Fic: Stranger at the Gate - 11/11 (BBC Sherlock)
Title: Stranger at the Gate
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 5.3k this part, 82k 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
This will work. He’ll pull it off.
He has to.
The carriage ride is not kind. The cushion has been taken from his seat and the road is far from smooth. Light filters in through the curtain, casting woven shadows over his legs. Across from him, Moriarty curls in the forward-facing seat.
For once in his life, Sherlock keeps his mouth shut. It doesn’t matter. No one could mistake his silence for deference. He’s resisting rising vomit, nothing more. The nausea helps in a way, his body still confused and capable of release.
Occasionally, despite his best efforts, a moment of mistimed flatulence takes him. An after-effect of buggery, it seems. Or possibly the digestion of thresh. Each time, it hurts around his hole slightly less. Each time, Moriarty laughs like a toddler. The guard next to him doesn’t seem to notice.
Sherlock doesn’t care. The odour is a surprising relief. The carriage stinks of Moriarty, of wealth and travel. It will reek of Sherlock as well, marked. A small invasion of territory, but the closest to satisfaction he can foresee coming for some time. In many ways.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asks, setting his hand on his satchel beside him.
“Not at all,” Moriarty replies.
“Oh.” He looks through the window curtain, disinterested. “Pity.”
He leaves his hand where it lies, palm over leather and the gift of a knife.
The town they take him to is one Sherlock barely knows. He’s been to Camden several times before, but never like this. This will not be a night spent in mouldy straw, the cheap accommodation of a stable’s loft. Tonight he will have a door, a closed one. There may even be a lock upon it. The lock won’t be what keeps him. Angelo taught him well where locks are concerned.
They take his satchel from him, these glamour-laden thugs. They take his things, they rifle through them, and they bare every one for Moriarty’s inspection. Without the parcels of a courier, there’s very little, all important. He wears the entirety of his Anglic clothing. Everything else remains across the gulf, hidden away in a trunk beneath Molly’s bed.
All the same, there is a pouch beside his writing kit. Small and velvet, it clashes with all else Sherlock has grown to consider his. Inside hide two silver rings. Moriarty has already seen the more delicate of the pair. A woman’s ring. The woman’s ring. Moriarty knows Sherlock as the Lady’s offering, more supplicant than emissary.
Until the second ring.
Moriarty inspects the signet with a steady, critical eye. “Answer me honestly: is this yours?”
Kneeling before him, a position not of his own choosing, Sherlock answers, “I possess it.”
Moriarty rolls his eyes. “Were you born to Whitehall?”
“No.” The current Lord Whitehall is his brother.
Honesty is a measurement of truth and Moriarty is not the kind to forget subjective truths. “Were you born into Whitehall?” The house, not the individual.
Sherlock can stop his mouth by refusing to breathe, but that in itself is an answer.
“Tell me,” Moriarty commands.
Sherlock continues to not breathe.
Moriarty rises from the sofa, eyes flicking over the contents of Sherlock’s satchel where they have been laid out for his perusal. He plucks up an unfolded leaf of paper. “You know, this isn’t bad,” he remarks, shaking it out as he walks toward the fireplace. “Dull subject, though. Quite the obsession you have, my dear.”
The paper burns.
Sherlock watches.
As the charred remains curl, he runs out of air.
He inhales and one word rushes out. “Yes.”
Moriarty nods slowly, repeatedly. The rest of it changes. Confrontation to consideration. Sherlock knows himself now as hostage as well as tool. Perhaps this is how John feels.
“Good boy,” Moriarty applauds. There are plans behind his eyes, a multitude of unfolding machinations, and Sherlock wants to see none of them. Moriarty drops the signets into their bag and tosses it to him.
Sherlock doesn’t catch it.
“Put them on. Appropriately.”
Vaguely, he considers resisting. He thinks of forcing his movements to a halt, of not picking up the bag, of not pouring the contents into his palm. He has the ability, the potential. He doesn’t have to slide his signet onto the middle finger of his left hand. He doesn’t have to mark himself as Irene’s emissary with the index finger of his right. It’s a small demand, as these situations can go.
He doesn’t fight. There will be other, worse commands worth resisting.
“Whitehall’s heir,” Moriarty muses. His sharp smile threatens to cut as he sinks back into the couch.
Only until his brother marries, Sherlock could tell him. He could, but it wouldn’t matter. Mycroft will ransom or rescue him regardless of any situation. No matter what transpires, they’ll pay for it dearly.
Moriarty continues his investigation of Sherlock’s belongings. When he reaches for the sheathed knife, he does so with hands which have clearly never known a blade. He scents it. He takes his time. The knife is as much Sherlock’s now as it is John’s, and Moriarty begins to smirk as he deduces the sentiment.
“Fitting in with the local fashion, are we?” Moriarty goads him. “It’s very human.”
“They expect it,” Sherlock answers. “It unnerves them when they think you don’t eat meat.”
Moriarty makes a face at that, then tosses the knife on top of Sherlock’s satchel. “You can play human later.”
Next, Moriarty takes his letters from Angelo. He sniffs them. He reads them aloud, laughing at choice bits, and Sherlock pretends to feel pained. Once read, these too go into the fire. Again, Sherlock watches. He’s already memorized them. That the paper shows marks of rereading is mere sentiment.
Once Moriarty has gone through everything, he swings his legs onto the table, nearly kicking Sherlock in the head as he does so. Sherlock’s knees hurt, but he does not move.
“And here I thought you had so much potential,” Moriarty laments.
“Don’t be so heavy handed. It’s unbecoming.”
“Mm, yet still effective.”
Sherlock shifts on the rug. His body aches against it, tells him such movement is impossible, but the body is transport: it is meant to move. He has to fight for it. Under Moriarty’s gaze, under Moriarty’s glamour, Sherlock forces his body to stand.
Delight blooms across Moriarty’s features. Then he says, “Sit,” and Sherlock’s legs crumple.
When he falls, Moriarty doesn’t need to laugh. He simply leans back, a king upon his plush throne, secure in his reign and oblivious to his own vulnerability.
Sprawled on his side, tense and aching, Sherlock isn’t sitting.
As day turns to dusk, Sherlock is nearly given a moment of respite, a moment nearly alone. Mind frantic and useless, he tries and fails to take refuge in the distraction of physicality.
It’s a very strange state he’s been forced into. John’s blood in his stomach and humiliation lingering on the tongue. In a vague and remarkably distant way, he knows he could find release. With time, privacy, and the slightest inclination, he could. He has none of these things, wishes only the moment alone without a guard at his door. An hour alone. Two. For thinking. He refuses to call it mourning.
No, no. Focus on the physical. There can be no more planning tonight: tomorrow has already been plotted to its fullest. Think of something else. Not the ache, not the taste still lingering in his mouth. Think of something else. Take inventory.
His skin is no longer tight. Tension aside, his limbs seem looser at the joints. He dwells on this as long as he can. He thinks about typical procedure with a first bloodmate and substitutes Molly into his imaginings. She is, technically, his first. There is no reason to think of John.
The potential of his body disturbs him. The lack. The simple concept that he could find release without John with him. Pleasure without John being normal rather than a farce of the act. John’s absence becoming normal.
John should be here, his body insists. It can’t be this way without John. It literally, biologically, cannot be this way without John.
He needs to stop thinking.
Impossible.
When Moriarty comes to interrupt his thoughts, it’s almost a relief.
