Fic: Stranger at the Gate - 10/11 (BBC Sherlock)
Title: Stranger at the Gate
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 8k this part, 81k overall
Beta: seijichan and arcsupport
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
VERY SERIOUS WARNING: ahead is a very sadistic Moriarty with mind control powers. Warnings include blood, knives, threats of immense physical harm, sexualized creepiness, implications of sexual creepiness, humiliation, and general mindfuckery. Pretty sure that covers it.
Doubled over, a panicked haze between him and breathing, Sherlock tries to think.
Moriarty is incongruous. He doesn’t fit in the gatehouse, doesn’t fit against the backdrop of rushing water. Too pristine, his clothing too fine. The slightest rumple of travel by carriage, travelling for some days, but not on end. From where, where did he come from?
Behind him, a second man. Human by the scent, alert in the eyes, and very clearly armed. Controlled, but not quite a thrall. There’s insufficient space in the gatehouse for four men, much less four men with multiple drawn swords. Moriarty waggles his fingers at his bodyguard. “Make sure we aren’t interrupted, won’t you?”
The bodyguard nods and steps outside. The bar is down on the door as he closes it, keeping the door ajar. The thin line of daylight is an obvious threat.
Tsking, Moriarty wrinkles his nose. “Whatever have you kept me waiting for, Sherlock?” One hand in his pocket, he waves the other before his face in the faux attempt to fan away the heavy scent of coupling. “Oh dear.”
Sherlock pushes himself up, leaning heavily on the table. Straightening puts new strain on his back, his legs. His arse aches and burns. He strives for air, for anything, and his attempted speech is nothing more than broken syllables and coughing.
John isn’t even looking at him. His eyes rest on Moriarty’s face with the expectancy of a soldier toward a favoured commander.
“Careful,” Moriarty warns Sherlock. “Take your time. It’s nothing you haven’t taken already. Feel free to sit. If you can.”
Sherlock does not sit down, not simply because he can’t. His hands on the table, his arms shaking. “What are you doing here?”
“I was invited,” Moriarty declares, voice lilting. He withdraws his hand from his pocket and waves a slim slip of paper at Sherlock. It curls, clearly a note carried by wing. A prearranged summons, it must be. “Even the stupidest thrall can send a signal. The question is, what are you doing here?” He bounces on the balls of his feet. “Besides being fucked in the arse, I can see that.”
John’s mouth quirks.
There is no more breathing.
Moriarty laughs and laughs. Then he cuts his laughing short. “But honestly, Sherlock.” His eyes are as serious, as sharp as the sword in John’s hand. “What’s this I hear about you running off? Darling, we had a deal.”
“A dare,” Sherlock corrects.
“Don’t be such a child. Not that you can help it, can you, poor thing.” Moriarty pulls out Sherlock’s chair and sits, the door at his back and John at his shoulder. “Let’s try to talk like adults, shall we?”
“In front of the gatekeeper?” Sherlock counters. “Let’s not talk like idiots. He may not be fluent, but does understand what we’re saying.”
Moriarty smiles on. “You say that as if it matters.” He twists in the chair, lifting his hand. His knuckles rest over John’s stomach as he gazes up at the soldier. “Do you remember me when I’m gone?” he asks in Anglic.
“No, sir,” John answers.
“Do you try to?”
“Of late, yes, sir.”
“Aww,” Moriarty coos. “How sweet.” His fingertips slip through the buttons of John’s shirt, hooking there. He smiles at Sherlock. “Isn’t he sweet? And so obedient. Does everything I tell him to - including you, as it turns out.” He looks up at John. “Was it good?”
“Had better, wasn’t bad.”
“Did he beg for it?”
“Well, he always does, doesn’t he.”
Moriarty laughs his delight. John ducks his chin, his smile but half-hidden.
“Stop it,” Sherlock snaps. “This is juvenile.”
“So is being sidetracked by a piece of flesh.” Moriarty tugs at John’s shirt. “And a damaged one at that. No offense, Johnny.”
“I know how I am,” John answers with a vague shrug. The left, wounded shoulder, rising and falling, the sword still in his right hand.
“But you are very good at taking orders. Do you remember those while I’m gone?”
“No, sir.”
“But you do follow them.”
For the first time, John registers complaint. “Of course I do, sir.”
“How long has he been under your glamour?” Sherlock demands. He leans forward across the table, his hands on the wood, his locked arms like columns. He stands in a frozen lunge, heart pounding. “You didn’t come out here before I did, not personally.” Moriarty wouldn’t have. Surely he couldn’t have. “You can’t take what’s mine. My claim has seniority.”
“What claim?”
Sherlock’s eyes snap up to John. “What?”
“What claim?” John repeats. “You gave yours up. Last week. You took your glamour off me.”
“John, you don’t understand what’s happening.”
“No, I think I do,” John counters. “You told me last week, the way it’d work with Angelo. I’m smarter than you think I am, Sherlock. I know who I belong to.”
“He wants Mike Stamford dead,” Sherlock snaps. “The doctor who saved you, dead. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” John answers. “It’s a very clever ploy, actually. Mike’s one hell of a lynchpin, when you think about it. And we’ve still got Clara for a doctor, so that’s all right.”
“John, you’re still-” Sherlock turns on Moriarty. “John is still my bloodmate. That supersedes glamour rights.”
Moriarty rolls his eyes. “You sentimental southern weakling. Feeding on an animal doesn’t make it special. You even believe in interspecies marriage, don’t you?”
“That’s different from ‘bloodmates,’ right?” John asks.
Sherlock nods.
“Do you still have to, I don’t know, propose?” John continues, half-asking. “I’m sure that never happened. You’ve never even called me a bloodmate before, not once.”
Sherlock pulls back. Pulls away. Movement hurts but, standing, Sherlock is the tallest man in the room. The height is almost comforting, if anything could be comforting. “There’s no point in talking to him like this,” he acknowledges. He’s known that since Moriarty walked in through the door, but he can’t seem to stop.
“You’ve never minded before,” John counters. “I don’t see what the fuss is about.”
Moriarty touches him yet again, soothing motions through his shirt. He draws John nearer, hand slipping around his back, arm around his waist. “Some of us get so sentimental about our pets, Johnny boy.”
“I’ve noticed,” John remarks dryly. His stance over Moriarty is protective, his expression fond.
“Stop it.” Sherlock’s throat has gone tight. “You want me to get Stamford for you. I understand that.”
“I don’t think you do,” Moriarty replies. “I think you’ve become confused about your little priorities.”
“They’re very clear now. We can move on.”
“I hope you’re not still running away.” Moriarty leans into John, shoulder against his side, and rests his head against John’s ribs. Pouting, he shakes his head, smearing his scent over John’s shirt. He singsongs, voice high and sharp: “Because there would be consequences...!”
“I’d rather not be killed on your behalf, thanks,” John adds.
“John for Stamford, then.” John won’t forgive him, not if John is anything like the man Sherlock thinks he is, but that’s better than John deceased.
“Oh, Sherlock,” Moriarty laments. “You make this sound like a hostage situation.”
“This is a hostage situation.”
“He’s got a point,” John says agreeably.
Moriarty waves the hand not on John. “Yes, but you’re very cooperative.”
John smiles back. “Thank you, sir.”
“The stakes are higher than you realize, Sherlock, my dear,” Moriarty continues. “It’s always been their blood for ours. Why should this be any different?”
Because it is different. Because symbiosis is more logical than parasitism. Because John’s hand is on the back of Moriarty’s chair - Sherlock’s chair - and John is standing guard over the man who would kill him.
Sherlock’s reply sticks in his throat, trapped by John’s neutral gaze.
“Shall I walk you through it?” Moriarty offers. “Or Johnny here? There’s not much in his head, but he does know his way around a battlefield.”
“You want to rekindle the war,” Sherlock responds. “The truce is young and both sides are posturing. If Mayhew’s doctor dies in Bryant’s territory, both sides have complaint. But how do you profit?”
“How do we profit,” Moriarty corrects. “You and I, our kind.”
“I don’t play politics,” Sherlock dismisses.
“I’m not playing. Am I, Johnny? Am I playing?”
“No, sir.”
“This isn’t a game, darling.” Moriarty ends his lean against John but his arm remains in place, hooked over hips. “It’s about providing for the children.”
Though an obvious piece of mockery, that should be hint enough. That should be an answer. If he could think it would be. If he could think. If Moriarty weren’t touching John. If Moriarty weren’t controlling him. If Sherlock knew when John was turned into a tool.
Was it from the beginning? Was John’s interest never more than a mocking prank? It’s plausible. The possibility cannot be dismissed: he’s never scented a trace of Moriarty during his time here. Either he came well before Sherlock did or his scent was washed away by the rain.
“No?” Moriarty asks. “Still not following? Explain it for him, Johnny boy.”
“Killing Mike in Bryant’s territory would only bring war if Bryant doesn’t back down when Mayhew threatens him - which he probably will.”
“He will,” Moriarty adds.
“Concessions will have to be made,” John continues. “The first to go would be Lord Mayhew’s forces in the east, along the mountains. Bryant would never admit it, but Lord Mayhew is the main protector of his people from you lot. Lord Mayhew withdraws his troops, Bryant takes the blame, and draughtsman raiding returns in the east. Diminished morale and confidence would make defence tricky.”
“And it all comes down to hunting territory,” Sherlock concludes.
“The children have to drink to grow up, Sherlock,” Moriarty singsongs. “You should know that better than anyone.”
“I know it’s hardly as civilized as that,” he retorts. “Humans will die.”
“That’s what humans do!” Moriarty shouts and slams his fist on the table.
John watches blandly on.
Moriarty follows Sherlock’s gaze. “Some humans,” he amends. “As for which ones, well. That’s your choice, isn’t it?”
Sherlock forces himself to breathe, to think, to function. “You’re already able to breach the eastern patrols. Why do this?”
“Oh, I can breach the patrols,” Moriarty agrees. “But it’s so tedious, doing it all the time. That’s the problem with being in charge, my dear. You give and you give and everyone always wants something more.”
“That’s how much you need this.”
“That’s how much everyone needs this. Cooperate, and parents will name their newborns after you. Refuse and, hm.” Moriarty pauses. “There are so many options, I just don’t know how to choose.” He nudges John’s side. “What do you think, Johnny? What does Sherlock Holmes fear most? Should I fuck you while he watches? I’ll call in my guards and we can all have a time of it.”
John takes a moment before replying, head tilted, tongue caught between his lips.
“John-”
“He panicked when he thought I was going to kill him,” John says. “Put on one hell of an act, but I think there was some real fear there. Bit leery of knives, this one.”
Moriarty lifts his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“Mm. He was still flinching two weeks later. He’s already let me punch him a few times - can’t imagine what I could do if someone held him down.”
“Have you ever flayed someone?” Moriarty asks.
