and spills across Sherlock’s stomach. Though his head attempts to fall forward, John fights his neck steady. His eyes, half-hooded, match the slack relief of his mouth.

What follows is a slow collapse. John angles himself. He lies beside Sherlock. Sherlock’s hands won’t leave his skin.

Outside, the symphony of birdsong meanders through its opening movement. The sun is rising.

Sherlock thinks of the walk back to Montague.

When tugged closer, John wastes no time becoming wrapped up in his arms.

They breathe, relief as well as satisfaction.

John cleans them up. His handkerchief is quite soiled by this point. After, he resumes his role as a human bundle. This lasts for perhaps two minutes.

“So,” says John.

“Mm,” hums Sherlock.

“Morning rush will be leaving soon. Need to get up for that. But... I for one am glad it rained.” It’s not quite a confession, but John’s eyes are closed. Shy? Can John be shy?

The thought makes him want to touch. Touch more, more than he has already. Truth be told, everything makes him want to touch. His fingertips play with John’s spine. Each slow stroke down that hard line returns to trace his scapula. “You’ve shown remarkable hospitality.”

John chuckles, a surprised sound. “You’ve been a lovely guest.” He kisses Sherlock on the shoulder, as if to prove this.

“Have I?”

“Yes.” Another kiss. The warm touch unfolds through his skin, down into his bones, and it aches so gently, bidding him to stretch into it, to grow.

Sherlock decides, then and there, that this is a process worth completing. When he returns to fix Angelo, Sherlock will be an adult in every way. With Angelo fixed, the change won’t matter.

“Is this a particularly rainy month?” he asks.

“More than some,” John answers. He shifts a little. Folds his arm beneath his head, careful not to strike Sherlock’s face with his elbow. It’s a lovely elbow, which is strange as those words make little sense in conjunction.

When Sherlock touches, investigating more closely, John doesn’t protest. His lips quirk instead, which is, for some reason, important.

This is, for some reason, very important.

John’s smile grows. Wider, truer. His eyes close, possibly unintentionally. When they open, they’re steady on Sherlock’s face. By now, John is grinning.

“All right,” John says, as if something has been decided. It certainly seems to be something wonderful. He looks exceedingly pleased with himself, an expression Sherlock hadn’t realized John was capable of. He’s not certain what John believes he’s accomplished, but he’ll sort that out later.

For now, Sherlock props himself up on one arm, leans over that fraction of a distance, and kisses him.

John is full of happy hums this morning. The sound mixes well with the growing roughness of his cheeks. He has more stubble than Sherlock does but it’s far less apparent due to the light shade.

“Breakfast?” John asks, pulling away unforgivably soon. He reaches for his clothes. “We’ve basic supplies in here, nothing fancy.”

“I never eat breakfast,” Sherlock answers, sitting up as well. “Never have.”

John looks at him, eyes tracing Sherlock’s ribs where the blanket has fallen away. “Yeah, I can see that. But even if you head back now-”

“I’ll be just in time for lunch,” he replies. He pulls on his shirts more quickly than is perhaps necessary.

They dress in the crammed space of the loft before climbing down. Sherlock gathers up his satchel and John tends to the small remains of the fire. Sherlock’s hands feel absurdly empty.

“I should,” he says and stops. Some sort of gesture here would be appropriate but his hands are empty even of motion.

“You should,” John agrees. The gatehouse is so small that only a few steps bring the man before him. Sherlock’s hands find his waist immediately, which is evidently all the world needs in order to resume making sense. This should be alarming. Likely, it would be, were John not so warm.

He’s not sure how those two thoughts are connected.

“I’ll be off,” he says.

“I’m sure you will be,” John says, and even his mockery is praise. “You’re doing an excellent job of it.” He licks his bottom lip. “When do you think you’ll...?”

“In a minute.”

John shakes his head. He looks embarrassed. Almost small, rather than compact. The idea of releasing him becomes vastly absurd. “Come back, I meant.”

“Tomorrow night?” Sherlock tries to say, but it comes out a question.

“All right,” John says.

“All right?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” He feels oddly breathless. Perhaps he caught a disease from John after all. They do appear to be exhibiting the same symptoms.