“You’ll make the holly shield tomorrow,” Moriarty instructs, ever testing. When Sherlock doesn’t flinch or confess an inability to comply, Moriarty nods, close to pleased. A matter of oversight: he didn’t say it had to be an effective shield. He reaches to ruffle Sherlock’s hair. “Now, time for bed, little one.”
He doesn’t use a chain, which is the best Sherlock can hope for. His arms are tied behind his back. They are tied well. If they were not, he could remove the gag. He has glamour without articulation and cannot hope to sway Moriarty’s guards. They’re human, all, to get past the border. Some of them are viciously alert. He sees loyalty. Born of glamour or not, it hardly matters.
One is instructed to make sure he doesn’t suffocate in the night. How terribly kind.
His sleep is light and threaded with thought.
His closed eyes see Bart’s. They see the bridge, its width and its thick railings. They see the holly path. They flick to John, seeking him out, and John is asleep and walking.
John who rolls over on a straw mattress and whispers, “I should tell you to go. I should tell you a lot of things, but I can’t.”
“I have your knife,” Sherlock whispers back.
“I have your promise. Fat lot of good it’s doing me.”
Sherlock catches his elbow. “I need to catch him alone. Without the guards.”
“He’ll never be without them. Sherlock, he isn’t an idiot. He’ll never be unguarded. There will always be someone trying to stab you back.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter, you arse,” John insists. “Look, we don’t know if I care whether you live or die, but I do care that you kill him first.”
“I know.”
They stand side-by-side, watching the river from behind the fence. Down the road, Angelo and Harry shout at each other about something irrelevant.
John leans his head against Sherlock’s shoulder. “God, that was a terrible thing to say.”
“It’s true. We don’t know. I don’t know,” he corrects. “You’re not really here.”
John shrugs, slipping his hand into Sherlock’s. “I’ve always been a fantasy. Don’t see why this is any different.”
“You weren’t always a fantasy.”
“Depends on when Moriarty came,” John reminds him. “You never thought it was odd, how immediately I took to you?”
“Love at first sight,” Sherlock answers.
They both laugh.
Sighing to a stop, John pulls on his hand and they step back into the gatehouse. “If I was always a fantasy,” John warns, settling into his lap, “you should run. From me, I mean. After you kill Moriarty. Even if it was real at the start, you should run. If you don’t, I’ll kill you too. You know I will.”
“You said you wouldn’t. Before I went to Waterloo, you distinctly said-”
“He made me say that, you idiot,” John interrupts, cupping his cheeks with rough palms. His fingertips curl into Sherlock’s hair. “He wouldn’t let me kill you. Sherlock, he made me call you back. You can’t trust anything I’ve done, promise me you won’t.”
“I won’t,” Sherlock replies. Even so, John is warm across his lap. “If all else fails, I could go through with it.”
“Kill Mike and take me as reward? You’d have to keep me from hating you.”
“It wouldn’t be difficult.”
“Fantasy,” John tells him. “I’ll love you false or kill you true.”
“Shut up. Shut up, shut up,” he orders. He shoves John down in the small cot, sawdust heavy in the air. His hands over a biting mouth. “Be quiet, John.”
John bucks up against him. No, say his eyes. Never, say his hands. He bites Sherlock’s fingers, marks silver rings with his teeth. He rolls them over and the fucking resumes, face-to-face and improbably painless. It feels like nothing. They collapse into each other, Sherlock chokes awake, and he closes his eyes to the watching guard.
He slides down once more, touches the edge of sleep, but John is gone. Curls of paper glow in the fireplace. Words and images have burned away. He calls for John with an aching jaw, with a stoppered tongue and the man who answers is a stranger in his lover’s skin.
He wakes and remains awake.
In the morning, he is given his supplies. He is shown to a poor excuse for a lab, a pitiful combination of forge and kitchen. He doesn’t ask how Moriarty has come into these but he knows all the same.
Under Moriarty’s watchful gaze, he lays out his coat and picks up the knife. When he cuts open the hem, there is no need to feign an unpractised hand. Carefully, he peels cloth away from the waterproof layer inside. The coat will be shorter by the time he has what he needs from it, falling perhaps mid-thigh, but it’s a small sacrifice, particularly with a borrowed garment. The waterproofing peels away from the inner lining with a satisfying sound. It’s very convincing.
A significant portion of time is dedicated to removing dark threads and fibres from the otherwise transparent material. The remainder of the morning is spent carefully stoking the fire and melting the waterproofing into a viscous glue-like substance. If he is overly cautious in this process, a prickly insistence that he won’t have the shield burnt is explanation enough for his behaviour. As he works, his coat is taken. Someone will hem it, turning the suspiciously ragged cut into an innocuous moment of fashion. His knife is taken as well.
Working the fire, stirring the would-be shield, he looks at the lab as John would see it. A bottle taken from that shelf, struck on the table, then a smooth upward thrust to the throat. What John once taught him as a bluff can still be effective as a reality. There will be a guard on hand of course. In a moment of vulnerability, Moriarty will obviously keep at least one close. Sherlock will have to be quick. If the holly sticks to Moriarty through the ineffective shield, so much the better.
Come evening, he has a passable imitation of a holly shield. The paste dries clear. It pulls off in long, stretching strips.
He spreads it on the hardened soles of his feet, waits for it to dry, and sets his foot down on a holly sprig. Until this moment, he handles the sprig warily with gloves. He is sure to stand by the table, near the bottle.
Moriarty watches his face for pain. When he sees none, he nods. The application of the waterproofing - now with assorted other plausible components - is a simple one. For all their kind cannot endure cold liquids, they have the advantage with heat. Moriarty waits patiently for it to dry, bare feet held carefully above the floor. After an agonizing wait, it happens. He sets his foot down with caution, then with confidence.
Tensed for action, Sherlock watches Moriarty’s growing smile. His growing, unabating smile.
A cold prickling climbs Sherlock’s neck and slowly pierces his scalp with its chill.
Moriarty lifts his right foot and repeats the test with the left. Standing upon the holly, he begins to laugh, giggles of true delight. He beams at Sherlock, eyes shining sharp and bright. “Ohhh,” he breathes out. “Well done, my dear.”
“Thank you,” he responds, the answer automatic, his mind so terribly numb.
Stamford, he tells himself. Stamford will die, not John. He’ll still have John. Something of him. That has to count for something.
They’ll leave for Bart’s in the morning.
The second night, he sleeps unbound. His pipe and tobacco have been returned. He isn’t permitted matches, but the guard assists him.
He’s being tamed and knows it.
He wakes weak with thirst and is permitted to drink from one of the horses. Moriarty regards him with amusement and disdain.
After, what remains of Sherlock’s belongings is returned to him. The knife is a small comfort on his hip. He circles his thumb over the hilt, looking out the carriage window as they ride. He lets his features soften.
When Moriarty coos at him for the sentiment, Sherlock is sure to stop himself. He folds his hands in his lap and keeps them there.
“You’ll have your pet back soon, my dear,” Moriarty assures him. “You’ve done well.”
Sherlock nods without looking at him. “Thank you,” he says.
They ride in silence some time longer.
“You won’t need me to cross the bridge,” Sherlock points out.
He can feel Moriarty’s gaze settle on him. “You’re coming,” Moriarty drawls.
“You want me close at hand if anything goes wrong,” Sherlock surmises. “Your fall man.”