“I’ve skinned a few rabbits,” John answers, eyeing Sherlock thoughtfully. “I don’t think it would be too difficult. Plenty of room on him for practicing.”
Sherlock sits down.
He doesn’t mean to. He doesn’t want to. But he’s much too dizzy to stand. A gasp of pain as he sits, nearly too dizzy for consciousness. White bursts of light fizzle before his eyes, turning red and orange. When they fade, Moriarty is still there, still grinning at him, and John’s indifferent eyes know nothing of mercy.
“John, stop,” he pleads.
“Stop what?” John asks. “We’re only talking, Sherlock.”
“You know you’re being controlled,” he insists. His glamour is as strong as he can make it, anything to bring John back to him. “You can hear it.”
“Yes, and?”
“You can fight it. You-”
“Why would I?” John interrupts, stopping Sherlock entirely. No one interrupts glamour.
Sherlock can’t breathe.
“I don’t mind it,” John continues. “I don’t even remember what’s happening most of the time. When I do, it doesn’t bother me.”
“Because he’s told you it doesn’t.” No more attempt at glamour. No point. The level of complexity Moriarty has worked into John’s psyche is far beyond Sherlock’s skill to unravel.
“Well, yeah,” John says. “It makes things simple. You’re not the only one who likes to be told, love.” He frowns and looks at Moriarty. “Do I still have to be in love with him?”
“No,” Moriarty answers. “Not until he delivers Stamford.”
“Good job on him being a courier, then.”
Moriarty rolls his eyes. “Johnny can be so terribly literal,” he complains. “Can’t you, Johnny?”
John nods, eyes flicking blandly to Sherlock’s face.
“‘Until I deliver Stamford’,” Sherlock repeats. “You’ll trade John, then.” Angelo. Angelo all over again, and worse than any deal Mycroft has ever offered him. Worse than anything he and Mycroft have worked to avoid.
“The way I see it,” Moriarty drawls, “he can love you or he can skin you alive. One or the other, whichever you want. Johnny here doesn’t care one way or another, do you, Johnny?”
“No,” John agrees.
“What was that?”
“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”
Moriarty looks between them both and laughs.
“What’s the deal?” Sherlock demands. “How much of John do I get if I get you Stamford?”
“You can have him back to normal,” Moriarty allows. “What you think of as ‘normal,’ anyway.”
“I want control over the glamour.”
“Obviously.” Moriarty screws up his face. “I’m not stupid, Sherlock. That would be you. I’m not averse to letting you earn him. Do well enough and I’ll transfer the glamour to you.”
Well enough at what? How many jobs? For how long? He’s already been in the north for half a year, been at his current task for months. Angelo will panic. Angelo will try to follow him and Moriarty will snatch him up too. Then Mycroft would involve himself. He’d have no choice but to involve himself.
This can only escalate. Regardless of what Sherlock does, it cannot come to good.
“Will he ever be himself?” Sherlock asks.
“Of course he will,” Moriarty replies. “If he’s told to be.”
“Prove it.” Sherlock leans forward, doing his utmost to hold every wince from his face, every flinch inside his body.
“Bit of a strain for him, isn’t it?” Moriarty remarks, pouting up at John. “Little human mind, switching back and forth. Not everyone is equipped to appreciate genius. It’s very sad. Nightmares and day terrors, poor thing. What else is wrong with you, Johnny?”
“I had a limp that was all in my head,” John says. “Jumped off the bridge headfirst, that got rid of it.”
Moriarty laughs. “Oh, you were broken before I got here.”
“I know,” John says.
“Stop it.” It’s all he can do to keep from shouting. “Can you put him back or can’t you?”
“I can,” Moriarty allows. “Give me a reason.”
“He-” Time to choose.
There’s no choice about it.
“He needs to be normal if I’m to cross into Bart’s.”
Moriarty’s smile sparks across his face and ignites his eyes. “‘Normal’ as you understand it.” Moriarty keeps saying that. “I can put him back.”
“As I....” He looks up at John without intending to, his gaze inexorably drawn.
John quirks his mouth.
Sherlock manages to keep breathing. The dizziness, he can do nothing for. He sinks against the wooden back of the chair, so unforgiving. If he flinches in the process, it’s only from the lack of a cushion. “Normally,” he says. He looks at Moriarty, his vision oddly hazy about the edges. “Who is he normally? As himself.” Moriarty has rewritten so much of the man; it’s impossible for him to be ignorant of the original draft.
“Give me Stamford and you’ll have your chance to see,” Moriarty replies.
Sherlock doesn’t doubt his word. It will be a chance, just that. Enough to keep Sherlock forever moving.
“Fine,” Sherlock answers.
Being able to see the trap hardly prevents him from falling into it.
Moriarty smiles, possibly without affectation. It doesn’t suit him. “You’ll let him across the bridge, Johnny boy,” Moriarty instructs without looking at the man at his shoulder. “No fuss, no muss, no doubting of intentions.”
“Yes, sir.” Eyes on the top of Moriarty’s head, less like a guard dog and entirely like a protector.
“Back to work, Captain Watson. Time to play the lover.”
John nods. He crosses the room, returns his sword to its sheath, and leans the weapon back in its customary place on the wall. That done, he straightens to his full height, cracking his back in a motion Sherlock finds stupidly endearing, even now.
When John turns around, his eyes seek Sherlock’s. His smile is effortless. Reflexive, Sherlock would have once thought. Sherlock’s insides begin to rotate slowly yet firmly to the left. Toward John. Of course toward him.
John’s brow furrows. The man takes one, two, three steps to stand close at his side. He takes no notice of the third man in the room, not so much as a glance. All of his focus is on Sherlock, bent on him in what was once normalcy. He stands close, very close, warming Sherlock’s elbow.
Across the table, Moriarty folds his hands and leans forward, features contorted with amusement.
“Hey,” John murmurs softly. His hand breaks Sherlock’s staring contest with Moriarty. It alights on his cheek and turns his face, tilts his head.
Stiff enough to snap, Sherlock can’t quite comply.
“Someone’s tense.” The off-hand remark is all the warning John gives before strong fingers thread through his hair and begin a gentle massaging of his scalp.
Sherlock bites down on his lip. That prevents his groan. He’ll say it does. He’ll swear it, even as John pulls Sherlock’s traitorous body close, cheek to his shirt. As it always does, John’s scent carries traces of Harry’s, of Clara’s, of wood varnish and sawdust. And now, over those, overriding those, Moriarty.
His body reacts in a way it shouldn’t. It wants John on his knees, John on his back, John with his mouth full of filth and praise and cock. It wants to kill Moriarty. To maim. To torture. It wants to kill Moriarty by fucking John and does not understand that this is entirely nonsensical.
Logic. He needs logic. Still within him, John’s blood retains the power to stir him. He can feel the warm weight of arousal seeping into his crotch. He feels aggression. Jealousy and rage. Biology, nothing more, and yet unconquerable.
Moriarty crows with laughter.
“You all right?” John asks. “You flinched - what’s wrong?”
Sherlock pulls firmly away. He leans in the chair, leans away, looking up. Moriarty’s eyes press against the marks on his bared throat, his eyes and laughter both. Sherlock tells John, “I need to cross.”
“Now?” John asks, brow furrowing. He doesn’t stop reaching for Sherlock. He doesn’t seem to be able to.
Of course he can’t. Moriarty wouldn’t find restraint half so comical.
“Now,” Sherlock confirms. He pushes back the chair and stands.
As he rises, John’s face falls. “You are coming back this way?” John half-asks. His hand seizes Sherlock’s sleeve with a level of force that isn’t reflected in the rest of his body. The motion of his arm: casual. The positioning of his feet: aimed exclusively at Sherlock. And yet the gripping hand is on Sherlock’s right side, hidden by his torso from Moriarty. How unaware is he?
From wary instinct, Sherlock’s body is half-turned toward Moriarty. Never mind that the only true physical threat in the room is John, it’s Moriarty they’re both protecting themselves from.
Sherlock looks at him, at the grinning spider sitting in his web, and John looks too.
“What is it?” John asks. His voice is even, his shoulders relaxed. His hand is shaking.
“What is it, Sherlock?” Moriarty echoes.
John gives no indication of hearing a single word.
“Why wouldn’t I come back this way?” Sherlock asks, careful and slow. As if John’s merely being an idiot.
“You can get to Waterloo from the other side of the river, too,” John points out.
“Can I?” Rhetorical. Aim for rhetorical.
“I won’t stop you,” Moriarty singsongs as John answers, “Please don’t.”
Sherlock only nods, not trusting his voice.
John frowns up at him all the same, ever concerned, ever reaching. “Are you sure you’re all right? I was too rough, wasn’t I?”
Sherlock shakes him off. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” He snatches up his coat, his satchel. “Out the side door, or do you still have to let me in through the gate?”
“We can use the side door,” John answers. He’d be heartbreak incarnate were it not for his hands. Without Sherlock to hold onto, they move without purpose. Checking pockets, touching his knife. His hand fists repeatedly around the hilt only to spasm and fall away.
“None of that now, Johnny,” Moriarty calls. He unfurls from Sherlock’s chair, shrugging his way to his feet. “Be a good boy and you don’t have to kill your baby sister.”
John’s entire body goes still. His hands fall to his sides. His fingers twitch, then remain unclenched. “We can use the side door,” John repeats. He turns, the sharp movement of a soldier at attention, and strides to the egress. He looks to Sherlock expectantly.
Sherlock follows.
They step outside into fresh air. John closes the door behind them, between them and the still-grinning man.
John leads the way and Sherlock follows, neither walking upon the holly path. They know Sherlock now. They trust him.
Halfway across the bridge, John reaches for his hand.
Sherlock gives it to him.
“Please,” John says softly, a Franc word their watchers from the gate won’t understand.
“What is it?” Sherlock answers in like. Another implanted command? Layers of glamour interacting poorly? Or John?
“The drawing,” John continues. His words are broken with disuse and thick with his accent. “You have it in your bag.”
“Do you want me to get rid of it?”
John’s hand clenches around his. “I want you to look. Before you go to Waterloo.”
How would you like me to best remember you? Sherlock’s exact words before sketching him.
“You want me to go to Waterloo.”
“I want you to look,” John repeats, dropping his hand to wave up at Bill.
Sherlock does the same.
The gate opens.
“Afternoon, Sherlock,” Bill greets.
“Hello, Bill,” he replies, already striding past the human.
“Oi,” John calls after him. “No kiss?”
Sherlock’s body moves without thought or permission. It turns and returns and Sherlock catches himself only just in time, John’s breath stroking his lips.
John breaches the remaining distance.
The kiss is dry and light. A press of lips. Hands on his shoulders. A touch of John’s nose.
Sherlock pulls away.
“I’ll look,” he promises in Franc.
“Come back soon,” John answers in kind, voice warm. “I don’t like it in there without you.”
Bill clears his throat.
Sherlock squeezes John’s hand and walks away.