They kiss again, just for a moment or two, and John manoeuvres him out the door with a bit of a laugh. “Go,” John urges. “Before the skies open or someone realizes you’re an unarmed idiot.”

“I still have your knife,” Sherlock reminds him.

“I know,” John says. His smile is all in his eyes. “Go.”

The walk to Montague takes four hours. Longer, as he stops to properly feed.

When he arrives, he’s still grinning.

As his internal chemistry eases back toward normalcy, sanity returns.

That night, tossing and turning and twisting fruitlessly beneath his sheets, he realizes what he’s done to himself. His body strains for a goal it will never reach unassisted. This unscratchable itch refuses to fade regardless of the actions he takes. However he handles it, his member remains flaccid. He draws the line at humping the mattress, humiliated.

The reason is clear: John is almost out of his system. There’s enough of him left for Sherlock to want, these traces of human blood diluted by that of rabbit. A full day after drinking from the gatekeeper, there isn’t enough to do anything with.

Sherlock writhes with it.

He hates this, he hates this, he hates this.

It had been good, yes. It had been extraordinary, but extraordinary isn’t worth this. His body doesn’t understand this, doesn’t want this no matter how it now hungers.

He hopes, ten miles away, that John is suffering as he is. John should be restless beneath his sheets, at a loss of what to do with himself. He wants John cursing and frustrated. He hopes that John, with his human blood so easily filling a human cock, he hopes John comes in his smallclothes, sticky and mortified.

Lying on his side with his pillow in a chokehold, Sherlock considers this. He mentally rephrases.

John can come outside of his smallclothes. Something else embarrassing, though. Noises, that’s it. Small, helpless noises, worse than Sherlock’s had been. Smothered by fist or pillow? Which fist? He’d used his left when touching them both. He would use his right to quiet himself, palm over his lips. No, fisted, the knuckle of his forefinger between his teeth.

Or, no. Shameless. No embarrassment whatsoever, too busy sinking his fingers into Sherlock’s hair. He’s breathless at the thought. That praise. He’s never been praised like that, never. Or kissed. It’s surprisingly nice, the kissing, the way John curls into his mouth, unaware of how retracted fangs beg to extend in one sharp puncture. He tries to imagine what that would be like, drinking John down while kissing him. Utterly indulgent.

Sherlock flops angrily onto his stomach and groans into his pillow. This isn’t helping. He’s twenty-four, he’s an adult, physical technicalities and Angelo’s insistence be damned, and his mind shouldn’t be full of such idiotic whinging. The more he tries to calm his mind, he more he can hear his thoughts shouting. It’s annoying.

Finally, he exhausts himself into a twitching sleep.

He dreams of Moriarty again, he’s almost certain. It slips away from him in the morning, the details too varied from memory for him to recall for long. He has an impression of intrigued brown eyes. Intrigued by what, he can’t say, but the memory of them is true.

Sherlock’s resistance to holly, perhaps. A simple, acquired characteristic, remarkable only when viewing Sherlock as a stranger would. He has a particularly strong memory of being six and picking the plant one searing leaf at a time. He’d taken the sickly looking ones and, slowly, fighting down screams, had rubbed them across his cheeks and nose. After waiting for the stinging to subside, for the red marks to fade, he’d returned home, right into the arms of his worried brother, and nuzzled his face directly into Mycroft’s neck.

The mere thought still makes him smile.

But no: the intrigue is not due to the holly. The intrigue is something else.

Not Sherlock’s request. He’s certain of that. How many people in this hostile region must wish to manipulate their glamour the way James Moriarty is capable of? Moriarty hadn’t so much as blinked an eye, let alone asked for Sherlock’s motives.

Perhaps it’s Sherlock’s response to his challenge. How many would dare Bartholomew’s Crossing? The bridge is the issue. If Sherlock could walk across on his hands, he would have nothing to be concerned about. He has to build up his resistance in his feet, a project to which he has already dedicated himself. The pain will be worth the payoff. The soles of his feet have already worn thick with travel these past two years.

Leaving Whitehall had been the correct thing. Everything he has done has been, at that time, the correct decision. Removing himself and Angelo from Mycroft’s territory had been best for all involved. He’s taken a distinct pride in living without affiliation to his brother, his ring removed.