“Obviously.”
Sherlock looks down at his knife, then catches himself at it.
Moriarty sighs and regards Sherlock with a sympathetic pout. “If you hate watching your pet follow orders, you’ll simply have to see this through.”
Sherlock feigns hesitation, then nods. “I will,” he swears.
There is a faint whistling, a thunk, the cries of upset horses.
“What was that?” Moriarty demands as the carriage stops.
“Crossbow fire, sir!” calls back the driver. “It only hit the frame.”
Moriarty tsks. “Then what are you stopping for?”
A whip crack, the horses urged on.
“But he’ll fire again,” Sherlock reasons.
Moriarty shakes his head, smirking. The guard doesn’t explain either.
When they cover the remaining distance to the gatehouse, Sherlock can smell why. Outside of the carriage, outside with the scents of horses and a respectable breeze, he can barely make it out, and only from over-sensitivity. His nose wants John’s scent, yearns to recognize it.
“He’s bleeding.”
“Not much,” Moriarty responds, whistling before knocking out his rhythm on the door. “Just enough so he learns to behave, stupid thing.” One of his henchmen follows behind him, the one to watch Sherlock twitch through the first night. “Open up, Johnny.”
John opens the door. The scent of blood heightens, but Moriarty is right: it isn’t much.
“I’m sorry for trying to shoot you, sir.” The words are delivered as if by rote. For all John’s jaw is tense and set with pain, there’s a recognizable trace of sullenness to his features. It’s Moriarty’s, not John’s, a glamour-imbued trait. “Fortunately, I do seem to have missed.”
Sherlock can see more than sullen resistance. He can see restless nights and days of eating lightly. He can see the nicks at the edge of John’s throat where he cut himself shaving this morning. Light cuts with the tip of a razor, all on the right side, the razor in his left hand. The stubble on his cheeks strikes a sharp contrast with the smooth shave of his neck. The only place John’s razor touched today was his own throat.
“Show me the crossbow,” Moriarty instructs.
John turns and points to where the crossbow has been thrown against the far wall. His right arm is bloody, his sleeve rolled up. He’s teased open the flesh with his knife. “It’s there, sir.” There’s a trace of shaving foam behind his ear. He shaved in the gatehouse, not at Harry’s. Harry would have pointed it out. Harry would have stopped the attempt. John’s counter-ploy against Moriarty. The gatekeeper needs to cross the bridge to permit visitors entry. A dead gatekeeper can do no such thing. The hesitation marks on his neck say the rest. Moriarty had stopped it, had known in advance to stop it.
“That’s enough, Johnny,” Moriarty disparages. “No more weapons.” Behind him, his thug shows no sign of surprise at these proceedings. Amusement, yes, but no surprise.
John’s hand goes to his knife. His eyes go to the second blade, the one once again upon Sherlock’s hip.
“Do you understand?” Moriarty prompts, his patience like paper held before firelight.
“Yes, sir,” John answers. As if to clear it, he shakes his head. “Sorry, sir. Don’t know what came over me, sir.” He unsheathes his knife and tosses it onto the table, blood trickling down his arm. Droplets fly with the motion and fall onto thresh. Sherlock’s stomach tenses itself against further abuse.
Moriarty adjusts his cuffs. “Are you finished?”
“No, sir.” John gestures at Sherlock, at his hip. His fingers half point, unfurling from a demanding palm. “That’s mine as well.”
“Mine now,” Sherlock counters.
John’s hand doesn’t waver. Nor do his eyes. They betray the intent behind the gesture: even in this state, John must know exactly what he’s sworn Sherlock to do, knows Sherlock would make the attempt. “No more weapons. I’ll have that back.”
“Argue with your pet later,” Moriarty instructs. “Don’t be tedious.”
The knife is rather small, as weapons go. It isn’t particularly sharp and Sherlock has very little in the way of experience with material weapons of any sort. Behind him stands a fellow of substantial size and capability. There are a number of weapons on him, ranging from dagger to sword. With Moriarty on hand, this is not a man whom Sherlock can successfully glamour.
Sherlock hands over the knife, holding it by the blade.
John takes it and tosses it onto the table to join its brother. After, he very nearly looks sad.
“Your arm,” Sherlock prompts.
John looks for permission first. Then he offers bloody skin to Sherlock’s mouth.
It’s not the worst way Sherlock has ever stalled for time, but it is remarkably close. He needs to think, needs time for it. He should have stabbed Moriarty in the carriage and risked the henchmen killing him before their master died. He should have, he should have.
“Really, boys,” Moriarty disparages. “Plenty of time for that after.”
“Sorry, sir.” John reclaims his arm from Sherlock’s grip.
“A bleeding guard is rather noticeable,” Sherlock counters, wiping at the edges of his mouth and licking his fingers clean.
Moriarty sighs. “Just get the gate, Johnny.”
The door closes and gate shortly opens. “Sir, you and your friend here will need to take off your boots,” John informs them. “If that’s a problem, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Not a problem,” Moriarty replies smoothly. Off with his shoes, off with the socks, and a careful touch confirms the elastic glue is still in place across the bottom of his foot. “Walk with me, Johnny. Sherlock, pet, you’re behind him.”
They walk two-by-two, which isn’t unusual for a crossing. The unknown visitor is always upon the holly path. Moriarty takes the first step onto it without hesitation and continues without surprise. John walks beside him, their steps synced. Moriarty’s guard is on Sherlock’s left, behind Moriarty. Across the bridge, Bill waves.
There are two options.
There is compliance. It’s fairly straightforward and is unlikely to result in his death, or in John’s. Stamford will die, one human before the multitude to come. This is the first option.
Sherlock chooses the second.
He lengthens his stride, bringing himself close to John’s shoulder, and catches his hand. John doesn’t return his grip. “Bill,” Sherlock says by way of explanation. Edging into the space between John and Moriarty, it’s explanation for them both. Enough for Moriarty’s guard to release the back of his coat. “You’re meant to wave back, John.”
John waves, Moriarty nods in approval, and Sherlock lunges for Moriarty’s knees.
They hit the bridge.
Instantaneous, Moriarty’s scream is high and agonized, exactly the way it should be. Unprotected hands on the holly lacquer, unprotected, and Sherlock forces him down, body across his as Moriarty tries to crawl away. He hears Bill shouting from the gate. He hears a sword drawn behind him.
“Stop!” Moriarty commands him, an unthinking order screamed to all, and that’s John and the guard frozen. Moriarty twists and grabs at him, at his face, pressing a contaminated hand against the vulnerable skin of Sherlock’s face. The position puts Moriarty on his back, on the smooth slide of his jacket. Moriarty’s palm rises, strikes at his eye, at his eyelid, at the tender, sensitive skin. Sherlock screams.
He screams and he shoves. Feet pressing against the bridge, he shoves Moriarty, shoves him the way he’s already trying to push himself, heels skittering against wood. The force knocks Moriarty’s hand from his burning cheek. The railing is much too high over their heads, useless. Sherlock hears Bill curse and shout his name. He hears the shout for crossbows. Eyes wide, head well past the edge, Moriarty grips Sherlock’s jacket, fists his hands into it as water roars below. It is both or none.
With a shout and a shove, over they go.
They fall.
For a shocked moment of descent, they fall.
Into the terrified eyes of the other, they stare.
One last gasp.
And then, the water.