John watches him go, looking for all the world like a love-stricken fool.
The wait in Stamford’s parlour is a long one today. Sherlock sits next to a pair of women, the soothing scent of pregnancy attempting to confuse his mind. He sits with his satchel at his feet and his scarf in his hands. All is slow. Leisurely.
It gives him time to plan. The words, they must be exact. Purposeful. What could convince Stamford to walk to his own death? Could he obscure the destination? Confuse the human into mistaking one gate for the other? And what of Bill? Surely the guard won’t let Stamford pass.
Has Moriarty set his glamour over Bill as well? The man is still a newlywed. Plenty of leverage there.
And John.
Sherlock closes his eyes against his own mind. He achieves nothing.
Humans pray, he knows. Some humans. People like Molly, holding the limp fingers of a father’s hand. Angelo, named for some supernatural creature. Not Sherlock, not Victor, none of his family. They have lore, not religion. They are of the earth, their mother of whom they shall not drink. She is dirt and water, and soil does not answer prayers.
He needs words. Words for Stamford, stages of planning. Nothing obvious, something effective.
The women beside him rise and follow Clara out of the room. Belatedly, Sherlock attempts to smile back at Clara. He remembers thinking they were alike, himself and Clara. Those who would have a Watson.
Stop thinking that. Think better. Think of something.
He can’t.
Moriarty has John. Moriarty has him.
Moriarty’s scent on him. Hands on him.
This isn’t helping.
He ignores the pounding of his own heart. Ignores John in the gatehouse, Moriarty at his side, in his ear, in his mind. Ignores the ship at Waterloo, Angelo waiting across the gulf. He can fix this.
“Ah, Sherlock,” Stamford greets. “Afternoon.”
Sherlock’s eyes snap open once more. “Mike.”
Stamford smiles. “I’ll be with you in just a minute.” He gestures to the other human in the room, a man with little hair and a large rash. “Your turn, Alex.”
And then Sherlock is alone.
He waits a minute longer.
When no one else comes, he sets his scarf to the side and opens his satchel between his feet. As promised, he looks.
John. A soldier in the dark. Their first night together. Hours made of misunderstood wanting. The confusion of a kiss. Praise and promises.
He looks.
He remembers. John, as John wishes to be remembered. Perhaps.
The night Sherlock had drawn this, John had forced promises. The first: no harm will come to Harry. A reaction to Moriarty, to his threats? Sherlock is sworn to Harry’s safety and John is under compulsion to obey or murder. Sherlock is bound to stay. More importantly, Moriarty’s glamour is clearly fragmenting. It’s too much against John’s nature. And yet securing Harry’s safety from him could be exactly what it seemed: a reaction to the threat Sherlock represents.
The second promise is much more troubling.
I will not leave these shores until you know your mind to be whole. As long as you would have these words hold me, this I swear.
He’s no longer certain who the man is. He has an exceptionally poor idea of who he is. But John would hold him to that promise. Anyone would hold him to it. Is this what John wanted him to think? Was that really John asking him to look, or was it Moriarty through him? And if it were John, was it only a version of John, a man turned to honey in Moriarty’s trap?
Slowly, anguish by anguish, Sherlock recognizes that he may never know.
Carefully, carefully, he folds the paper away and returns it to its place. He smoothes it down gently, ascertaining that the corners are unbent.
His hand touches more than paper.
It’s not his coin purse. It isn’t his meagre supply of ink, nor his pipe case. It certainly isn’t his pouch with his signet ring and Irene’s.
He draws it out.
He sniffs it. Wood, leather, metal. John. Not a trace of Moriarty’s scent.
John’s action, then, if not necessarily John’s doing. After taking Sherlock, before Sherlock had dressed. The window of opportunity with Sherlock dazed in the loft and Moriarty yet to arrive.
John did this. Before pressing for a third promise, John did this.
John can still plan.
With that realization, Sherlock can as well.
He speaks with Stamford.
After, he goes to Harry’s workshop. She’s finished the chairs. Today, she’s smoothing the pieces of a cradle, nattering about the expectant mother he’d met in Stamford’s parlour.
“About that brother of yours,” he says once she’s finished.
“He’s devastated about you leaving and if you make it any worse, I’ll kill you,” Harry answers without missing a beat.
“Not actually my question.”
“No?”
“No. I already know that.”
She looks up from her work. Her hands move still, scraping up one long curl of wood. Is there a word for sawdust when it isn’t dust? He doesn’t know. A shaving, possibly.
“You all right?” she asks.
“Does John ever talk about me?” he asks, which is also not his question.
She laughs a little. “Yeah. I’d say so.”
“What does he say?”
“That you’re vain,” she answers. “Don’t see any reason to encourage you.”
“Then he says good things?”
Harry shakes her head, not a denial but amusement. It’s not enough.
Sherlock clenches his fists and forces the words. They stick in his throat and clash against one another. They’re good words, effective words, and the veracity of them doesn’t matter as long as Harry gives him what he needs.
“I’m in love with your brother,” he tells her, “and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I can leave.”
Harry doesn’t do him the favour of feigning surprise. “Did you just tell me before you told him?”
Sherlock nods.
Harry swears. She menaces him with the scraper, a block of wood with a blade inside. Before he can stop himself, he wonders if it could be used for flaying. “We never spoke.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” he answers. “But I need- I need context, Harry. What’s normal for John? Is he attached, is he infatuated, I don’t....” He turns his face into a mask of confusion and helplessness. He is, abruptly, utterly in control of himself. The perfect actor.
“He loves you,” Harry tells him. “For some reason, he thinks you’re observant, but I’m not seeing it.”
“But you know what he looks like when- when in love. I don’t. I wouldn’t even know if he were behaving oddly. If day terrors are normal-”
“They’re not,” Harry corrects. “Not anymore.”
“But I didn’t know that,” Sherlock whinges, as annoying as he thinks Harry can stand. He casts himself as anxious, overly emotional, entirely insecure, and Harry responds by bludgeoning him with common sense.
The only strange point in John’s behaviour is the one Sherlock already knows. It’s the one Sherlock caused himself. The so-called day terror. It had taken John days to tell Harry, then Stamford. But was that days to believe Sherlock’s lie, or days until Moriarty came to glamour him and cover Sherlock’s slip? But how would he have known of it? A third, more plausible option: days until Moriarty’s glamour, already in place, permitted John to speak. Moriarty could have been here before. By virtue of explaining Moriarty’s knowledge of detailed local politics, that scenario is jarringly plausible. Moriarty could have had John under glamour the entire time.
“Y’know,” Harry tells him, “if you really wanted to stay, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”
Sherlock shakes his head. “My family,” he says. The catchall excuse.
Harry gives him the stink eye. “You’re not secretly married, are you?”
He laughs. It hurts, a broken bone forcibly set. “No. Not in the slightest.”
They hug goodbye. Moriarty may pick up on her scent. He may not. It’s close enough to John’s and Sherlock is already covered in the human man’s scent. Either way, it hardly matters.
He crosses the bridge with Bill beside him. New information is gleaned in those moments, however much he wishes he were deaf to Bill’s words. He doesn’t particularly want Bill to be supportive of their farce of a relationship. He doesn’t at all want to know Bill is the source of the mysterious jar of slickness, not when some of it is still up his arse.
They say goodbye, Bill lets him out through the gate, and the human laughs when Sherlock promptly knocks on the door of the gatehouse. There could be no good in involving him, provided Moriarty hasn’t involved Bill already.
John lets him in without hesitation.
Sitting before the window, one leg stretched along the length of the trunk, Moriarty arches an eyebrow. “Still no Stamford.”
“I tried,” Sherlock answers.
Moriarty sighs. “Johnny, carve his name into your arm. I don’t care which one, just make it legible.”
John’s knife is immediately in his hand but moves no farther. “Sir, I can’t write.”
Beyond patience, Moriarty glares sullenly at both of them. “Lines, then, eight of them. Forearm, not the wrist. Make it both arms.”
John nods as he pushes up his sleeve. The knife is steady in his hand. Sherlock strikes at the blade with his satchel, then grabs John to the best of his ability.
“I tried!” Sherlock insists. “Don’t hurt him, I tried.”
“And failed,” Moriarty counters.
“Let go, Sherlock,” John snaps, breaking Sherlock’s tenuous grip on his arms. He starts for the knife immediately, the blade lying on the floor. Sherlock lunges for it and John strikes him down. Bright lights fizzling at the edges of his vision, Sherlock grabs at John’s legs instead.
What ensues is a one-man brawl and more pain than a body can comprehend. Sherlock’s hold is broken and renewed, severed and re-established. Sherlock clings to him with tense arms and a limp body, a dead weight, and John falls at last to the floor. On his back, Sherlock knows the game. He knows how to roll and flip John, how to pin. He knows, thanks to John, where to hit. A solid strike downward but John puffs out his breath before impact. Not winded in the slightest, John flips them over with a grunt, shoving Sherlock’s face against wood and thresh. Sherlock tries to roll away, can’t, can only gasp against matted straw as Moriarty slowly claps at the show.
Sherlock stops fighting, goes limp. Surely John will stop, will lunge for the knife.
John doesn’t.
John forces him onto his stomach, wrenches his arm behind his back.
“Try that again and I will break your fingers,” John informs him.
His knee digs into Sherlock’s back. His hands torque Sherlock’s wrist, his left wrist, and the first absurd thought though Sherlock’s head is, no, stop, I play the violin.
John shifts his grip. He selects the first casualty. Stops before breaking. The leverage is unthinkable. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Sherlock gasps.
“Do I have to break you?”
“No.”
John releases him. Stands. Retrieves his knife. John leans back against the wall and begins to casually slice open his arm. His jaw is set, his motions steady.
Cradling his aching wrist, Sherlock manages to sit up on the floor. It’s the pressure as much as the twisting. Thresh sticks to his clothing. The increased sunlight and human scent in the room only register when the bodyguard once again pulls the door nearly shut. Sherlock’s stomach sinks as he realizes it had very nearly been two-on-one.
“It’s easier, isn’t it,” Moriarty drawls. “Just letting it happen.”
“I can still get you Stamford.” His voice shakes. He swallows. “I need more time.”
“I’ve been waiting for months, Sherlock,” Moriarty replies. “Months of my people growing ever thirstier. It’s not very nice, making people wait.”
A wet patter falls. John’s blood on the floor. It trails down to the underside of his forearm and drips from his elbow. John’s lips move, shaping numbers rather than pain as he counts.
“No one in the south knows how to control the way you do!” Sherlock rages. “Why come to learn if I already knew? I need more time! More practice! What do you think John was for?”
Moriarty smirks at him. “For growing up, little boy.”
John counts the lines, pointing at each with the crimson-smeared knife. He rolls up his other sleeve.
“Stop this. I can still get you Stamford!”