Travelling east along the mountains, studying glamour at every hospital and prison: these ought to have been sufficient steps. He can glamour away pain. He can impose restraint upon addicts and abusers. Useful knowledge, but far from what he needs.

From there began the journey north. Through the mountains, through human lands, and into the siren territory of the southern gulf. Belgravia. Irene was willing enough to help him in exchange for solving her puzzles and the work had been better than that of a hospital courier. For a time, he’d felt he was making progress. Sirens have their own calls, their own ways. Their kinds aren’t so different in that regard, but ultimately, even siren methods aren’t enough for him to overwrite a forceful, pre-existing glamour.

There was no one in his civilized world capable of teaching him that. Until Irene received a missive from a man across the gulf, a leader of the People forced into the north-eastern mountains by human barbarians, until then, Sherlock had nearly lost hope.

He knows he’s here on Irene’s behalf as much as he is on his own, but sometimes, he forgets. The end is too close. All that remains is to cross the bridge, locate the human named Michael Stamford, and glamour him into leaving Bart’s. From here, it’s only a matter of time until Angelo recognizes him as a man.

Sherlock will soon have to return to work as a courier. If his coin is to hold out, there are few other options, now that he’s left his violin with Angelo and the horses. He has no qualms in talking a drunkard out of his remaining funds - better for the human’s health, better for everyone - but Mummy would have disapproved. And Angelo. And the Lestrades. Mycroft would sneer something about social obligation to one’s inferiors.

He’ll have to find some sort of clientele. It won’t be the same as southern hospitals, but he can travel the surrounding towns, avoid suspicion, and build up his immunity with a small powder of grated holly bark in his socks. There exists nothing in this world he cannot learn to endure.

Really, he shouldn’t return to the bridge until he’s ready. There’s no true point in returning before then. When John asks where he’s been, Sherlock will simply answer that the package came through up north instead. He could show the illiterate man any rolled up slip of paper he pleased and claim a message had arrived by wing. No business remaining at Bart’s Crossing and a four hour walk was a four hour walk.

John would understand. John would begrudge him it, but he would certainly understand. He would be professional and show Sherlock into the town. As quickly as possible, Sherlock imagines. And so achingly polite.

“Please,” John would say. Please remove your shoes and walk the holly path. Please wait a minute, thank you. Mind your head on the way through, good-bye.

Sherlock would locate Stamford and spend several days in his company, learning his mind and habits. He would steal into the human’s mannerisms with one prodding of glamour at a time until the man was quite willing to leave Bart’s with him.

Between those days, during those nights, John would return to his sister’s home. Or stay in the gatehouse. By that point, it wouldn’t matter. After that length of time, Sherlock’s body would no longer want him. John would recognize that. Despite his curiosity, John would stay away from Sherlock on his own.

There would be the complication of how to feed while in Bart’s. Even within the town, even while cut off from any safe food source, Sherlock would never slip again, never lower his mouth to John’s skin and drink his warmth with rough fingers twined in his hair. Instead, he would slip out day by day, perhaps using the other bridge toward the west. Run an errand, or claim to, and feed in the forest. He would call wildlife with his glamour the way he always has, pick out the healthiest creature of the lot. He would drink, ignoring the matting of fur against his tongue and the futile jerking of small limbs beneath his hands.

After, he would return and continue to learn Stamford before laying the manipulation into place, subtle and strong and unnoticeable. When he and Stamford left together, it would seem half a coincidence of timing, half a result of a budding friendship. Sherlock has never had a problem portraying a convincing friendship. He prides himself on his ability to mimic and emulate. The polite society Mycroft insists on requires nothing less.

The hazing ritual overcome, Sherlock would see whether Moriarty was as good as his word. For the sake of Moriarty’s reputation, there was ample pressure on the mesmerist to follow through with the promised lessons. Sherlock would learn rapidly and well. Before the winter, he would be able to cast glamour in interlocking layers. With practice, he should be capable of building around a pre-existing glamour and thereby overcome it.

He’ll be twenty-five or perhaps twenty-six before he’s ready, but he’ll cross the river and return to Angelo. He will fix Angelo and then they will go home and if Mycroft says anything else about little boys and their belief in solving the impossible, Sherlock may do something dire. That will be the worst problem in Sherlock’s life, the risk of his brother speaking.

It will be marvellous.