Sherlock breaches the surface like an arrow, arms stretched in desperate, untried mimicry of childhood summers. He dives like Molly, red-faced, and is submerged. The shock of it. The gasping shock of it, of water rather than rock. Of rock beneath water, his hands striking, arms caging over his head. The fluid force of it. Moriarty is ripped away, is pulled away, is torn.
Through rock and water, Sherlock thrashes. He kicks and pulls with the coordination of a man who has never known water deeper or cooler than a hot bath. His eyes open to the freezing murk, to tumbling bubbles and an irresistible current.
Too late, much too late, he tries to cast away his coat, his satchel. His boots threaten to drag him down. Freezing fingers shake through numbing water. No time, keep kicking, don’t breathe. His lungs begin to burn in his chest, the only heat left within him. His mouth clenches shut, his jaw aching, then startles open as he’s snagged.
Air, gone. Water rushes in, floods his mouth, and don’t, don’t swallow. It presses in, presses down, a cold vice, a solid vice clamping around him, around him like arms. Solid against his back, solid and straining until he smacks into rock and is dragged higher, toward light.
He breaks the surface with a coughing gasp, with matching gasps, with panting, choking words at his ear: “I have you, come on, stop fighting - Sherlock, I have you.”
He’s drowned. Hallucinations of a drowning man. He’s cold. Please, he’s so cold. Numbness crowds his skin.
He shakes and shudders, thrashing, gulping air, and the solidity behind him peels away. Replaced by rock, by gravel, his body dragged from water onto stone. Dragged and dragged, pulled by the shoulders of his coat. His hands scrape rock until they burn. He lets them. Warmth, please, warmth. He coughs and keeps coughing. There is water inside him. There is vomit. He is turned over and permitted to vomit. He vomits. Horse blood and water.
When it all stops, the world spins. His head drops against soil. Damp. Possibly mud. Silt. Sand? He digs his fingers into it. Cold damp burns shallow scrapes. He’s gasping, still gasping, cannot stop. He turns his face toward the shape against the light. Damp below, roots above, light and river beyond.
Before him, bent, soaked and panting, is John on his knees.
His face pale, John assesses him with a gaze as calm as his hands. His hand on Sherlock’s chest, his pressure deliberate, and slowing, exaggerated breaths.
Sherlock follows him through his shivering, trying to breathe, just to breathe, when all is so cold.
John nods, slowly at first, then rapidly. Leaning over Sherlock, he turns his face away without warning and makes a sound much like a sob. One sound only, no sooner heard than gone. Water drips from him, every inch, from cloth and hair and skin.
Speech is difficult. Sherlock’s teeth chatter and his tongue slips. Sounds slur.
“He’s dead,” John answers. “I- God, I felt it. Hit the rocks and died.”
Sherlock nods. Possibly, he simply shakes. His breathing ratchets, shudders, trembles his ribs.
John begins to unbutton Sherlock’s coat. “Help me with this, you arse,” he instructs when Sherlock only stares. “Unless you want a sopping cold blanket.”
He complies as much as he’s able, sitting up and falling back, then letting John roll him one way and the other. His coat falls away. His satchel. John rifles through both and removes the small purse of coin and matches. These, he tucks into his jacket pocket. The coat is dropped into Sherlock’s lap. His pipe case and tobacco case as well. The satchel, next to empty, is thrown back in the river.
“Can you walk?” John asks. “We need to move.”
“When?” Sherlock rasps.
“Right fucking now,” John answers, all practicality and little heat. He kneels at Sherlock’s side, crouching beneath the overhang of roots and soil. “Arms around my neck, come on. You’re too tall, but it’ll have to do.”
Sherlock reaches. “No,” he tries to say, then John hauls him up.
“Fuck you. Walk, damn it.”
Sherlock does. He shakes and slips, but he’s mobile. Crouched beneath the dirt overhang, they skid alongside the river, the water on their left. They’re on the west side, not the east. “Not what I asked,” he manages to clarify.
“When what, then?”
“Moriarty,” Sherlock stresses. His clothing clings as he moves. His boots freeze his feet.
“Dead on impact, I told you. He must’ve hit the rocks - I didn’t have to wait for him to drown. Good thing, too. Didn’t like my chances with that bastard upon the bridge. Brute tried to take my head off. Turned into a crazed idiot.”
Sherlock shakes his head. “The glamour.”
“Broke when he died,” John insists. “God, don’t tell me you hit your head.”
“Not off. On. When did he first come?”
“After you left a chamber pot full of blood, when do you think? He was monitoring your post, you idiot. He had a good laugh reading out your letter.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, ‘oh’. Shift here, like this, good.” John’s arm around his waist, one hand pulling at his belt. His other hand around Sherlock’s wrist, and he’s still never been so cold. “If we can make it to your boat in Waterloo, we should be able to get away with our heads on.”
“Bill saw me,” Sherlock realizes, remembers. “Holly burn on my eye, John, he saw me.”
“And that’s you hunted down and me killed as a traitor,” John confirms. He skids on loose rocks then catches himself, holding Sherlock steady. “Or just as a failure, don’t suppose it matters much to the block. The river’s quick, that’s given us a bit of a head start. We can try the road, if we can manage to get up to it. There’s risk in that, but we could dry out more. They’ll be searching the river first for our bodies.”
“I’m freezing.” He clutches at his coat and John. He looks at his trembling fingers and they’re blue. The coat will dry quickly but not quickly enough.
“I know,” John replies. “I can feel you shaking, I’ve noticed. You and your fragile health. You’ll have to dry as we walk.” A light curse, a crude jibe about chafing. The closest he’s heard to true affection in well over a month and it isn’t close at all. “Can’t be helped. We’ll risk the road.”
“If we can get up to it.”
“We’ll find something. Hitch a ride on an oxcart. I know more merchants than most, it might work if we move faster than word can. Or we’ll walk the whole way to Waterloo down here, I don’t really care as long as you move.”
Sherlock does what he can, shivering into human warmth. His feet are stumbling pieces of ice. “If we see any, I can steal us horses.”
“Oh good,” John replies, tightening his grip around Sherlock’s waist. “Finally, something to look forward to.”
Quick in their uncertain steps, they stagger on down the river.
------
So ends Stranger at the Gate. Much thanks to fogbutton for egging me on and much gratitude to vyctorifor listening to the entire original outline despite a fierce dislike of vamps. Seiji, your enthusiasm is more helpful than you know. You made the setting internally consistent, and then you went and drew rocking fanart (everybody go stare at it!). Also, everyone who liked the drawing scene? Yeah, that one's on her. A big thank you to the cavalry, otherwise known as arcsupport, who likes to edit the fiddly little details as much as I do. Thank you two for helping me put in all the disco.
For all of you who are currently about to kill me, don't worry, there is a sequel in the planning stages. It's even John POV: questions will be answered. I've said this elsewhere (on Elsewhere, actually), but the upcoming month is going to be crazy busy for me. Once I come out the other side, the writing shall resume. Until then, I'll be posting some behind the scenes stuff showing the progression of this story from a vague idea on a bridge into a mindfuck with its own world. As always, thanks for reading.
See you in April.
EDIT: By which I mean I'll have time in April to resume writing. In order to present you with elaborate plots with foreshadowing and mindfuckery, I write the entirety of a story before posting it. So, no, I will not be writing the entirety of the sequel in April - I will be getting back into gear in April. Just so everyone doesn't get their hopes that incredibly far up.