“But I don’t need Stamford.” Moriarty shakes his head. “Oh, no no no no. I need one of Mayhew’s pawns. One he favours. Stamford was just a challenge. And, oh look, you’ve failed. How lucky we are to have Johnny here instead.”
“No.” He has no other words. This was not the plan.
This was not the plan.
“Of course, Old Mayhew isn’t as fond of Johnny boy as much as he is of Stamford. Shame. A quick death was all it would have taken with Stamford. Oh well!” He grins at John. “You’ll hold still for it, too, won’t you?”
John nods, eyes upon his work. He leans forward, careful to avoid staining his clothing. “Yes, sir. Almost done, sir.”
“I gave you your chance, Sherlock,” Moriarty tells him, mouth twisting into a mournful pout. “You can’t say I wasn’t fair.”
“I can get you into Bart’s,” Sherlock blurts.
Moriarty rolls his eyes. “You can’t even glamour a human out of it.”
“I don’t need glamour,” Sherlock insists. He stands, still cradling his wrist, and retreats to where John keeps the holly. He picks it up in his good hand. He holds it out. “Remember? We have other ways in the south. I can show you.”
“He can’t,” John contradicts. He holds his arms out to the sides, red lines scored and red trails trickling. He drips, drips, drips onto the floor, hurt and wasted. His blanched face grows paler. “He told me. It’s an immunity built up during childhood. Your lot can’t get it, sir.”
“Mm, yes,” Sherlock feigns agreement. “John was so marvellously reassured to hear that.”
John blinks.
Moriarty laughs. “I was starting to wonder if you could lie.”
Sherlock pulls his mouth into a smirk. “Just ask John.”
Moriarty arches an eyebrow in the human’s direction.
“He does, sir,” John answers. “A great deal.”
Moriarty considers.
“I can teach anyone you’d like,” Sherlock continues. “It’s simple once you know how. It would have to be someone loyal. Anyone turning on you with holly in hand stands a good chance of killing you. That man of yours, what was it, Moran. He could fetch Stamford for you. That’s all I ask.” That, and for Moriarty to show him how many of his followers he can smuggle past the eastern border. Moran might not be with him. How many guards will Sherlock have to take into consideration? “I take John, you get Stamford and never worry over holly again.”
Moriarty folds his arms. “I’m listening.”
“A holly shield,” Sherlock answers, groping for the first explanation he can find. A barrier, a barrier no one will notice. Something clear. “There are ways, dried glue over the skin.” He needs to lie. He needs to keep lying until he finds a way out.
“That’s been tried before,” Moriarty dismisses. “Paste crumbles, paint flakes, and varnish only holds the burn.”
“Mine works,” Sherlock promises blindly, lifting his chin in arrogant bluff. “We aren’t without means in the south.”
“Such as?”
“I didn’t say paste, I said glue. It peels off rather than flaking. It’s watertight. It doesn’t let contamination through.”
“Show me,” Moriarty instructs. “Johnny, bring me his bag.”
“It’s not in there,” Sherlock interrupts. “I don’t-” He closes his eyes, takes a breath, opens them. “Beyond the traces still on my hands, it’s gone. I used it up crossing - but I can make more. Get me to any apothecary’s lab and I can do that for you. Was there one where you were staying?”
There, there, that’s the way out. Get Moriarty out of the gatehouse, get all of them away from John. Make a plausible holly shield, endure the holly through his own natural resistance to gain Moriarty’s confidence. When Moriarty tests the shield, when the shield fails, the pain ought to immobilize him. If in an apothecary’s lab, Sherlock will have any number of weapons at his disposal. He’ll shatter a bottle and use the glass if he needs to, but Moriarty’s throat will be cut. The bodyguard will be close at hand, at least one bodyguard, but Sherlock has to try. It will be easier without John at hand, dripping blood into the thresh. Everything will be easier.
“What will you need for this?” Moriarty asks.
“I told you, the lab.”
Moriarty rolls his eyes. “To make it, Sherlock dear. The lab won’t be an issue.”
There’s no telling how much of chemistry or alchemy Moriarty knows. There is no practical way for Sherlock to make an effective barrier quickly from scratch. There is no practical way for him to do it at all, but there doesn’t need to be. All it needs to be is plausible, plausible with waterproof qualities, plausibly waterproof, what is waterproof, what does he have-
“My coat,” Sherlock answers.
“In your coat?”
“Literally,” Sherlock confirms. “It’s siren-made. Meaning, waterproof.” And there it is. There’s the lie.
There. In Moriarty’s eyes. The hook. Sherlock has words Moriarty wants to believe. Words enough to get them away from here, away from John and Bart’s.
“There’s a reason why the Lady of Belgravia sent an emissary before opening trade,” Sherlock continues. “She’s very aware of the need for rainwear among our kind. She knows precisely how many lives could be saved from the cold and would adore the opportunity to take your coin. Sadly, sirens are, as a rule, dependent upon their popularity among the human classes. Her supporters wouldn’t react terribly well to their Lady providing holly shields to those who would hunt them.”
“And yet you have this in your coat.”
“She sent me by ship. Of course I have it in my coat. There’s an adhesive barrier between the layers of cloth.” This, so far, is true. “If removed and melted, it will adhere to skin. Put it on the bottom of your foot and no one will ever notice.” This, for all he knows, is pure fabrication. “Given refinement, it’s unnoticeable on a soft palm, but we need hardly go that far.” The embellishment and the dismissal: let Moriarty be stuck upon the dismissal, upon Sherlock withholding a service.
“For now,” Moriarty corrects.
“For now?” Sherlock echoes, biting, indignant. “I’m giving you a holly shield - that has to be worth John.” John who is bleeding, who is dripping dark red from sliced skin; unfeeling John who cannot be looked at.
“For now,” Moriarty confirms. “You’re in no position to bargain, my dear. For the holly shield, I let him live.”
“And for Stamford?” He protests for the sake of protest, for the appearance of it. To become what Moriarty won’t expect, he must first be what Moriarty must expect. “When Stamford is dead, what more use will you have for John?”
Moriarty is slow in replying, a gradual unfurling of the lips. He crosses his legs. Folds his hands atop his knee. He smiles.
“If you want him so much,” Moriarty muses, “you’ll clean him up. He’s such a terribly messy pet.”
Sherlock doesn’t move. “Is that a yes?”
“Clean him up.”
“Is that a yes?”
“That’s a maybe,” Moriarty allows. He smiles, a slow extension of teeth. “Clean him up. You know how.”
Knife in hand, John waits for him expectantly.
Sherlock puts down the holly. He goes to John. John with clear, alert eyes and a dare across his face.
“Kneel,” John instructs.
Sherlock kneels. The movement is not without difficulty.
Looking to Moriarty first for approval, John offers Sherlock his arm as if showing his hand to a dog. “Lick.”
Sherlock touches his tongue to blood and skin. He licks. Across the palm, lapping at the wrist. He tongues at the cuts until the bleeding stops, one slice after another.
“That’s nice,” John praises. He turns his arm for Sherlock’s mouth. “Just like that, carry on. You like it, don’t you. My blood filling up your cock.”
“That’s not how it works,” Sherlock corrects in a mumble, face burning. His voice is deep, a betrayer. He’s hot below his stomach, along his leg. His body understands John’s scent and skin to the exclusion of all else. John’s blood, already deep inside him, awakens once more.
John chuckles, a sound as low and dark as his hooded eyes. It contrasts poorly with his wan features. “Doesn’t seem to matter, does it? Lick me up, Sherlock.”
He barely needs the command. Even like this, even with Moriarty watching, he’s beyond the point of stopping. Blood on his tongue, its scent in his nose. And his own scent, his across John, overpowering Moriarty’s false malodorous claim. He licks John up, and when John smears his blood across Sherlock’s lips, Sherlock sucks his thumb without a thought. John slides one foot forward, between Sherlock’s knees, farther. John’s shin presses at the apex of his thighs, at his physical ache.
“Are you getting hard, love? Do you want me, darling? Do you want your little prick inside my mouth, sweetheart? Should I drink you down too, dearest?”
His cock, his entire body, it throbs.
“Would you like that, sweetness? Here. Lick my knife.”
Sherlock licks the knife.
“Will you beg for me, pet?”
“Please.” His voice is broken. He turns his head. Looks to Moriarty, those rapt features. Moriarty who wants him to beg, who expects it. Sherlock must be what Moriarty expects. There is power in that, not surrender. There must be. “Please give him back to me.”
Moriarty smiles, so slow, so soft. He answers, “You missed a spot.”
Sherlock eases the knife from John’s hand. He licks the hilt clean and tongues between John’s fingers, doing his utmost to keep from riding John’s leg. He doesn’t think to resist when John retrieves the knife. Again, Sherlock looks to Moriarty.
“You missed a spot,” Moriarty repeats.
Sherlock turns John’s hand over. He inspects one arm and the other. He soothes two of the cuts closed which have reopened. He rocks against John, unable to stop.
“No....” Moriarty drawls. “Not there. Get it right.”
“He’s doing his best, sir.” The press against his ache draws away, and John’s hand settles over the top of his head, crushing his curls, pushing him downward, face toward the floorboards.
Sherlock looks and understands.
“He gave a twitch there,” John comments. “I think he’s got it.”
Sherlock lays his hands upon the thresh. The scratch of it is damp against his palms. “Will you give him back to me? Stamford, the holly and- and this.”
“And this,” Moriarty confirms.
“I want a promise.”
Moriarty smiles with eyes of broken glass. “So I swear.”
Sherlock closes his eyes, bows his head, and scrapes his tongue across dirtied wood and bloody straw.
Traces of mud, of animal dung and human urine. Foliage. The dry straw itself. Mould. John’s drying blood, cooling and stale.
His arms shake, muscles fighting to spasm. His back aches. His arousal sickens. His mouth is disgusting, beyond disgusting. Gritty. His stomach threatens to heave. An acidic belch burns his throat.
“Careful,” Moriarty warns. “Or you’ll be cleaning that up too.”
With stiff movements, John kneels. He rubs Sherlock’s back as he struggles on. “That’s it. That’s it. You’re doing well, Sherlock. Really well. Get the rest. That bit there. No, where I’m pointing, there. Don’t spit it out. Swallow. All of it, keep trying. Don’t stop, I’ll be yours again soon. We’ll go south. We’ll be safe and happy. Now swallow it.”
Sherlock swallows. He coughs and nearly vomits. He does vomit. A small amount, into his mouth. He forces it down anew rather than lick it off the floor.
John draws him close with steady hands and soft words of praise. “I’m yours,” he whispers, pressing one kiss and another against Sherlock’s eyelids. “You did it. Give him the rest and you can keep me.”
This isn’t you, Sherlock refuses to sob. This will never be you.