Sherlock finds work that very afternoon, the afternoon John is fruitlessly waiting for him. It takes some convincing but no glamour and he has an exchange to make at Euston. This walk is approximately three and a half hours. The road is remarkably dry. His load is light and the process could almost be called pleasant. John’s sheathed knife rides at his hip.

At Euston, Sherlock makes the exchange with sunset two hours away. This new package is heavier but nevertheless fits with ease within his satchel. He sets it away immediately.

“In a rush?” the woman asks him. Her first name is Violet, her surname something equally generic. Anglic is simple that way.

He nods without thinking, without any thought at all. He’s spent too much of his life playing up to expectation to resist the habit when distracted. Not that he is. Distracted, he means.

“Are you off to Bart’s?” she asks.

He actually startles.

The woman laughs at him. The sound is as cloying as the scent of her namesake. “That’s the only place you could get to from here by sundown,” she explains.

He could kick himself, because, yes, of course it really is that simple. He hasn’t given himself away after all. Obviously.

“Oh,” the woman adds. “Would you wait here a moment?”

She darts away into her house before Sherlock can rally a proper response. He waits less from the request and more from a need to be directed to a place to stay.

The woman returns with a cloth-wrapped bundle in her arms. Judging by the way she carries it, he assumes a wooden object, rectangular. The contents of the box, he cannot yet guess at. “My uncle was going to carry this over later in the week,” she tells him. “But if you’re staying there tonight....”

Sherlock could say no.

He could say no so very easily.

He’ll correct her and ask for directions to the inn. He will. He won’t even have to refuse to carry the package, only to carry it tonight. Tomorrow, in the morning, he could drop off the woman’s box at the gatehouse and simply walk away. Or he could pass the item onto an individual crossing the bridge.

Or he could recognize that those plans are cowardly and imbecilic. He could acknowledge that he has allowed himself to be cowed by a courteous man who could never force Sherlock to do anything even should he make the attempt. Which he obviously would not, due to the aforementioned courtesy.

In the unlikely instance John did press him sexually, the human would hardly desire Sherlock to drink of him. Thinking Sherlock human, John would never make the connection. When Sherlock fails to display his arousal, John will be put off and the matter will end itself. With that settled, they can spend the remainder of the evening talking at the table. John knows a surprising number of allegorical stories and he laughs so easily when Sherlock shifts their meanings. Tonight, they will fall asleep with the respectful distance of unexpected bedfellows at a crowded inn. Or they’ll sleep back-to-back, as brothers would.

As Sherlock considers these things, his hands accept the box the woman hands him and his voice negotiates for his wages.

That settled, he walks.

Across the river and its cliffs, behind the town and over the bridges, the sun steals one last peek above the trees. The sky is red, the clouds orange. A smear of grey tarnishes the night, curling from the gatehouse chimney.

The gatehouse door is closed, as it should be.

This ought to be a calming sight. Nothing the matter. No suspicions aroused. Nothing but a door and a man behind that door and the sound of Sherlock’s knuckles against wood.

The little window opens. He inserts his hand to the sound of John’s familiar directions only to hear them cut off.

“Hello,” John says instead. His fingertips touch Sherlock’s upturned palm, so light, so steady.

Sherlock’s fingers curl in reply, reaching, seeking. They draw across John’s palm before capturing human digits.

“Hello,” Sherlock replies, speaking to the door. “Are you the new holly test?”

“Thinking about changing standard policy,” John rejoins. His, yes, his thumb strokes Sherlock’s wrist with small, repetitive motions. It makes Sherlock twitch towards a firmer touch.

“It doesn’t seem terribly effective.”

“You don’t know that,” John says, muffled through the wood. “It could be.”

It isn’t. Not at all. Not unless the goal is to trap him this way, unable to enter and unable to leave.

“This is quite rude,” Sherlock tells him. “Leaving a guest out in the cold, John, I expected much better of you.”

“I’m sorry. Should I let you in and warm you up?”

“Yes.” The word slips out in the split second before the innuendo registers. “I-”

John releases his hand and Sherlock withdraws it hurriedly.

Sherlock tries again. “I-”

The door opens and there is no more trying.