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 5.3k this part, 82k 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
This will work. He’ll pull it off.
He has to.
The carriage ride is not kind. The cushion has been taken from his seat and the road is far from smooth. Light filters in through the curtain, casting woven shadows over his legs. Across from him, Moriarty curls in the forward-facing seat.
For once in his life, Sherlock keeps his mouth shut. It doesn’t matter. No one could mistake his silence for deference. He’s resisting rising vomit, nothing more. The nausea helps in a way, his body still confused and capable of release.
Occasionally, despite his best efforts, a moment of mistimed flatulence takes him. An after-effect of buggery, it seems. Or possibly the digestion of thresh. Each time, it hurts around his hole slightly less. Each time, Moriarty laughs like a toddler. The guard next to him doesn’t seem to notice.
Sherlock doesn’t care. The odour is a surprising relief. The carriage stinks of Moriarty, of wealth and travel. It will reek of Sherlock as well, marked. A small invasion of territory, but the closest to satisfaction he can foresee coming for some time. In many ways.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asks, setting his hand on his satchel beside him.
“Not at all,” Moriarty replies.
“Oh.” He looks through the window curtain, disinterested. “Pity.”
He leaves his hand where it lies, palm over leather and the gift of a knife.
The town they take him to is one Sherlock barely knows. He’s been to Camden several times before, but never like this. This will not be a night spent in mouldy straw, the cheap accommodation of a stable’s loft. Tonight he will have a door, a closed one. There may even be a lock upon it. The lock won’t be what keeps him. Angelo taught him well where locks are concerned.
They take his satchel from him, these glamour-laden thugs. They take his things, they rifle through them, and they bare every one for Moriarty’s inspection. Without the parcels of a courier, there’s very little, all important. He wears the entirety of his Anglic clothing. Everything else remains across the gulf, hidden away in a trunk beneath Molly’s bed.
All the same, there is a pouch beside his writing kit. Small and velvet, it clashes with all else Sherlock has grown to consider his. Inside hide two silver rings. Moriarty has already seen the more delicate of the pair. A woman’s ring. The woman’s ring. Moriarty knows Sherlock as the Lady’s offering, more supplicant than emissary.
Until the second ring.
Moriarty inspects the signet with a steady, critical eye. “Answer me honestly: is this yours?”
Kneeling before him, a position not of his own choosing, Sherlock answers, “I possess it.”
Moriarty rolls his eyes. “Were you born to Whitehall?”
“No.” The current Lord Whitehall is his brother.
Honesty is a measurement of truth and Moriarty is not the kind to forget subjective truths. “Were you born into Whitehall?” The house, not the individual.
Sherlock can stop his mouth by refusing to breathe, but that in itself is an answer.
“Tell me,” Moriarty commands.
Sherlock continues to not breathe.
Moriarty rises from the sofa, eyes flicking over the contents of Sherlock’s satchel where they have been laid out for his perusal. He plucks up an unfolded leaf of paper. “You know, this isn’t bad,” he remarks, shaking it out as he walks toward the fireplace. “Dull subject, though. Quite the obsession you have, my dear.”
The paper burns.
Sherlock watches.
As the charred remains curl, he runs out of air.
He inhales and one word rushes out. “Yes.”
Moriarty nods slowly, repeatedly. The rest of it changes. Confrontation to consideration. Sherlock knows himself now as hostage as well as tool. Perhaps this is how John feels.
“Good boy,” Moriarty applauds. There are plans behind his eyes, a multitude of unfolding machinations, and Sherlock wants to see none of them. Moriarty drops the signets into their bag and tosses it to him.
Sherlock doesn’t catch it.
“Put them on. Appropriately.”
Vaguely, he considers resisting. He thinks of forcing his movements to a halt, of not picking up the bag, of not pouring the contents into his palm. He has the ability, the potential. He doesn’t have to slide his signet onto the middle finger of his left hand. He doesn’t have to mark himself as Irene’s emissary with the index finger of his right. It’s a small demand, as these situations can go.
He doesn’t fight. There will be other, worse commands worth resisting.
“Whitehall’s heir,” Moriarty muses. His sharp smile threatens to cut as he sinks back into the couch.
Only until his brother marries, Sherlock could tell him. He could, but it wouldn’t matter. Mycroft will ransom or rescue him regardless of any situation. No matter what transpires, they’ll pay for it dearly.
Moriarty continues his investigation of Sherlock’s belongings. When he reaches for the sheathed knife, he does so with hands which have clearly never known a blade. He scents it. He takes his time. The knife is as much Sherlock’s now as it is John’s, and Moriarty begins to smirk as he deduces the sentiment.
“Fitting in with the local fashion, are we?” Moriarty goads him. “It’s very human.”
“They expect it,” Sherlock answers. “It unnerves them when they think you don’t eat meat.”
Moriarty makes a face at that, then tosses the knife on top of Sherlock’s satchel. “You can play human later.”
Next, Moriarty takes his letters from Angelo. He sniffs them. He reads them aloud, laughing at choice bits, and Sherlock pretends to feel pained. Once read, these too go into the fire. Again, Sherlock watches. He’s already memorized them. That the paper shows marks of rereading is mere sentiment.
Once Moriarty has gone through everything, he swings his legs onto the table, nearly kicking Sherlock in the head as he does so. Sherlock’s knees hurt, but he does not move.
“And here I thought you had so much potential,” Moriarty laments.
“Don’t be so heavy handed. It’s unbecoming.”
“Mm, yet still effective.”
Sherlock shifts on the rug. His body aches against it, tells him such movement is impossible, but the body is transport: it is meant to move. He has to fight for it. Under Moriarty’s gaze, under Moriarty’s glamour, Sherlock forces his body to stand.
Delight blooms across Moriarty’s features. Then he says, “Sit,” and Sherlock’s legs crumple.
When he falls, Moriarty doesn’t need to laugh. He simply leans back, a king upon his plush throne, secure in his reign and oblivious to his own vulnerability.
Sprawled on his side, tense and aching, Sherlock isn’t sitting.
As day turns to dusk, Sherlock is nearly given a moment of respite, a moment nearly alone. Mind frantic and useless, he tries and fails to take refuge in the distraction of physicality.
It’s a very strange state he’s been forced into. John’s blood in his stomach and humiliation lingering on the tongue. In a vague and remarkably distant way, he knows he could find release. With time, privacy, and the slightest inclination, he could. He has none of these things, wishes only the moment alone without a guard at his door. An hour alone. Two. For thinking. He refuses to call it mourning.
No, no. Focus on the physical. There can be no more planning tonight: tomorrow has already been plotted to its fullest. Think of something else. Not the ache, not the taste still lingering in his mouth. Think of something else. Take inventory.
His skin is no longer tight. Tension aside, his limbs seem looser at the joints. He dwells on this as long as he can. He thinks about typical procedure with a first bloodmate and substitutes Molly into his imaginings. She is, technically, his first. There is no reason to think of John.
The potential of his body disturbs him. The lack. The simple concept that he could find release without John with him. Pleasure without John being normal rather than a farce of the act. John’s absence becoming normal.
John should be here, his body insists. It can’t be this way without John. It literally, biologically, cannot be this way without John.
He needs to stop thinking.
Impossible.
When Moriarty comes to interrupt his thoughts, it’s almost a relief.