“You ought to know,” John murmurs, “as a warning. If you’ve lied to him, you’ll watch as I let his men kill me.” He kisses Sherlock’s nose, a brush of smile-shaped lips. “And we don’t want that, do we?”
next
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 8k this part, 81k overall
Beta: seijichan and arcsupport
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
VERY SERIOUS WARNING: ahead is a very sadistic Moriarty with mind control powers. Warnings include blood, knives, threats of immense physical harm, sexualized creepiness, implications of sexual creepiness, humiliation, and general mindfuckery. Pretty sure that covers it.
Doubled over, a panicked haze between him and breathing, Sherlock tries to think.
Moriarty is incongruous. He doesn’t fit in the gatehouse, doesn’t fit against the backdrop of rushing water. Too pristine, his clothing too fine. The slightest rumple of travel by carriage, travelling for some days, but not on end. From where, where did he come from?
Behind him, a second man. Human by the scent, alert in the eyes, and very clearly armed. Controlled, but not quite a thrall. There’s insufficient space in the gatehouse for four men, much less four men with multiple drawn swords. Moriarty waggles his fingers at his bodyguard. “Make sure we aren’t interrupted, won’t you?”
The bodyguard nods and steps outside. The bar is down on the door as he closes it, keeping the door ajar. The thin line of daylight is an obvious threat.
Tsking, Moriarty wrinkles his nose. “Whatever have you kept me waiting for, Sherlock?” One hand in his pocket, he waves the other before his face in the faux attempt to fan away the heavy scent of coupling. “Oh dear.”
Sherlock pushes himself up, leaning heavily on the table. Straightening puts new strain on his back, his legs. His arse aches and burns. He strives for air, for anything, and his attempted speech is nothing more than broken syllables and coughing.
John isn’t even looking at him. His eyes rest on Moriarty’s face with the expectancy of a soldier toward a favoured commander.
“Careful,” Moriarty warns Sherlock. “Take your time. It’s nothing you haven’t taken already. Feel free to sit. If you can.”
Sherlock does not sit down, not simply because he can’t. His hands on the table, his arms shaking. “What are you doing here?”
“I was invited,” Moriarty declares, voice lilting. He withdraws his hand from his pocket and waves a slim slip of paper at Sherlock. It curls, clearly a note carried by wing. A prearranged summons, it must be. “Even the stupidest thrall can send a signal. The question is, what are you doing here?” He bounces on the balls of his feet. “Besides being fucked in the arse, I can see that.”
John’s mouth quirks.
There is no more breathing.
Moriarty laughs and laughs. Then he cuts his laughing short. “But honestly, Sherlock.” His eyes are as serious, as sharp as the sword in John’s hand. “What’s this I hear about you running off? Darling, we had a deal.”
“A dare,” Sherlock corrects.
“Don’t be such a child. Not that you can help it, can you, poor thing.” Moriarty pulls out Sherlock’s chair and sits, the door at his back and John at his shoulder. “Let’s try to talk like adults, shall we?”
“In front of the gatekeeper?” Sherlock counters. “Let’s not talk like idiots. He may not be fluent, but does understand what we’re saying.”
Moriarty smiles on. “You say that as if it matters.” He twists in the chair, lifting his hand. His knuckles rest over John’s stomach as he gazes up at the soldier. “Do you remember me when I’m gone?” he asks in Anglic.
“No, sir,” John answers.
“Do you try to?”
“Of late, yes, sir.”
“Aww,” Moriarty coos. “How sweet.” His fingertips slip through the buttons of John’s shirt, hooking there. He smiles at Sherlock. “Isn’t he sweet? And so obedient. Does everything I tell him to - including you, as it turns out.” He looks up at John. “Was it good?”
“Had better, wasn’t bad.”
“Did he beg for it?”
“Well, he always does, doesn’t he.”
Moriarty laughs his delight. John ducks his chin, his smile but half-hidden.
“Stop it,” Sherlock snaps. “This is juvenile.”
“So is being sidetracked by a piece of flesh.” Moriarty tugs at John’s shirt. “And a damaged one at that. No offense, Johnny.”
“I know how I am,” John answers with a vague shrug. The left, wounded shoulder, rising and falling, the sword still in his right hand.
“But you are very good at taking orders. Do you remember those while I’m gone?”
“No, sir.”
“But you do follow them.”
For the first time, John registers complaint. “Of course I do, sir.”
“How long has he been under your glamour?” Sherlock demands. He leans forward across the table, his hands on the wood, his locked arms like columns. He stands in a frozen lunge, heart pounding. “You didn’t come out here before I did, not personally.” Moriarty wouldn’t have. Surely he couldn’t have. “You can’t take what’s mine. My claim has seniority.”
“What claim?”
Sherlock’s eyes snap up to John. “What?”
“What claim?” John repeats. “You gave yours up. Last week. You took your glamour off me.”
“John, you don’t understand what’s happening.”
“No, I think I do,” John counters. “You told me last week, the way it’d work with Angelo. I’m smarter than you think I am, Sherlock. I know who I belong to.”
“He wants Mike Stamford dead,” Sherlock snaps. “The doctor who saved you, dead. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” John answers. “It’s a very clever ploy, actually. Mike’s one hell of a lynchpin, when you think about it. And we’ve still got Clara for a doctor, so that’s all right.”
“John, you’re still-” Sherlock turns on Moriarty. “John is still my bloodmate. That supersedes glamour rights.”
Moriarty rolls his eyes. “You sentimental southern weakling. Feeding on an animal doesn’t make it special. You even believe in interspecies marriage, don’t you?”
“That’s different from ‘bloodmates,’ right?” John asks.
Sherlock nods.
“Do you still have to, I don’t know, propose?” John continues, half-asking. “I’m sure that never happened. You’ve never even called me a bloodmate before, not once.”
Sherlock pulls back. Pulls away. Movement hurts but, standing, Sherlock is the tallest man in the room. The height is almost comforting, if anything could be comforting. “There’s no point in talking to him like this,” he acknowledges. He’s known that since Moriarty walked in through the door, but he can’t seem to stop.
“You’ve never minded before,” John counters. “I don’t see what the fuss is about.”
Moriarty touches him yet again, soothing motions through his shirt. He draws John nearer, hand slipping around his back, arm around his waist. “Some of us get so sentimental about our pets, Johnny boy.”
“I’ve noticed,” John remarks dryly. His stance over Moriarty is protective, his expression fond.
“Stop it.” Sherlock’s throat has gone tight. “You want me to get Stamford for you. I understand that.”
“I don’t think you do,” Moriarty replies. “I think you’ve become confused about your little priorities.”
“They’re very clear now. We can move on.”
“I hope you’re not still running away.” Moriarty leans into John, shoulder against his side, and rests his head against John’s ribs. Pouting, he shakes his head, smearing his scent over John’s shirt. He singsongs, voice high and sharp: “Because there would be consequences...!”
“I’d rather not be killed on your behalf, thanks,” John adds.
“John for Stamford, then.” John won’t forgive him, not if John is anything like the man Sherlock thinks he is, but that’s better than John deceased.
“Oh, Sherlock,” Moriarty laments. “You make this sound like a hostage situation.”
“This is a hostage situation.”
“He’s got a point,” John says agreeably.
Moriarty waves the hand not on John. “Yes, but you’re very cooperative.”
John smiles back. “Thank you, sir.”
“The stakes are higher than you realize, Sherlock, my dear,” Moriarty continues. “It’s always been their blood for ours. Why should this be any different?”
Because it is different. Because symbiosis is more logical than parasitism. Because John’s hand is on the back of Moriarty’s chair - Sherlock’s chair - and John is standing guard over the man who would kill him.
Sherlock’s reply sticks in his throat, trapped by John’s neutral gaze.
“Shall I walk you through it?” Moriarty offers. “Or Johnny here? There’s not much in his head, but he does know his way around a battlefield.”
“You want to rekindle the war,” Sherlock responds. “The truce is young and both sides are posturing. If Mayhew’s doctor dies in Bryant’s territory, both sides have complaint. But how do you profit?”
“How do we profit,” Moriarty corrects. “You and I, our kind.”
“I don’t play politics,” Sherlock dismisses.
“I’m not playing. Am I, Johnny? Am I playing?”
“No, sir.”
“This isn’t a game, darling.” Moriarty ends his lean against John but his arm remains in place, hooked over hips. “It’s about providing for the children.”
Though an obvious piece of mockery, that should be hint enough. That should be an answer. If he could think it would be. If he could think. If Moriarty weren’t touching John. If Moriarty weren’t controlling him. If Sherlock knew when John was turned into a tool.
Was it from the beginning? Was John’s interest never more than a mocking prank? It’s plausible. The possibility cannot be dismissed: he’s never scented a trace of Moriarty during his time here. Either he came well before Sherlock did or his scent was washed away by the rain.
“No?” Moriarty asks. “Still not following? Explain it for him, Johnny boy.”
“Killing Mike in Bryant’s territory would only bring war if Bryant doesn’t back down when Mayhew threatens him - which he probably will.”
“He will,” Moriarty adds.
“Concessions will have to be made,” John continues. “The first to go would be Lord Mayhew’s forces in the east, along the mountains. Bryant would never admit it, but Lord Mayhew is the main protector of his people from you lot. Lord Mayhew withdraws his troops, Bryant takes the blame, and draughtsman raiding returns in the east. Diminished morale and confidence would make defence tricky.”
“And it all comes down to hunting territory,” Sherlock concludes.
“The children have to drink to grow up, Sherlock,” Moriarty singsongs. “You should know that better than anyone.”
“I know it’s hardly as civilized as that,” he retorts. “Humans will die.”
“That’s what humans do!” Moriarty shouts and slams his fist on the table.
John watches blandly on.
Moriarty follows Sherlock’s gaze. “Some humans,” he amends. “As for which ones, well. That’s your choice, isn’t it?”
Sherlock forces himself to breathe, to think, to function. “You’re already able to breach the eastern patrols. Why do this?”
“Oh, I can breach the patrols,” Moriarty agrees. “But it’s so tedious, doing it all the time. That’s the problem with being in charge, my dear. You give and you give and everyone always wants something more.”
“That’s how much you need this.”
“That’s how much everyone needs this. Cooperate, and parents will name their newborns after you. Refuse and, hm.” Moriarty pauses. “There are so many options, I just don’t know how to choose.” He nudges John’s side. “What do you think, Johnny? What does Sherlock Holmes fear most? Should I fuck you while he watches? I’ll call in my guards and we can all have a time of it.”
John takes a moment before replying, head tilted, tongue caught between his lips.
“John-”
“He panicked when he thought I was going to kill him,” John says. “Put on one hell of an act, but I think there was some real fear there. Bit leery of knives, this one.”
Moriarty lifts his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“Mm. He was still flinching two weeks later. He’s already let me punch him a few times - can’t imagine what I could do if someone held him down.”
“Have you ever flayed someone?” Moriarty asks.
“I’ve skinned a few rabbits,” John answers, eyeing Sherlock thoughtfully. “I don’t think it would be too difficult. Plenty of room on him for practicing.”