Firelight transforms John. Backlit, his face is shadow, his hair gold. The man is steady beneath the flickering light, granite infused with glinting mica. Sherlock has seen this before. The night before last, Sherlock saw this for hours, John sitting before the hearth. By all rights, the sight should retain no power over him.

John says, almost softly, “Come in, then.”

Sherlock obeys, closing the door behind him.

Inside, below the fragrance of wood smoke, traces of Sherlock’s pipe tobacco no longer hover in the air. When he’d left the morning before, it had still twined through the scents of wood and wool, masking the stale odour of the chamber pot. None of these scents can conceal John from his nose, sweat and musk strong enough to taste on the tongue. He smells vaguely of apples.

Standing within reach, John is unduly close. John is much too far away.

Sherlock’s uncertain hands go to his satchel instead.

“This is for Abigail Thompson.” A jewellery box he assumes. Empty between the cloth wrapping and twine but with intricate carving. “Should I put it on the shelf?”

“You could carry it in come morning,” John replies.

No he could not. Not yet. “What an atrocious waste of my time here.”

John’s eyes darken. His tongue makes its reappearance, if only for a moment. This is so unlike the typical reactions to Sherlock’s glamour that he has no frame of reference.

“You agree, don’t you?” Sherlock presses. He needs John convinced, utterly.

“Yes,” John answers, a very alert yes. The sort of yes meant for another sort of question. This is the problem of glamour: the message sent isn’t always the message received. Just look at Angelo.

This is a dissimilar problem. John has hardly been overwhelmed by a frantic command. Sherlock doubts John could be overwhelmed by anything. John is filling in the blanks, fashioning an explanation on Sherlock’s behalf, and has begun to operate according to his own assumptions.

John assumes his way closer. He nods at Sherlock’s satchel. “You can put that down, you know.”

Sherlock swings it down from his shoulder and sets it at the base of the shelves. He removes his travelling coat, too warm in the snug gatehouse.

John takes the garment from him, crosses the small room, and hangs it on a peg beside the gate-side door. Set next to John’s, the discrepancy in quality is as obvious as the differences in length.

John looks at him over his shoulder and asks, “Tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“Think I will, though.” The lid is removed from the large barrel by the hearth. John ladles careful amount water into the kettle, then hangs the iron over the fire. The metal reminds Sherlock of John’s hands, so worn and practical and sturdy. The item fits the man.

John smiles faintly. “Are you going to stand there all night?”

He moves to the table. He sits down in what he’s begun to think of as his chair, his back to the door.

When John joins him, their legs touch under the table. The man’s mouth is a soft line, his eyes even softer.

“How old are you?” John asks. “Twenty-six?”

The guess warms him almost as much as the question unnerves him. It’s jarring to be treated so easily as an adult. “Twenty-four. Is that important?”

Surprise flickers through John’s eyes but quickly leaves. “Not really,” he says. “I’m twenty-nine, by the way. Is that important?”

“No,” Sherlock replies.

“Good,” John says.

So it is.

The thought must show on Sherlock’s face because John’s smile must be in response to something. His lips look pleased. All his features do, the tilt of his face and the line of his neck. The gentle slope of his hard shoulders invites the touch of a palm and a stroking, circling thumb.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” Sherlock asks abruptly.

“Not if you blow smoke rings again.”

“All right.”

Head bowed over his work, Sherlock packs his pipe. John offers him matches. Sherlock accepts one despite having his own. He lights his pipe and takes a long, soothing draw. The heat and comfort it brings is much like John’s leg against his, steady and warm.

He blows ring after ring, some breaking apart, some lacing together with their siblings. John watches, his expression many parts delight.

“Remarkable,” John says.

“Not particularly.”

“Well I think it is,” John counters, less like a compliment and more like a challenge. Civil, yes, always so civil, his John, but unmistakably ready to defend his opinion.

“You’re very easily impressed,” Sherlock replies, willing him to do it again.

Instead, John’s expression twitches in something like amusement. Darker, dryer, older than amusement, some distant cousin.

“What?”

“Conscripted,” John says. “That’s what I was thinking. You’re impressed into the navy, conscripted into the army.”

“When was this?” There hasn’t been war in the north since before Bart’s Crossing was treated with holly. The defences against Sherlock’s people had been standardized four years ago, once the human lords had fought themselves low. By the end, there were only two factions worth asking after: east and west. “Which army: Bryant or Mayhew?”