“You’ll make the holly shield tomorrow,” Moriarty instructs, ever testing. When Sherlock doesn’t flinch or confess an inability to comply, Moriarty nods, close to pleased. A matter of oversight: he didn’t say it had to be an effective shield. He reaches to ruffle Sherlock’s hair. “Now, time for bed, little one.”
He doesn’t use a chain, which is the best Sherlock can hope for. His arms are tied behind his back. They are tied well. If they were not, he could remove the gag. He has glamour without articulation and cannot hope to sway Moriarty’s guards. They’re human, all, to get past the border. Some of them are viciously alert. He sees loyalty. Born of glamour or not, it hardly matters.
One is instructed to make sure he doesn’t suffocate in the night. How terribly kind.
His sleep is light and threaded with thought.
His closed eyes see Bart’s. They see the bridge, its width and its thick railings. They see the holly path. They flick to John, seeking him out, and John is asleep and walking.
John who rolls over on a straw mattress and whispers, “I should tell you to go. I should tell you a lot of things, but I can’t.”
“I have your knife,” Sherlock whispers back.
“I have your promise. Fat lot of good it’s doing me.”
Sherlock catches his elbow. “I need to catch him alone. Without the guards.”
“He’ll never be without them. Sherlock, he isn’t an idiot. He’ll never be unguarded. There will always be someone trying to stab you back.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter, you arse,” John insists. “Look, we don’t know if I care whether you live or die, but I do care that you kill him first.”
“I know.”
They stand side-by-side, watching the river from behind the fence. Down the road, Angelo and Harry shout at each other about something irrelevant.
John leans his head against Sherlock’s shoulder. “God, that was a terrible thing to say.”
“It’s true. We don’t know. I don’t know,” he corrects. “You’re not really here.”
John shrugs, slipping his hand into Sherlock’s. “I’ve always been a fantasy. Don’t see why this is any different.”
“You weren’t always a fantasy.”
“Depends on when Moriarty came,” John reminds him. “You never thought it was odd, how immediately I took to you?”
“Love at first sight,” Sherlock answers.
They both laugh.
Sighing to a stop, John pulls on his hand and they step back into the gatehouse. “If I was always a fantasy,” John warns, settling into his lap, “you should run. From me, I mean. After you kill Moriarty. Even if it was real at the start, you should run. If you don’t, I’ll kill you too. You know I will.”
“You said you wouldn’t. Before I went to Waterloo, you distinctly said-”
“He made me say that, you idiot,” John interrupts, cupping his cheeks with rough palms. His fingertips curl into Sherlock’s hair. “He wouldn’t let me kill you. Sherlock, he made me call you back. You can’t trust anything I’ve done, promise me you won’t.”
“I won’t,” Sherlock replies. Even so, John is warm across his lap. “If all else fails, I could go through with it.”
“Kill Mike and take me as reward? You’d have to keep me from hating you.”
“It wouldn’t be difficult.”
“Fantasy,” John tells him. “I’ll love you false or kill you true.”
“Shut up. Shut up, shut up,” he orders. He shoves John down in the small cot, sawdust heavy in the air. His hands over a biting mouth. “Be quiet, John.”
John bucks up against him. No, say his eyes. Never, say his hands. He bites Sherlock’s fingers, marks silver rings with his teeth. He rolls them over and the fucking resumes, face-to-face and improbably painless. It feels like nothing. They collapse into each other, Sherlock chokes awake, and he closes his eyes to the watching guard.
He slides down once more, touches the edge of sleep, but John is gone. Curls of paper glow in the fireplace. Words and images have burned away. He calls for John with an aching jaw, with a stoppered tongue and the man who answers is a stranger in his lover’s skin.
He wakes and remains awake.
In the morning, he is given his supplies. He is shown to a poor excuse for a lab, a pitiful combination of forge and kitchen. He doesn’t ask how Moriarty has come into these but he knows all the same.
Under Moriarty’s watchful gaze, he lays out his coat and picks up the knife. When he cuts open the hem, there is no need to feign an unpractised hand. Carefully, he peels cloth away from the waterproof layer inside. The coat will be shorter by the time he has what he needs from it, falling perhaps mid-thigh, but it’s a small sacrifice, particularly with a borrowed garment. The waterproofing peels away from the inner lining with a satisfying sound. It’s very convincing.
A significant portion of time is dedicated to removing dark threads and fibres from the otherwise transparent material. The remainder of the morning is spent carefully stoking the fire and melting the waterproofing into a viscous glue-like substance. If he is overly cautious in this process, a prickly insistence that he won’t have the shield burnt is explanation enough for his behaviour. As he works, his coat is taken. Someone will hem it, turning the suspiciously ragged cut into an innocuous moment of fashion. His knife is taken as well.
Working the fire, stirring the would-be shield, he looks at the lab as John would see it. A bottle taken from that shelf, struck on the table, then a smooth upward thrust to the throat. What John once taught him as a bluff can still be effective as a reality. There will be a guard on hand of course. In a moment of vulnerability, Moriarty will obviously keep at least one close. Sherlock will have to be quick. If the holly sticks to Moriarty through the ineffective shield, so much the better.
Come evening, he has a passable imitation of a holly shield. The paste dries clear. It pulls off in long, stretching strips.
He spreads it on the hardened soles of his feet, waits for it to dry, and sets his foot down on a holly sprig. Until this moment, he handles the sprig warily with gloves. He is sure to stand by the table, near the bottle.
Moriarty watches his face for pain. When he sees none, he nods. The application of the waterproofing - now with assorted other plausible components - is a simple one. For all their kind cannot endure cold liquids, they have the advantage with heat. Moriarty waits patiently for it to dry, bare feet held carefully above the floor. After an agonizing wait, it happens. He sets his foot down with caution, then with confidence.
Tensed for action, Sherlock watches Moriarty’s growing smile. His growing, unabating smile.
A cold prickling climbs Sherlock’s neck and slowly pierces his scalp with its chill.
Moriarty lifts his right foot and repeats the test with the left. Standing upon the holly, he begins to laugh, giggles of true delight. He beams at Sherlock, eyes shining sharp and bright. “Ohhh,” he breathes out. “Well done, my dear.”
“Thank you,” he responds, the answer automatic, his mind so terribly numb.
Stamford, he tells himself. Stamford will die, not John. He’ll still have John. Something of him. That has to count for something.
They’ll leave for Bart’s in the morning.
The second night, he sleeps unbound. His pipe and tobacco have been returned. He isn’t permitted matches, but the guard assists him.
He’s being tamed and knows it.
He wakes weak with thirst and is permitted to drink from one of the horses. Moriarty regards him with amusement and disdain.
After, what remains of Sherlock’s belongings is returned to him. The knife is a small comfort on his hip. He circles his thumb over the hilt, looking out the carriage window as they ride. He lets his features soften.
When Moriarty coos at him for the sentiment, Sherlock is sure to stop himself. He folds his hands in his lap and keeps them there.
“You’ll have your pet back soon, my dear,” Moriarty assures him. “You’ve done well.”
Sherlock nods without looking at him. “Thank you,” he says.
They ride in silence some time longer.
“You won’t need me to cross the bridge,” Sherlock points out.
He can feel Moriarty’s gaze settle on him. “You’re coming,” Moriarty drawls.
“You want me close at hand if anything goes wrong,” Sherlock surmises. “Your fall man.”
“Obviously.”