Sherlock sits down.
He doesn’t mean to. He doesn’t want to. But he’s much too dizzy to stand. A gasp of pain as he sits, nearly too dizzy for consciousness. White bursts of light fizzle before his eyes, turning red and orange. When they fade, Moriarty is still there, still grinning at him, and John’s indifferent eyes know nothing of mercy.
“John, stop,” he pleads.
“Stop what?” John asks. “We’re only talking, Sherlock.”
“You know you’re being controlled,” he insists. His glamour is as strong as he can make it, anything to bring John back to him. “You can hear it.”
“Yes, and?”
“You can fight it. You-”
“Why would I?” John interrupts, stopping Sherlock entirely. No one interrupts glamour.
Sherlock can’t breathe.
“I don’t mind it,” John continues. “I don’t even remember what’s happening most of the time. When I do, it doesn’t bother me.”
“Because he’s told you it doesn’t.” No more attempt at glamour. No point. The level of complexity Moriarty has worked into John’s psyche is far beyond Sherlock’s skill to unravel.
“Well, yeah,” John says. “It makes things simple. You’re not the only one who likes to be told, love.” He frowns and looks at Moriarty. “Do I still have to be in love with him?”
“No,” Moriarty answers. “Not until he delivers Stamford.”
“Good job on him being a courier, then.”
Moriarty rolls his eyes. “Johnny can be so terribly literal,” he complains. “Can’t you, Johnny?”
John nods, eyes flicking blandly to Sherlock’s face.
“‘Until I deliver Stamford’,” Sherlock repeats. “You’ll trade John, then.” Angelo. Angelo all over again, and worse than any deal Mycroft has ever offered him. Worse than anything he and Mycroft have worked to avoid.
“The way I see it,” Moriarty drawls, “he can love you or he can skin you alive. One or the other, whichever you want. Johnny here doesn’t care one way or another, do you, Johnny?”
“No,” John agrees.
“What was that?”
“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”
Moriarty looks between them both and laughs.
“What’s the deal?” Sherlock demands. “How much of John do I get if I get you Stamford?”
“You can have him back to normal,” Moriarty allows. “What you think of as ‘normal,’ anyway.”
“I want control over the glamour.”
“Obviously.” Moriarty screws up his face. “I’m not stupid, Sherlock. That would be you. I’m not averse to letting you earn him. Do well enough and I’ll transfer the glamour to you.”
Well enough at what? How many jobs? For how long? He’s already been in the north for half a year, been at his current task for months. Angelo will panic. Angelo will try to follow him and Moriarty will snatch him up too. Then Mycroft would involve himself. He’d have no choice but to involve himself.
This can only escalate. Regardless of what Sherlock does, it cannot come to good.
“Will he ever be himself?” Sherlock asks.
“Of course he will,” Moriarty replies. “If he’s told to be.”
“Prove it.” Sherlock leans forward, doing his utmost to hold every wince from his face, every flinch inside his body.
“Bit of a strain for him, isn’t it?” Moriarty remarks, pouting up at John. “Little human mind, switching back and forth. Not everyone is equipped to appreciate genius. It’s very sad. Nightmares and day terrors, poor thing. What else is wrong with you, Johnny?”
“I had a limp that was all in my head,” John says. “Jumped off the bridge headfirst, that got rid of it.”
Moriarty laughs. “Oh, you were broken before I got here.”
“I know,” John says.
“Stop it.” It’s all he can do to keep from shouting. “Can you put him back or can’t you?”
“I can,” Moriarty allows. “Give me a reason.”
“He-” Time to choose.
There’s no choice about it.
“He needs to be normal if I’m to cross into Bart’s.”
Moriarty’s smile sparks across his face and ignites his eyes. “‘Normal’ as you understand it.” Moriarty keeps saying that. “I can put him back.”
“As I....” He looks up at John without intending to, his gaze inexorably drawn.
John quirks his mouth.
Sherlock manages to keep breathing. The dizziness, he can do nothing for. He sinks against the wooden back of the chair, so unforgiving. If he flinches in the process, it’s only from the lack of a cushion. “Normally,” he says. He looks at Moriarty, his vision oddly hazy about the edges. “Who is he normally? As himself.” Moriarty has rewritten so much of the man; it’s impossible for him to be ignorant of the original draft.
“Give me Stamford and you’ll have your chance to see,” Moriarty replies.
Sherlock doesn’t doubt his word. It will be a chance, just that. Enough to keep Sherlock forever moving.
“Fine,” Sherlock answers.
Being able to see the trap hardly prevents him from falling into it.
Moriarty smiles, possibly without affectation. It doesn’t suit him. “You’ll let him across the bridge, Johnny boy,” Moriarty instructs without looking at the man at his shoulder. “No fuss, no muss, no doubting of intentions.”
“Yes, sir.” Eyes on the top of Moriarty’s head, less like a guard dog and entirely like a protector.
“Back to work, Captain Watson. Time to play the lover.”
John nods. He crosses the room, returns his sword to its sheath, and leans the weapon back in its customary place on the wall. That done, he straightens to his full height, cracking his back in a motion Sherlock finds stupidly endearing, even now.
When John turns around, his eyes seek Sherlock’s. His smile is effortless. Reflexive, Sherlock would have once thought. Sherlock’s insides begin to rotate slowly yet firmly to the left. Toward John. Of course toward him.
John’s brow furrows. The man takes one, two, three steps to stand close at his side. He takes no notice of the third man in the room, not so much as a glance. All of his focus is on Sherlock, bent on him in what was once normalcy. He stands close, very close, warming Sherlock’s elbow.
Across the table, Moriarty folds his hands and leans forward, features contorted with amusement.
“Hey,” John murmurs softly. His hand breaks Sherlock’s staring contest with Moriarty. It alights on his cheek and turns his face, tilts his head.
Stiff enough to snap, Sherlock can’t quite comply.
“Someone’s tense.” The off-hand remark is all the warning John gives before strong fingers thread through his hair and begin a gentle massaging of his scalp.
Sherlock bites down on his lip. That prevents his groan. He’ll say it does. He’ll swear it, even as John pulls Sherlock’s traitorous body close, cheek to his shirt. As it always does, John’s scent carries traces of Harry’s, of Clara’s, of wood varnish and sawdust. And now, over those, overriding those, Moriarty.
His body reacts in a way it shouldn’t. It wants John on his knees, John on his back, John with his mouth full of filth and praise and cock. It wants to kill Moriarty. To maim. To torture. It wants to kill Moriarty by fucking John and does not understand that this is entirely nonsensical.
Logic. He needs logic. Still within him, John’s blood retains the power to stir him. He can feel the warm weight of arousal seeping into his crotch. He feels aggression. Jealousy and rage. Biology, nothing more, and yet unconquerable.
Moriarty crows with laughter.
“You all right?” John asks. “You flinched - what’s wrong?”
Sherlock pulls firmly away. He leans in the chair, leans away, looking up. Moriarty’s eyes press against the marks on his bared throat, his eyes and laughter both. Sherlock tells John, “I need to cross.”
“Now?” John asks, brow furrowing. He doesn’t stop reaching for Sherlock. He doesn’t seem to be able to.
Of course he can’t. Moriarty wouldn’t find restraint half so comical.
“Now,” Sherlock confirms. He pushes back the chair and stands.
As he rises, John’s face falls. “You are coming back this way?” John half-asks. His hand seizes Sherlock’s sleeve with a level of force that isn’t reflected in the rest of his body. The motion of his arm: casual. The positioning of his feet: aimed exclusively at Sherlock. And yet the gripping hand is on Sherlock’s right side, hidden by his torso from Moriarty. How unaware is he?
From wary instinct, Sherlock’s body is half-turned toward Moriarty. Never mind that the only true physical threat in the room is John, it’s Moriarty they’re both protecting themselves from.
Sherlock looks at him, at the grinning spider sitting in his web, and John looks too.
“What is it?” John asks. His voice is even, his shoulders relaxed. His hand is shaking.
“What is it, Sherlock?” Moriarty echoes.
John gives no indication of hearing a single word.
“Why wouldn’t I come back this way?” Sherlock asks, careful and slow. As if John’s merely being an idiot.
“You can get to Waterloo from the other side of the river, too,” John points out.
“Can I?” Rhetorical. Aim for rhetorical.
“I won’t stop you,” Moriarty singsongs as John answers, “Please don’t.”
Sherlock only nods, not trusting his voice.
John frowns up at him all the same, ever concerned, ever reaching. “Are you sure you’re all right? I was too rough, wasn’t I?”
Sherlock shakes him off. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” He snatches up his coat, his satchel. “Out the side door, or do you still have to let me in through the gate?”
“We can use the side door,” John answers. He’d be heartbreak incarnate were it not for his hands. Without Sherlock to hold onto, they move without purpose. Checking pockets, touching his knife. His hand fists repeatedly around the hilt only to spasm and fall away.
“None of that now, Johnny,” Moriarty calls. He unfurls from Sherlock’s chair, shrugging his way to his feet. “Be a good boy and you don’t have to kill your baby sister.”
John’s entire body goes still. His hands fall to his sides. His fingers twitch, then remain unclenched. “We can use the side door,” John repeats. He turns, the sharp movement of a soldier at attention, and strides to the egress. He looks to Sherlock expectantly.
Sherlock follows.
They step outside into fresh air. John closes the door behind them, between them and the still-grinning man.
John leads the way and Sherlock follows, neither walking upon the holly path. They know Sherlock now. They trust him.
Halfway across the bridge, John reaches for his hand.
Sherlock gives it to him.
“Please,” John says softly, a Franc word their watchers from the gate won’t understand.
“What is it?” Sherlock answers in like. Another implanted command? Layers of glamour interacting poorly? Or John?
“The drawing,” John continues. His words are broken with disuse and thick with his accent. “You have it in your bag.”
“Do you want me to get rid of it?”
John’s hand clenches around his. “I want you to look. Before you go to Waterloo.”
How would you like me to best remember you? Sherlock’s exact words before sketching him.
“You want me to go to Waterloo.”
“I want you to look,” John repeats, dropping his hand to wave up at Bill.
Sherlock does the same.
The gate opens.
“Afternoon, Sherlock,” Bill greets.
“Hello, Bill,” he replies, already striding past the human.
“Oi,” John calls after him. “No kiss?”
Sherlock’s body moves without thought or permission. It turns and returns and Sherlock catches himself only just in time, John’s breath stroking his lips.
John breaches the remaining distance.
The kiss is dry and light. A press of lips. Hands on his shoulders. A touch of John’s nose.
Sherlock pulls away.
“I’ll look,” he promises in Franc.
“Come back soon,” John answers in kind, voice warm. “I don’t like it in there without you.”
Bill clears his throat.
Sherlock squeezes John’s hand and walks away.