“Lord Mayhew, from the beginning,” John replies. He shrugs with his right shoulder. “Not that I picked the winning side, mind you. More a coincidence of location.”

Sherlock mentally reviews his history and geography. He’s learned a great deal since coming here, had learned even more in preparation for the journey. “Then you’re from the gulf coast. The western delta lands.” He frowns, biting lightly on the pipe stem. “After the conflict, you were willingly relocated to this position with your remaining family. More than that, you were rewarded. You took a crossbow quarrel through the shoulder, which would entitle you to compensation were Mayhew known for his fairness. As he is decidedly not, your service before the wound was either exemplary or the exact circumstances of your injury are significant. Possibly both.

“You’re from farmland but not a farming family. Not a merchant family either. Your sword and dagger are an old set of reasonable quality and particularly well cared for. Moreover, the style of engraving on the scabbard is very typical in the south, across the gulf - where your grandfather was from, you said. So, kept in the family. You’re a tidy man, keep your gear in order, but the weapons are obviously special. Sentimental value, then, belonged to someone you were close to. I’d say father or uncle, provided it was an uncle without a son of his own, or a son old enough to teach before he died.

“You said Mayhew from the beginning, which means twelve or so years ago. You were seventeen. The former owner of the sword was already deceased but had taught you its use. Certainly from a young age. He was right-handed and taught you accordingly, but you would shift to your left out of preference. You fight with the right hand at present because of the shoulder wound.

“An ambidextrous young fighter, loyal and easily trained despite your conscription, but nevertheless common. The injury is the important piece here. The bolt didn’t go through you and it was unlikely you were armoured particularly well. Not that it would matter, a bolt like that. A long-range shot would have that result and could also explain why immediate medical treatment was at hand. You were not in the thick of battle. You were doing something else, what were you doing?” He stops gesturing with his pipe long enough to take a draw from it. Eyes wide, John doesn’t interrupt.

Sherlock breathes out grey frustration and realizes: “It wasn’t long-range. You were shot from the front, exactly from the front. The angle is wrong for long distance. Short range, in front of you, you saw it coming. Yet you didn’t move. That close, yet to not move and to not be pierced through, you-

“Oh.

“Oh,” Sherlock says. “You’re the second man. The assassination attempt on Mayhew’s son. This would be, oh, seven years ago? Bryant was desperate to gain an upper hand before the winter mud and cold made fighting in the field impossible. The autumn of the assassin, you were, what, twenty-two? Five years through the ranks. Meeting with young Mayhew, you were either a captain or a bodyguard. That’s the story, that the bolt aimed at young Mayhew went through a captain and bodyguard first. But a bodyguard isn’t patched up nearly so well and given a replacement post for his service, no, so captain it is.

“You were provided for while you healed, which I would imagine took the remaining three years of the conflict. Once fit for duty, Mayhew sets his son in charge of interspecies defence. Young Mayhew offers you this post, possibly providing for at least one of your remaining family members, specifically your sister Harry. With the new measures in place, Bartholomew’s Crossing is quite simple to defend, ideal for a swordsman who can no longer use his dominant hand in combat. Two gates and an incredibly defendable dock down below. Did you request the post or did he specifically offer it to you?”

In the long moments before John replies, Sherlock can hear the crackle of the fireplace and the burbling whispers of the kettle. Outside, he can hear the river and two species of owl.

He keeps his eyes on the bowl of his pipe, taking another breath through it, and thinks: There. That’s finished. His observations have never failed to repel their subjects. Not even Molly likes them very much.

Finally, John finds his voice.

“How...?”

“I observed,” Sherlock answers bluntly.

He’s aware of John staring but he doesn’t have to look back at him.

“That,” John says, “was amazing.”

They stare at each other. John’s eyes are dark, very, in a blue way. They are also sincere.

The kettle begins to whistle, then to shriek.

“Are you going to...?” Sherlock prompts.

“Yes,” John says. Then “yes” again, strongly, as if in a sudden realization. His leg pulls away from Sherlock’s, leaving a strip of cold down his shin. John’s chair scrapes against the floor.

While John putters through the lengthy process leading toward tea, Sherlock breathes. It’s absurdly difficult, as if Mycroft has told him not to.