Sherlock looks down at his knife, then catches himself at it.
Moriarty sighs and regards Sherlock with a sympathetic pout. “If you hate watching your pet follow orders, you’ll simply have to see this through.”
Sherlock feigns hesitation, then nods. “I will,” he swears.
There is a faint whistling, a thunk, the cries of upset horses.
“What was that?” Moriarty demands as the carriage stops.
“Crossbow fire, sir!” calls back the driver. “It only hit the frame.”
Moriarty tsks. “Then what are you stopping for?”
A whip crack, the horses urged on.
“But he’ll fire again,” Sherlock reasons.
Moriarty shakes his head, smirking. The guard doesn’t explain either.
When they cover the remaining distance to the gatehouse, Sherlock can smell why. Outside of the carriage, outside with the scents of horses and a respectable breeze, he can barely make it out, and only from over-sensitivity. His nose wants John’s scent, yearns to recognize it.
“He’s bleeding.”
“Not much,” Moriarty responds, whistling before knocking out his rhythm on the door. “Just enough so he learns to behave, stupid thing.” One of his henchmen follows behind him, the one to watch Sherlock twitch through the first night. “Open up, Johnny.”
John opens the door. The scent of blood heightens, but Moriarty is right: it isn’t much.
“I’m sorry for trying to shoot you, sir.” The words are delivered as if by rote. For all John’s jaw is tense and set with pain, there’s a recognizable trace of sullenness to his features. It’s Moriarty’s, not John’s, a glamour-imbued trait. “Fortunately, I do seem to have missed.”
Sherlock can see more than sullen resistance. He can see restless nights and days of eating lightly. He can see the nicks at the edge of John’s throat where he cut himself shaving this morning. Light cuts with the tip of a razor, all on the right side, the razor in his left hand. The stubble on his cheeks strikes a sharp contrast with the smooth shave of his neck. The only place John’s razor touched today was his own throat.
“Show me the crossbow,” Moriarty instructs.
John turns and points to where the crossbow has been thrown against the far wall. His right arm is bloody, his sleeve rolled up. He’s teased open the flesh with his knife. “It’s there, sir.” There’s a trace of shaving foam behind his ear. He shaved in the gatehouse, not at Harry’s. Harry would have pointed it out. Harry would have stopped the attempt. John’s counter-ploy against Moriarty. The gatekeeper needs to cross the bridge to permit visitors entry. A dead gatekeeper can do no such thing. The hesitation marks on his neck say the rest. Moriarty had stopped it, had known in advance to stop it.
“That’s enough, Johnny,” Moriarty disparages. “No more weapons.” Behind him, his thug shows no sign of surprise at these proceedings. Amusement, yes, but no surprise.
John’s hand goes to his knife. His eyes go to the second blade, the one once again upon Sherlock’s hip.
“Do you understand?” Moriarty prompts, his patience like paper held before firelight.
“Yes, sir,” John answers. As if to clear it, he shakes his head. “Sorry, sir. Don’t know what came over me, sir.” He unsheathes his knife and tosses it onto the table, blood trickling down his arm. Droplets fly with the motion and fall onto thresh. Sherlock’s stomach tenses itself against further abuse.
Moriarty adjusts his cuffs. “Are you finished?”
“No, sir.” John gestures at Sherlock, at his hip. His fingers half point, unfurling from a demanding palm. “That’s mine as well.”
“Mine now,” Sherlock counters.
John’s hand doesn’t waver. Nor do his eyes. They betray the intent behind the gesture: even in this state, John must know exactly what he’s sworn Sherlock to do, knows Sherlock would make the attempt. “No more weapons. I’ll have that back.”
“Argue with your pet later,” Moriarty instructs. “Don’t be tedious.”
The knife is rather small, as weapons go. It isn’t particularly sharp and Sherlock has very little in the way of experience with material weapons of any sort. Behind him stands a fellow of substantial size and capability. There are a number of weapons on him, ranging from dagger to sword. With Moriarty on hand, this is not a man whom Sherlock can successfully glamour.
Sherlock hands over the knife, holding it by the blade.
John takes it and tosses it onto the table to join its brother. After, he very nearly looks sad.
“Your arm,” Sherlock prompts.
John looks for permission first. Then he offers bloody skin to Sherlock’s mouth.
It’s not the worst way Sherlock has ever stalled for time, but it is remarkably close. He needs to think, needs time for it. He should have stabbed Moriarty in the carriage and risked the henchmen killing him before their master died. He should have, he should have.
“Really, boys,” Moriarty disparages. “Plenty of time for that after.”
“Sorry, sir.” John reclaims his arm from Sherlock’s grip.
“A bleeding guard is rather noticeable,” Sherlock counters, wiping at the edges of his mouth and licking his fingers clean.
Moriarty sighs. “Just get the gate, Johnny.”
The door closes and gate shortly opens. “Sir, you and your friend here will need to take off your boots,” John informs them. “If that’s a problem, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Not a problem,” Moriarty replies smoothly. Off with his shoes, off with the socks, and a careful touch confirms the elastic glue is still in place across the bottom of his foot. “Walk with me, Johnny. Sherlock, pet, you’re behind him.”
They walk two-by-two, which isn’t unusual for a crossing. The unknown visitor is always upon the holly path. Moriarty takes the first step onto it without hesitation and continues without surprise. John walks beside him, their steps synced. Moriarty’s guard is on Sherlock’s left, behind Moriarty. Across the bridge, Bill waves.
There are two options.
There is compliance. It’s fairly straightforward and is unlikely to result in his death, or in John’s. Stamford will die, one human before the multitude to come. This is the first option.
Sherlock chooses the second.
He lengthens his stride, bringing himself close to John’s shoulder, and catches his hand. John doesn’t return his grip. “Bill,” Sherlock says by way of explanation. Edging into the space between John and Moriarty, it’s explanation for them both. Enough for Moriarty’s guard to release the back of his coat. “You’re meant to wave back, John.”
John waves, Moriarty nods in approval, and Sherlock lunges for Moriarty’s knees.
They hit the bridge.
Instantaneous, Moriarty’s scream is high and agonized, exactly the way it should be. Unprotected hands on the holly lacquer, unprotected, and Sherlock forces him down, body across his as Moriarty tries to crawl away. He hears Bill shouting from the gate. He hears a sword drawn behind him.
“Stop!” Moriarty commands him, an unthinking order screamed to all, and that’s John and the guard frozen. Moriarty twists and grabs at him, at his face, pressing a contaminated hand against the vulnerable skin of Sherlock’s face. The position puts Moriarty on his back, on the smooth slide of his jacket. Moriarty’s palm rises, strikes at his eye, at his eyelid, at the tender, sensitive skin. Sherlock screams.
He screams and he shoves. Feet pressing against the bridge, he shoves Moriarty, shoves him the way he’s already trying to push himself, heels skittering against wood. The force knocks Moriarty’s hand from his burning cheek. The railing is much too high over their heads, useless. Sherlock hears Bill curse and shout his name. He hears the shout for crossbows. Eyes wide, head well past the edge, Moriarty grips Sherlock’s jacket, fists his hands into it as water roars below. It is both or none.
With a shout and a shove, over they go.
They fall.
For a shocked moment of descent, they fall.
Into the terrified eyes of the other, they stare.
One last gasp.
And then, the water.