John watches him go, looking for all the world like a love-stricken fool.
The wait in Stamford’s parlour is a long one today. Sherlock sits next to a pair of women, the soothing scent of pregnancy attempting to confuse his mind. He sits with his satchel at his feet and his scarf in his hands. All is slow. Leisurely.
It gives him time to plan. The words, they must be exact. Purposeful. What could convince Stamford to walk to his own death? Could he obscure the destination? Confuse the human into mistaking one gate for the other? And what of Bill? Surely the guard won’t let Stamford pass.
Has Moriarty set his glamour over Bill as well? The man is still a newlywed. Plenty of leverage there.
And John.
Sherlock closes his eyes against his own mind. He achieves nothing.
Humans pray, he knows. Some humans. People like Molly, holding the limp fingers of a father’s hand. Angelo, named for some supernatural creature. Not Sherlock, not Victor, none of his family. They have lore, not religion. They are of the earth, their mother of whom they shall not drink. She is dirt and water, and soil does not answer prayers.
He needs words. Words for Stamford, stages of planning. Nothing obvious, something effective.
The women beside him rise and follow Clara out of the room. Belatedly, Sherlock attempts to smile back at Clara. He remembers thinking they were alike, himself and Clara. Those who would have a Watson.
Stop thinking that. Think better. Think of something.
He can’t.
Moriarty has John. Moriarty has him.
Moriarty’s scent on him. Hands on him.
This isn’t helping.
He ignores the pounding of his own heart. Ignores John in the gatehouse, Moriarty at his side, in his ear, in his mind. Ignores the ship at Waterloo, Angelo waiting across the gulf. He can fix this.
“Ah, Sherlock,” Stamford greets. “Afternoon.”
Sherlock’s eyes snap open once more. “Mike.”
Stamford smiles. “I’ll be with you in just a minute.” He gestures to the other human in the room, a man with little hair and a large rash. “Your turn, Alex.”
And then Sherlock is alone.
He waits a minute longer.
When no one else comes, he sets his scarf to the side and opens his satchel between his feet. As promised, he looks.
John. A soldier in the dark. Their first night together. Hours made of misunderstood wanting. The confusion of a kiss. Praise and promises.
He looks.
He remembers. John, as John wishes to be remembered. Perhaps.
The night Sherlock had drawn this, John had forced promises. The first: no harm will come to Harry. A reaction to Moriarty, to his threats? Sherlock is sworn to Harry’s safety and John is under compulsion to obey or murder. Sherlock is bound to stay. More importantly, Moriarty’s glamour is clearly fragmenting. It’s too much against John’s nature. And yet securing Harry’s safety from him could be exactly what it seemed: a reaction to the threat Sherlock represents.
The second promise is much more troubling.
I will not leave these shores until you know your mind to be whole. As long as you would have these words hold me, this I swear.
He’s no longer certain who the man is. He has an exceptionally poor idea of who he is. But John would hold him to that promise. Anyone would hold him to it. Is this what John wanted him to think? Was that really John asking him to look, or was it Moriarty through him? And if it were John, was it only a version of John, a man turned to honey in Moriarty’s trap?
Slowly, anguish by anguish, Sherlock recognizes that he may never know.
Carefully, carefully, he folds the paper away and returns it to its place. He smoothes it down gently, ascertaining that the corners are unbent.
His hand touches more than paper.
It’s not his coin purse. It isn’t his meagre supply of ink, nor his pipe case. It certainly isn’t his pouch with his signet ring and Irene’s.
He draws it out.
He sniffs it. Wood, leather, metal. John. Not a trace of Moriarty’s scent.
John’s action, then, if not necessarily John’s doing. After taking Sherlock, before Sherlock had dressed. The window of opportunity with Sherlock dazed in the loft and Moriarty yet to arrive.
John did this. Before pressing for a third promise, John did this.
John can still plan.
With that realization, Sherlock can as well.
He speaks with Stamford.
After, he goes to Harry’s workshop. She’s finished the chairs. Today, she’s smoothing the pieces of a cradle, nattering about the expectant mother he’d met in Stamford’s parlour.
“About that brother of yours,” he says once she’s finished.
“He’s devastated about you leaving and if you make it any worse, I’ll kill you,” Harry answers without missing a beat.
“Not actually my question.”
“No?”
“No. I already know that.”
She looks up from her work. Her hands move still, scraping up one long curl of wood. Is there a word for sawdust when it isn’t dust? He doesn’t know. A shaving, possibly.
“You all right?” she asks.
“Does John ever talk about me?” he asks, which is also not his question.
She laughs a little. “Yeah. I’d say so.”
“What does he say?”
“That you’re vain,” she answers. “Don’t see any reason to encourage you.”
“Then he says good things?”
Harry shakes her head, not a denial but amusement. It’s not enough.
Sherlock clenches his fists and forces the words. They stick in his throat and clash against one another. They’re good words, effective words, and the veracity of them doesn’t matter as long as Harry gives him what he needs.
“I’m in love with your brother,” he tells her, “and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I can leave.”
Harry doesn’t do him the favour of feigning surprise. “Did you just tell me before you told him?”
Sherlock nods.
Harry swears. She menaces him with the scraper, a block of wood with a blade inside. Before he can stop himself, he wonders if it could be used for flaying. “We never spoke.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” he answers. “But I need- I need context, Harry. What’s normal for John? Is he attached, is he infatuated, I don’t....” He turns his face into a mask of confusion and helplessness. He is, abruptly, utterly in control of himself. The perfect actor.
“He loves you,” Harry tells him. “For some reason, he thinks you’re observant, but I’m not seeing it.”
“But you know what he looks like when- when in love. I don’t. I wouldn’t even know if he were behaving oddly. If day terrors are normal-”
“They’re not,” Harry corrects. “Not anymore.”
“But I didn’t know that,” Sherlock whinges, as annoying as he thinks Harry can stand. He casts himself as anxious, overly emotional, entirely insecure, and Harry responds by bludgeoning him with common sense.
The only strange point in John’s behaviour is the one Sherlock already knows. It’s the one Sherlock caused himself. The so-called day terror. It had taken John days to tell Harry, then Stamford. But was that days to believe Sherlock’s lie, or days until Moriarty came to glamour him and cover Sherlock’s slip? But how would he have known of it? A third, more plausible option: days until Moriarty’s glamour, already in place, permitted John to speak. Moriarty could have been here before. By virtue of explaining Moriarty’s knowledge of detailed local politics, that scenario is jarringly plausible. Moriarty could have had John under glamour the entire time.
“Y’know,” Harry tells him, “if you really wanted to stay, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”
Sherlock shakes his head. “My family,” he says. The catchall excuse.
Harry gives him the stink eye. “You’re not secretly married, are you?”
He laughs. It hurts, a broken bone forcibly set. “No. Not in the slightest.”
They hug goodbye. Moriarty may pick up on her scent. He may not. It’s close enough to John’s and Sherlock is already covered in the human man’s scent. Either way, it hardly matters.
He crosses the bridge with Bill beside him. New information is gleaned in those moments, however much he wishes he were deaf to Bill’s words. He doesn’t particularly want Bill to be supportive of their farce of a relationship. He doesn’t at all want to know Bill is the source of the mysterious jar of slickness, not when some of it is still up his arse.
They say goodbye, Bill lets him out through the gate, and the human laughs when Sherlock promptly knocks on the door of the gatehouse. There could be no good in involving him, provided Moriarty hasn’t involved Bill already.
John lets him in without hesitation.
Sitting before the window, one leg stretched along the length of the trunk, Moriarty arches an eyebrow. “Still no Stamford.”
“I tried,” Sherlock answers.
Moriarty sighs. “Johnny, carve his name into your arm. I don’t care which one, just make it legible.”
John’s knife is immediately in his hand but moves no farther. “Sir, I can’t write.”
Beyond patience, Moriarty glares sullenly at both of them. “Lines, then, eight of them. Forearm, not the wrist. Make it both arms.”
John nods as he pushes up his sleeve. The knife is steady in his hand. Sherlock strikes at the blade with his satchel, then grabs John to the best of his ability.
“I tried!” Sherlock insists. “Don’t hurt him, I tried.”
“And failed,” Moriarty counters.
“Let go, Sherlock,” John snaps, breaking Sherlock’s tenuous grip on his arms. He starts for the knife immediately, the blade lying on the floor. Sherlock lunges for it and John strikes him down. Bright lights fizzling at the edges of his vision, Sherlock grabs at John’s legs instead.
What ensues is a one-man brawl and more pain than a body can comprehend. Sherlock’s hold is broken and renewed, severed and re-established. Sherlock clings to him with tense arms and a limp body, a dead weight, and John falls at last to the floor. On his back, Sherlock knows the game. He knows how to roll and flip John, how to pin. He knows, thanks to John, where to hit. A solid strike downward but John puffs out his breath before impact. Not winded in the slightest, John flips them over with a grunt, shoving Sherlock’s face against wood and thresh. Sherlock tries to roll away, can’t, can only gasp against matted straw as Moriarty slowly claps at the show.
Sherlock stops fighting, goes limp. Surely John will stop, will lunge for the knife.
John doesn’t.
John forces him onto his stomach, wrenches his arm behind his back.
“Try that again and I will break your fingers,” John informs him.
His knee digs into Sherlock’s back. His hands torque Sherlock’s wrist, his left wrist, and the first absurd thought though Sherlock’s head is, no, stop, I play the violin.
John shifts his grip. He selects the first casualty. Stops before breaking. The leverage is unthinkable. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Sherlock gasps.
“Do I have to break you?”
“No.”
John releases him. Stands. Retrieves his knife. John leans back against the wall and begins to casually slice open his arm. His jaw is set, his motions steady.
Cradling his aching wrist, Sherlock manages to sit up on the floor. It’s the pressure as much as the twisting. Thresh sticks to his clothing. The increased sunlight and human scent in the room only register when the bodyguard once again pulls the door nearly shut. Sherlock’s stomach sinks as he realizes it had very nearly been two-on-one.
“It’s easier, isn’t it,” Moriarty drawls. “Just letting it happen.”
“I can still get you Stamford.” His voice shakes. He swallows. “I need more time.”
“I’ve been waiting for months, Sherlock,” Moriarty replies. “Months of my people growing ever thirstier. It’s not very nice, making people wait.”
A wet patter falls. John’s blood on the floor. It trails down to the underside of his forearm and drips from his elbow. John’s lips move, shaping numbers rather than pain as he counts.
“No one in the south knows how to control the way you do!” Sherlock rages. “Why come to learn if I already knew? I need more time! More practice! What do you think John was for?”
Moriarty smirks at him. “For growing up, little boy.”
John counts the lines, pointing at each with the crimson-smeared knife. He rolls up his other sleeve.
“Stop this. I can still get you Stamford!”
