Fic: No Fixed Point - 3b/5 (BBC Sherlock, immense AU of AUs)

[bendingsignpost]

Gold

It's another morning in Chelmsford and he hates knowing a hangover is waiting him. That's the first thought: he's about to be hung-over on a boat without water.

The second thought is a great deal of profanity.

Something about all that gives John an inkling, just an inkling, that the man on the ship still has no idea who John is. Because that? Was not appropriate behaviour. Not for fresh acquaintances. For an established relationship, fine.

A very established relationship, going by the conversation. John's put his foot in that one, no mistake about it.

Because John can't. That was worse than Jake when he was with Sarah. In so many ways, worse.

Was that cheating?

The sick feeling in his stomach tells him it was cheating.

They're going to have a very strange row about this later, John's sure of it. A very strange row indeed. He thinks about that for a few minutes until his mind lapses into predictions of angry sex. They're nice thoughts, and they soon turn gentler. He sits at the table, breakfast half-eaten, until Marta rings the doorbell and forces him out of it.

When he wakes, Sherlock is playing the violin. Not Mendelssohn. Something else. Lying on the sofa, missing his bed, John closes his eyes and decides to wait out the rest of the playing.

It goes on and on, and eventually, he must move or fall back asleep or rage or cry. He gets up. He goes downstairs and dresses in Sherlock's bedroom. He ought to take his things from the closet but knows it would be crossing a line. They aren't truly his things.

In the kitchen, there is again no tea. He sets about making coffee.

The music stops. "What now?"

John looks over his shoulder, confused. "Sorry?"

"This is a new kind of guilt," Sherlock informs him. "I haven't seen this one before."

John closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and does not throw the empty kettle at him.

"Interesting."

"Fuck off."

"Mm, no." A measuring look, but not a long one. "The one on the boat, then."

"No," John says. "Really. Fuck off."

"I'm exacerbating the issue very easily," Sherlock continues. "Too easily. This is to do with the one on the boat."

"Caffeine first, yelling at you later."

"But I haven't done anything."

It wasn't the Mendelssohn, John doesn't say. He'd woken, heard the violin, and it hadn't been the Mendelssohn. It had been the confusing sounds of almost home.

"Ah," says Sherlock. "That's exactly it. Something yours does that I don't, and the difference is-"

"Would you shut up!" John yells. "Can you not do that, please?"

Sherlock grins at him, as bright and vicious as unsheathed honesty. "So you do react."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You've been unerringly calm since the beginning," Sherlock replies. "You reported your own death as if speaking of little more than a bad dream. Your initial dilemma was whether you could sleep your way elsewhere before you had to tell me the truth. I once imagined it would be an improvement if you thought with your head before your heart, but that was predicated on the assumption that you would eventually use both."

"I need you to stop talking now," John tells him, voice tight.

"You don't."

"Yes," John says. "I really do."

"Can you look me in the eyes when you say that?" Sherlock asks, voice containing nothing but curiosity. "You look away when you speak."

John looks at him. When he opens his mouth, his gaze tries to slip from him.

"You hadn't noticed. Not surprised. You prefer to avoid conflict when it involves a vulnerable emotional component. If you had someone to defend besides yourself, it wouldn't be an issue. It reflects well on your character: many children of alcoholics are extremely adverse to conflict-"

"Will you shut up?" John yells.

"Particularly the children of abusive alcoholics," Sherlock continues. "It's a concern for you, particularly due to your sister's alcoholism. If you've begun over-imbibing on the ship-"

"How-?"

"You're guilty, embarrassed, and the cause is related to me, therefore to a version of me. The only other currently available to you is the one on the boat. Had this changed, your mood would have changed drastically in another manner. Now, it's a guilt you don't feel entirely to blame for, but a strong guilt. You previously mentioned beer as the only available beverage on board. You previously mentioned waking up in his bed as well. You also stated that you've tried to convey your situation to him, but his understanding was questionable.

"Therefore, you were drunk, he presumed, nothing happened, and you feel terribly guilty anyway. It's not the perceived trespass that's bothersome. It's the condition. You're self-destructive when emotionally disconnected."

"Stop-stop talking." His voice breaks into a whisper.

"No. This is the fourth day here, meaning you're finishing your second week. No progress, no change, both for you and your condition. How many days has it been?"

John shakes his head, eyes shut tight.

"How many days, John?"

"Fourteen." He swallows. Clears his throat. "Two weeks."

Sherlock walks away.

The sound of the motions startles John's eyes open. "What...?"

Sherlock returns, briskly tosses John his Belstaff coat, and says, "Get it out of your system. I'll be back late."

"But-"

"It's not that cold out," Sherlock replies and leaves in the suit jacket alone.

John stands in the kitchen, holding the coat. It's very heavy, too heavy for one hand, so he folds it over one arm and hugs it to his chest. He stands like this for a very long time.

Lunchtime finds him in his armchair, still trying to read the newspaper. Sherlock's coat sprawls across the man's empty chair. John hasn't cried on it or smelled it or talked to it, none of those coping mechanisms. He's had his denial and anger, but he's far from finished with bargaining. After bargaining comes depression and John is not doing that again. More anger, more bargaining. He can push his way through this. He'll break it before it breaks him. He simply has to discover how.

Eventually, the coat is an annoyance. It just sits there and sits there and John keeps looking at it. He starts gazing at it, his mind wandering.

He swallows, shakes his head, and pushes himself to his feet. He picks up the coat and heads to the hall, intending to toss the coat onto Sherlock's bed and have done with this forced mourning. He gets as far as opening the door.