When John returns to him, he says, just as he had before, “That was amazing.”

“Do you honestly think so?” he asks. It’s an entirely inappropriate use of glamour, but he needs very much to know.

“Yes,” John says. Just that, just yes, as simple as yes.

“Oh,” says Sherlock.

“How did you- I mean, I haven’t told-” John bites his lip. “How did you do that?”

“I observed,” Sherlock repeats.

“And you made connections,” John corrects. “I just can’t see how.”

“Such as?”

A flick of that tongue, nervous and impressed. “How did you know my father died before the war?”

Sherlock shrugs. “If alive, he would have been conscripted as well and would have taken his equipment with him. Mayhew is well-known for the organization of his army, splitting up friends and family to force new bonds within his troops. So, if alive at the beginning and killed in action, it’s incredibly unlikely you would be able to retrieve his effects. Battlefield plunder is all too common.”

“But he could have been too old to be conscripted. Or lame or injured.”

“Then you’d have the sword only, not the knife,” Sherlock supplies. “That, he would have kept.”

So many glimpses of that tongue. Was John aware he did this? “That’s.... That’s probably right,” John says, as if just realizing it. “Sherlock, that’s incredible.”

“This isn’t how people normally react.” People and humans both.

“Why, what do they normally think?” John grins a bit. “Do they think you cheated, call you a wizard...?”

“They think I’m airing personal secrets I have no business knowing,” Sherlock answers flatly.

John considers this.

“Do you mind?” Sherlock asks. “I don’t spread my conclusions, I simply make them.”

“No,” John says. He shakes his head. “I don’t mind, I... yeah. Why, um. Why am I not a farmer, then?”

“Your hands,” Sherlock replies instantly. “You don’t have the calluses for a plough or hoe. Nor do you have a picker’s stoop and- You’re smiling.”

“So I am,” John says.

“Because I said ‘picker’s stoop’,” he observes.

“Yes.” John smiles all the wider, hands wrapped around a thick brown mug. The steam curls toward his tan face before it’s blown away by his breath into thin, fading spirals.

Sherlock pieces together everything he knows of solid human foods and how they are grown and raised. When that fails, he thinks of possible innuendo and again comes up empty-handed. He smokes his pipe as John drinks his tea. A luxury here, as he understands the beverage. Another gift from Young Mayhew?

“What makes a picker’s stoop amusing?” he asks at last.

“Because that’s the last thing you’ll get, working in an apple orchard.”

Sherlock scowls at John’s grin. John’s knee nudges at his until Sherlock stops.

“I hadn’t considered an orchard,” Sherlock admitted.

“Less bending down, more carrying ladders,” John replies. “Did you really notice everything from my hands?”

Sherlock lays his own hand on the table palm up, feigning submission. “You try. You must see a fair number, checking that door.”

“I have.” John puts his mug aside and takes Sherlock’s hand in both of his. “You’ve never worked with your hands. And you’re pale where you’re not burnt, so, studying indoors. Some freckles, so you did get out sometime? Um.” He inspects Sherlock’s fingers, the touch light. It’s the same professional touch that Sherlock remembers from the door and he finds he wants it gone.

“What else?”

“You used to wear a ring.”

“I did,” Sherlock confirms.

John looks inordinately pleased with himself. It sits exceptionally well on his features.

“What else?” Sherlock urges. “You know the pieces. Put them together.”

“You’re, uh. I want to say a wealthy background but that’s obvious and, well, not quite right, because then what are you doing as a courier? So... sponsored? Aristocrats take a clever, comely lad and study him up?” John supposes, baring his thoughts word by word.

“That’s right,” he lies. “But what am I doing as a courier?”

John bites his lip again, as if offering Sherlock a suggestion. “No more sponsor. You’re travelling to learn, that’s pretty obvious with the way you go about, so you’re a courier to help with the travelling,” he says, jarringly spot-on.

“How long, would you say?”

“Maybe a year?”

“Two,” Sherlock answers. “I keep good care of my clothing.” With the foundation John has handed him, he already has a convincing lie, specifically tailored for John’s expectations. It’s truthful enough that Sherlock will have no trouble remembering the details.

“What happened?”