Sherlock breaches the surface like an arrow, arms stretched in desperate, untried mimicry of childhood summers. He dives like Molly, red-faced, and is submerged. The shock of it. The gasping shock of it, of water rather than rock. Of rock beneath water, his hands striking, arms caging over his head. The fluid force of it. Moriarty is ripped away, is pulled away, is torn.
Through rock and water, Sherlock thrashes. He kicks and pulls with the coordination of a man who has never known water deeper or cooler than a hot bath. His eyes open to the freezing murk, to tumbling bubbles and an irresistible current.
Too late, much too late, he tries to cast away his coat, his satchel. His boots threaten to drag him down. Freezing fingers shake through numbing water. No time, keep kicking, don’t breathe. His lungs begin to burn in his chest, the only heat left within him. His mouth clenches shut, his jaw aching, then startles open as he’s snagged.
Air, gone. Water rushes in, floods his mouth, and don’t, don’t swallow. It presses in, presses down, a cold vice, a solid vice clamping around him, around him like arms. Solid against his back, solid and straining until he smacks into rock and is dragged higher, toward light.
He breaks the surface with a coughing gasp, with matching gasps, with panting, choking words at his ear: “I have you, come on, stop fighting - Sherlock, I have you.”
He’s drowned. Hallucinations of a drowning man. He’s cold. Please, he’s so cold. Numbness crowds his skin.
He shakes and shudders, thrashing, gulping air, and the solidity behind him peels away. Replaced by rock, by gravel, his body dragged from water onto stone. Dragged and dragged, pulled by the shoulders of his coat. His hands scrape rock until they burn. He lets them. Warmth, please, warmth. He coughs and keeps coughing. There is water inside him. There is vomit. He is turned over and permitted to vomit. He vomits. Horse blood and water.
When it all stops, the world spins. His head drops against soil. Damp. Possibly mud. Silt. Sand? He digs his fingers into it. Cold damp burns shallow scrapes. He’s gasping, still gasping, cannot stop. He turns his face toward the shape against the light. Damp below, roots above, light and river beyond.
Before him, bent, soaked and panting, is John on his knees.
His face pale, John assesses him with a gaze as calm as his hands. His hand on Sherlock’s chest, his pressure deliberate, and slowing, exaggerated breaths.
Sherlock follows him through his shivering, trying to breathe, just to breathe, when all is so cold.
John nods, slowly at first, then rapidly. Leaning over Sherlock, he turns his face away without warning and makes a sound much like a sob. One sound only, no sooner heard than gone. Water drips from him, every inch, from cloth and hair and skin.
Speech is difficult. Sherlock’s teeth chatter and his tongue slips. Sounds slur.
“He’s dead,” John answers. “I- God, I felt it. Hit the rocks and died.”
Sherlock nods. Possibly, he simply shakes. His breathing ratchets, shudders, trembles his ribs.
John begins to unbutton Sherlock’s coat. “Help me with this, you arse,” he instructs when Sherlock only stares. “Unless you want a sopping cold blanket.”
He complies as much as he’s able, sitting up and falling back, then letting John roll him one way and the other. His coat falls away. His satchel. John rifles through both and removes the small purse of coin and matches. These, he tucks into his jacket pocket. The coat is dropped into Sherlock’s lap. His pipe case and tobacco case as well. The satchel, next to empty, is thrown back in the river.
“Can you walk?” John asks. “We need to move.”
“When?” Sherlock rasps.
“Right fucking now,” John answers, all practicality and little heat. He kneels at Sherlock’s side, crouching beneath the overhang of roots and soil. “Arms around my neck, come on. You’re too tall, but it’ll have to do.”
Sherlock reaches. “No,” he tries to say, then John hauls him up.
“Fuck you. Walk, damn it.”
Sherlock does. He shakes and slips, but he’s mobile. Crouched beneath the dirt overhang, they skid alongside the river, the water on their left. They’re on the west side, not the east. “Not what I asked,” he manages to clarify.
“When what, then?”
“Moriarty,” Sherlock stresses. His clothing clings as he moves. His boots freeze his feet.
“Dead on impact, I told you. He must’ve hit the rocks - I didn’t have to wait for him to drown. Good thing, too. Didn’t like my chances with that bastard upon the bridge. Brute tried to take my head off. Turned into a crazed idiot.”
Sherlock shakes his head. “The glamour.”
“Broke when he died,” John insists. “God, don’t tell me you hit your head.”
“Not off. On. When did he first come?”
“After you left a chamber pot full of blood, when do you think? He was monitoring your post, you idiot. He had a good laugh reading out your letter.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, ‘oh’. Shift here, like this, good.” John’s arm around his waist, one hand pulling at his belt. His other hand around Sherlock’s wrist, and he’s still never been so cold. “If we can make it to your boat in Waterloo, we should be able to get away with our heads on.”
“Bill saw me,” Sherlock realizes, remembers. “Holly burn on my eye, John, he saw me.”
“And that’s you hunted down and me killed as a traitor,” John confirms. He skids on loose rocks then catches himself, holding Sherlock steady. “Or just as a failure, don’t suppose it matters much to the block. The river’s quick, that’s given us a bit of a head start. We can try the road, if we can manage to get up to it. There’s risk in that, but we could dry out more. They’ll be searching the river first for our bodies.”
“I’m freezing.” He clutches at his coat and John. He looks at his trembling fingers and they’re blue. The coat will dry quickly but not quickly enough.
“I know,” John replies. “I can feel you shaking, I’ve noticed. You and your fragile health. You’ll have to dry as we walk.” A light curse, a crude jibe about chafing. The closest he’s heard to true affection in well over a month and it isn’t close at all. “Can’t be helped. We’ll risk the road.”
“If we can get up to it.”
“We’ll find something. Hitch a ride on an oxcart. I know more merchants than most, it might work if we move faster than word can. Or we’ll walk the whole way to Waterloo down here, I don’t really care as long as you move.”
Sherlock does what he can, shivering into human warmth. His feet are stumbling pieces of ice. “If we see any, I can steal us horses.”
“Oh good,” John replies, tightening his grip around Sherlock’s waist. “Finally, something to look forward to.”
Quick in their uncertain steps, they stagger on down the river.
------
So ends Stranger at the Gate. Much thanks to fogbutton for egging me on and much gratitude to vyctorifor listening to the entire original outline despite a fierce dislike of vamps. Seiji, your enthusiasm is more helpful than you know. You made the setting internally consistent, and then you went and drew rocking fanart (everybody go stare at it!). Also, everyone who liked the drawing scene? Yeah, that one's on her. A big thank you to the cavalry, otherwise known as arcsupport, who likes to edit the fiddly little details as much as I do. Thank you two for helping me put in all the disco.
For all of you who are currently about to kill me, don't worry, there is a sequel in the planning stages. It's even John POV: questions will be answered. I've said this elsewhere (on Elsewhere, actually), but the upcoming month is going to be crazy busy for me. Once I come out the other side, the writing shall resume. Until then, I'll be posting some behind the scenes stuff showing the progression of this story from a vague idea on a bridge into a mindfuck with its own world. As always, thanks for reading.
See you in April.
EDIT: By which I mean I'll have time in April to resume writing. In order to present you with elaborate plots with foreshadowing and mindfuckery, I write the entirety of a story before posting it. So, no, I will not be writing the entirety of the sequel in April - I will be getting back into gear in April. Just so everyone doesn't get their hopes that incredibly far up.