“But I don’t need Stamford.” Moriarty shakes his head. “Oh, no no no no. I need one of Mayhew’s pawns. One he favours. Stamford was just a challenge. And, oh look, you’ve failed. How lucky we are to have Johnny here instead.”
“No.” He has no other words. This was not the plan.
This was not the plan.
“Of course, Old Mayhew isn’t as fond of Johnny boy as much as he is of Stamford. Shame. A quick death was all it would have taken with Stamford. Oh well!” He grins at John. “You’ll hold still for it, too, won’t you?”
John nods, eyes upon his work. He leans forward, careful to avoid staining his clothing. “Yes, sir. Almost done, sir.”
“I gave you your chance, Sherlock,” Moriarty tells him, mouth twisting into a mournful pout. “You can’t say I wasn’t fair.”
“I can get you into Bart’s,” Sherlock blurts.
Moriarty rolls his eyes. “You can’t even glamour a human out of it.”
“I don’t need glamour,” Sherlock insists. He stands, still cradling his wrist, and retreats to where John keeps the holly. He picks it up in his good hand. He holds it out. “Remember? We have other ways in the south. I can show you.”
“He can’t,” John contradicts. He holds his arms out to the sides, red lines scored and red trails trickling. He drips, drips, drips onto the floor, hurt and wasted. His blanched face grows paler. “He told me. It’s an immunity built up during childhood. Your lot can’t get it, sir.”
“Mm, yes,” Sherlock feigns agreement. “John was so marvellously reassured to hear that.”
John blinks.
Moriarty laughs. “I was starting to wonder if you could lie.”
Sherlock pulls his mouth into a smirk. “Just ask John.”
Moriarty arches an eyebrow in the human’s direction.
“He does, sir,” John answers. “A great deal.”
Moriarty considers.
“I can teach anyone you’d like,” Sherlock continues. “It’s simple once you know how. It would have to be someone loyal. Anyone turning on you with holly in hand stands a good chance of killing you. That man of yours, what was it, Moran. He could fetch Stamford for you. That’s all I ask.” That, and for Moriarty to show him how many of his followers he can smuggle past the eastern border. Moran might not be with him. How many guards will Sherlock have to take into consideration? “I take John, you get Stamford and never worry over holly again.”
Moriarty folds his arms. “I’m listening.”
“A holly shield,” Sherlock answers, groping for the first explanation he can find. A barrier, a barrier no one will notice. Something clear. “There are ways, dried glue over the skin.” He needs to lie. He needs to keep lying until he finds a way out.
“That’s been tried before,” Moriarty dismisses. “Paste crumbles, paint flakes, and varnish only holds the burn.”
“Mine works,” Sherlock promises blindly, lifting his chin in arrogant bluff. “We aren’t without means in the south.”
“Such as?”
“I didn’t say paste, I said glue. It peels off rather than flaking. It’s watertight. It doesn’t let contamination through.”
“Show me,” Moriarty instructs. “Johnny, bring me his bag.”
“It’s not in there,” Sherlock interrupts. “I don’t-” He closes his eyes, takes a breath, opens them. “Beyond the traces still on my hands, it’s gone. I used it up crossing - but I can make more. Get me to any apothecary’s lab and I can do that for you. Was there one where you were staying?”
There, there, that’s the way out. Get Moriarty out of the gatehouse, get all of them away from John. Make a plausible holly shield, endure the holly through his own natural resistance to gain Moriarty’s confidence. When Moriarty tests the shield, when the shield fails, the pain ought to immobilize him. If in an apothecary’s lab, Sherlock will have any number of weapons at his disposal. He’ll shatter a bottle and use the glass if he needs to, but Moriarty’s throat will be cut. The bodyguard will be close at hand, at least one bodyguard, but Sherlock has to try. It will be easier without John at hand, dripping blood into the thresh. Everything will be easier.
“What will you need for this?” Moriarty asks.
“I told you, the lab.”
Moriarty rolls his eyes. “To make it, Sherlock dear. The lab won’t be an issue.”
There’s no telling how much of chemistry or alchemy Moriarty knows. There is no practical way for Sherlock to make an effective barrier quickly from scratch. There is no practical way for him to do it at all, but there doesn’t need to be. All it needs to be is plausible, plausible with waterproof qualities, plausibly waterproof, what is waterproof, what does he have-
“My coat,” Sherlock answers.
“In your coat?”
“Literally,” Sherlock confirms. “It’s siren-made. Meaning, waterproof.” And there it is. There’s the lie.
There. In Moriarty’s eyes. The hook. Sherlock has words Moriarty wants to believe. Words enough to get them away from here, away from John and Bart’s.
“There’s a reason why the Lady of Belgravia sent an emissary before opening trade,” Sherlock continues. “She’s very aware of the need for rainwear among our kind. She knows precisely how many lives could be saved from the cold and would adore the opportunity to take your coin. Sadly, sirens are, as a rule, dependent upon their popularity among the human classes. Her supporters wouldn’t react terribly well to their Lady providing holly shields to those who would hunt them.”
“And yet you have this in your coat.”
“She sent me by ship. Of course I have it in my coat. There’s an adhesive barrier between the layers of cloth.” This, so far, is true. “If removed and melted, it will adhere to skin. Put it on the bottom of your foot and no one will ever notice.” This, for all he knows, is pure fabrication. “Given refinement, it’s unnoticeable on a soft palm, but we need hardly go that far.” The embellishment and the dismissal: let Moriarty be stuck upon the dismissal, upon Sherlock withholding a service.
“For now,” Moriarty corrects.
“For now?” Sherlock echoes, biting, indignant. “I’m giving you a holly shield - that has to be worth John.” John who is bleeding, who is dripping dark red from sliced skin; unfeeling John who cannot be looked at.
“For now,” Moriarty confirms. “You’re in no position to bargain, my dear. For the holly shield, I let him live.”
“And for Stamford?” He protests for the sake of protest, for the appearance of it. To become what Moriarty won’t expect, he must first be what Moriarty must expect. “When Stamford is dead, what more use will you have for John?”
Moriarty is slow in replying, a gradual unfurling of the lips. He crosses his legs. Folds his hands atop his knee. He smiles.
“If you want him so much,” Moriarty muses, “you’ll clean him up. He’s such a terribly messy pet.”
Sherlock doesn’t move. “Is that a yes?”
“Clean him up.”
“Is that a yes?”
“That’s a maybe,” Moriarty allows. He smiles, a slow extension of teeth. “Clean him up. You know how.”
Knife in hand, John waits for him expectantly.
Sherlock puts down the holly. He goes to John. John with clear, alert eyes and a dare across his face.
“Kneel,” John instructs.
Sherlock kneels. The movement is not without difficulty.
Looking to Moriarty first for approval, John offers Sherlock his arm as if showing his hand to a dog. “Lick.”
Sherlock touches his tongue to blood and skin. He licks. Across the palm, lapping at the wrist. He tongues at the cuts until the bleeding stops, one slice after another.
“That’s nice,” John praises. He turns his arm for Sherlock’s mouth. “Just like that, carry on. You like it, don’t you. My blood filling up your cock.”
“That’s not how it works,” Sherlock corrects in a mumble, face burning. His voice is deep, a betrayer. He’s hot below his stomach, along his leg. His body understands John’s scent and skin to the exclusion of all else. John’s blood, already deep inside him, awakens once more.
John chuckles, a sound as low and dark as his hooded eyes. It contrasts poorly with his wan features. “Doesn’t seem to matter, does it? Lick me up, Sherlock.”
He barely needs the command. Even like this, even with Moriarty watching, he’s beyond the point of stopping. Blood on his tongue, its scent in his nose. And his own scent, his across John, overpowering Moriarty’s false malodorous claim. He licks John up, and when John smears his blood across Sherlock’s lips, Sherlock sucks his thumb without a thought. John slides one foot forward, between Sherlock’s knees, farther. John’s shin presses at the apex of his thighs, at his physical ache.
“Are you getting hard, love? Do you want me, darling? Do you want your little prick inside my mouth, sweetheart? Should I drink you down too, dearest?”
His cock, his entire body, it throbs.
“Would you like that, sweetness? Here. Lick my knife.”
Sherlock licks the knife.
“Will you beg for me, pet?”
“Please.” His voice is broken. He turns his head. Looks to Moriarty, those rapt features. Moriarty who wants him to beg, who expects it. Sherlock must be what Moriarty expects. There is power in that, not surrender. There must be. “Please give him back to me.”
Moriarty smiles, so slow, so soft. He answers, “You missed a spot.”
Sherlock eases the knife from John’s hand. He licks the hilt clean and tongues between John’s fingers, doing his utmost to keep from riding John’s leg. He doesn’t think to resist when John retrieves the knife. Again, Sherlock looks to Moriarty.
“You missed a spot,” Moriarty repeats.
Sherlock turns John’s hand over. He inspects one arm and the other. He soothes two of the cuts closed which have reopened. He rocks against John, unable to stop.
“No....” Moriarty drawls. “Not there. Get it right.”
“He’s doing his best, sir.” The press against his ache draws away, and John’s hand settles over the top of his head, crushing his curls, pushing him downward, face toward the floorboards.
Sherlock looks and understands.
“He gave a twitch there,” John comments. “I think he’s got it.”
Sherlock lays his hands upon the thresh. The scratch of it is damp against his palms. “Will you give him back to me? Stamford, the holly and- and this.”
“And this,” Moriarty confirms.
“I want a promise.”
Moriarty smiles with eyes of broken glass. “So I swear.”
Sherlock closes his eyes, bows his head, and scrapes his tongue across dirtied wood and bloody straw.
Traces of mud, of animal dung and human urine. Foliage. The dry straw itself. Mould. John’s drying blood, cooling and stale.
His arms shake, muscles fighting to spasm. His back aches. His arousal sickens. His mouth is disgusting, beyond disgusting. Gritty. His stomach threatens to heave. An acidic belch burns his throat.
“Careful,” Moriarty warns. “Or you’ll be cleaning that up too.”
With stiff movements, John kneels. He rubs Sherlock’s back as he struggles on. “That’s it. That’s it. You’re doing well, Sherlock. Really well. Get the rest. That bit there. No, where I’m pointing, there. Don’t spit it out. Swallow. All of it, keep trying. Don’t stop, I’ll be yours again soon. We’ll go south. We’ll be safe and happy. Now swallow it.”
Sherlock swallows. He coughs and nearly vomits. He does vomit. A small amount, into his mouth. He forces it down anew rather than lick it off the floor.
John draws him close with steady hands and soft words of praise. “I’m yours,” he whispers, pressing one kiss and another against Sherlock’s eyelids. “You did it. Give him the rest and you can keep me.”
This isn’t you, Sherlock refuses to sob. This will never be you.
“You ought to know,” John murmurs, “as a warning. If you’ve lied to him, you’ll watch as I let his men kill me.” He kisses Sherlock’s nose, a brush of smile-shaped lips. “And we don’t want that, do we?”
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