“She- She died,” he says, surprised at how it catches in his throat. Two years and four months after the fact and in this story, she isn’t his mother. Except of course she is. In every story, she’s his mother. “It was.... After she passed, I had a falling out with her older son.”

John nods, petting Sherlock’s hand. Perhaps he’ll continue as long as Sherlock speaks.

“I hate him,” Sherlock says. “He’s a fat, controlling despot in love with the sound of his own voice. He tutored me when I was small and he’s held it over me ever since. He wants me trapped on his estate for the rest of my life. Don’t tell me that’s my end of the bargain - you have no idea how he is.”

The fingertips on the back of his hand are oddly soothing. From knuckle to wrist, knuckle to wrist, tracing bones and veins.

“I’m not going back,” Sherlock adds.

“Good,” John says.

“Is it?”

John nods. “I’ve known enough bean-counters to know you’d be wasted on it. Any merchant’s child can keep tally.” His fingertips pause, then resume. “Are you a merchant’s son?”

“A baker’s,” Sherlock says without thinking, without the need for thought. “My father’s name is Angelo.”

“Angelo and Sherlock Holmes?”

“My family believes in unusual names.”

“Could be worse,” John says. “My family believes in apples. And avoiding sirens, but that’s a long story. My mum’s side, it’s all apples. Some came into market last week, in town, and Harry bought half a bushel. The house reeks of apples now.”

“That sickly rotting smell?” Sherlock asks. “The scent where, when you look, there are bees inside the hollowed fruit?”

“No, but- How do you- I mean, no it’s not that smell yet. She’s drying some, so it won’t get like that, but how do you know that smell?”

“I like bees,” Sherlock says. “But I always loathed that smell.”

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” John says. “It sits right in your nose and you can never get it out.”

“It’s nauseating.”

“But you’re never actually sick from it. Every year, it ruined autumn. You’d spend weeks picking and celebrate with a harvest festival, but it was still all apples.”

“Angelo bakes for ours,” Sherlock says. “He adores it. Pies and tarts until the tables creak.”

“Do you hate pie?” John asks, a question that must surely be rhetorical.

“Can’t stomach it,” Sherlock understates.

Upon the table, their hands curl loosely together. They look each other in the eyes rather than glance down and see. John’s skin is dry, supple heat.

“I like your tobacco,” John tells him, and he can’t possibly realize the way he’s smiling. No one smiles like that. Holding vulnerability out as a gift, confident of its reception. “My shirt smells like it, a little. I used it as a pillow last night to keep the apple smell out.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock pictures this.

He thinks of his own hopes last night in regards to John’s condition. Innocent image combines with depraved hope and his grip on John’s hand tightens. John matches the pressure. It’s lovely. He’s lovely.

John is leaning forward. They both are. They have been for some time. Sherlock’s ankle is hooked around the back of John’s. He’s not certain when he did that.

Possibly, more than possibly, he should stop this.

Instead, he watches John’s fingertips. They mark a tingling, invisible path across the tiny bones of his wrist. They nudge beneath his cuffs, seeking more, seeking him. Sherlock could shiver out of his skin, simply watching, and yet he’s the very opposite of cold. Everything, in fact, is much too warm.

Except for John’s eyes. They’re warmer than blue has any right to be, but he wishes them warmer still.

He flexes his arm beneath John’s touch, nerves twitching from this too-light treatment.

John’s eyes lift from Sherlock’s forearm to his face.

Are there words for this? Situations like these, do they happen often enough to merit their own vocabulary? He needs words.

“You should finish your tea,” Sherlock says. It must be getting cold, he means to add, but his voice has left him. All that remains is a low murmur.

“Once you finish your pipe,” John replies.

“And then?”

“Whatever you’d like,” John says.

“Whatever I’d like,” Sherlock repeats.

John nods. The movement changes the colouring of his hair, gold and straw and wheat mingling with no regard for order, or propriety, or desperate, wanting hands. “As much or as little,” John says.

“As much,” Sherlock replies. “I’d rather the....”

“I’d rather, too,” John admits. His voice is a low, relieved laugh, entirely without shame.

“I’ll finish my pipe,” Sherlock says.

John smiles. His fingertips grant long, slow kisses to the bones of Sherlock’s hand.

“I’ll finish my tea,” he replies.

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