On the bed, John's tan knit jumper is bundled up by the pillows. It wasn't there when John dressed earlier. Its presence is a deliberate message, one John understands immediately. Because not only can Sherlock read minds on a good day, he can effectively predict the future. He knew John would come in with the coat, he knew John would see the jumper, he knew John would connect the two, damn him, and John doesn't need this. He really does not need this, knowing that Sherlock thought of giving John his coat to cuddle and cry over because Sherlock's done the same with a jumper. It's like Sherlock has his finger on a button in John's brain, one he never even had to discover because the twat put it there himself.

And this, here. Here with a joint office and a single bed, here with something that is serious and long term, here where John's socks have been incorporated into Sherlock's sock index, it's taken four days, four for Sherlock give up and to skip to the grieving. There's pragmatic, and then there's fucking heartless. John is not finished fighting yet. John is not about to be finished, not ever. His bastard back home had better not be finished either.

He means to throw the coat down, to cast it onto the floor and storm away and slam the door, but he needs to swear more. He curses into the fabric, long and loud, and the scent hits him where it hurts.

He's going home. He doesn't need to know how or when, not when he knows he's going home. He can't and won't stay here. He recognizes this as a lunatic approach to life, but that doesn't, won't, can't matter. His entire life is lunatic. Every damn piece and, no, he is not about to start crying. He's in control, he's all right, he's going to be fine. He's a grown man, a doctor and a solider-

-except now he isn't.

He isn’t a soldier anymore. No more active duty for the rest of his lives. That part of him is gone and it's not coming back.

The thought breaks something, some towering wall, and the crumbling begins before he can take another breath.

A few terrible hours later, John takes a shower and drinks yet more water. His head hurts terribly, but he won't take anything for it. The pain is numbing. Convenient.

He permits himself a bit of a lie down, which is how he winds up on the bed, the coat beside him.

"You'd better be waiting," he mutters to it. “Don’t give up on me, you arse.” There's more to say, but none of it could ever sound right when spoken to an empty coat.

Sherlock returns while John is doing the washing up after a solitary dinner. With the radio on and singing absently along, John doesn't hear him come up the stairs.

"Do you do this often? Mine doesn't sing."

John manages to look at him without flinching. "Derek's influence." He nods toward the plastic bag in Sherlock's hand. "What's that?"

Sherlock reaches inside and lobs a small box toward John.

John catches it with wet hands. Frowning, he turns it over and reads the label. "I didn't know they made binary watches."

"Obviously, they do."

John dries off his hands, opens the packaging and looks at the metal band. "I have no idea how to read this."

"That's hardly the point."

When John removes the analogue watch, Sherlock takes it. John puts the binary watch on in its place. The metal is strange against his skin and the purple LED lights indicating the time give it a very sci-fi feel.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "You're not even going to set it?"

"I just said I have no idea how to read it and you think I know how to set it?"

A sigh now, and Sherlock moves in to take care of it. The proximity is strange. Close bodies, fingertips against his wrist: it's exactly the sort of thing that ought to put his body on alert. It doesn't. It's not comfortable, but it's a discomfort that reminds John far more of Mycroft than of his own Sherlock Holmes. Someone who knows too much, has gotten too close, and clearly has a plan for John's immediate future. Someone who is more than capable of taking care of things, and in a way John might not like.

"You can hardly 'go back' to your Analogue London if this one is labelled the same," Sherlock explains, pulling back and stepping away once he's finished.

John blinks slowly. "I thought... Today was some sort of... I don't know, grieving day?"

"Processing," Sherlock corrects. "Fatal physical trauma derailed you here and to the ship. It's possible you're stuck here and the ship reality-and learn the name of it, we can't keep calling it 'Boat World'-it's possible you're stuck because of the finality of your injury. If you can process it, you might return home. Failing that, we find a way to trigger you."

"One? I don't think it works that way. Two, there is nothing wrong with calling it Boat World."

"It sounds stupid."

"Really not the point."

"Yes, you were sidetracked," Sherlock says. "We need to find a cue that would transfer you away. You mentioned music before."

John nods. "It was meant to be like a personalized ringtone for each reality. He'd play the violin when I woke up, but playing a recording somewhere else didn't do anything to send me back to Analogue ahead of schedule. Not definitively, at any rate. Two times out of ten, at best."

"And this when moving between realities you were still stably connected to," Sherlock muses, eyes narrowed into the middle distance. He looks entirely unaware of how ridiculous that sentence sounded. "But it is your mind which travels. Forcing it to reach for connections is the obvious choice."

"Yes, but that didn't work."

"Do you have any other ideas?"

"Ah, no," John admits.

"There we are, then."

He wakes up to the sounds of water and Derek singing. So far, no change. He spends the day jotting down ideas and the evening dreading his hangover to come.

Oh. Oh, God.

Christ.

Fuck.

Footsteps, shouting. Loud talking. Thin walls. The unending creak of the ship itself. John tucks his face against Sherlock's chest and tries desperately to not have ears. It doesn't work.

With the deliberate coordination of someone wide awake and fully hydrated, Sherlock covers John's upward-facing ear with one hand and pulls the sheet over his head with the other. John relaxes marginally, but it's still terrible.

They lie still, very still, until the rush of morning motion passes. Sherlock's breaths are deliberate and slow under John's cheek. Gentle fingers shift over John's face, fingertips languidly scratching at the scruffy beginnings of a beard. John spares a thought to appreciate how his beard no longer itches. The one good piece of this scenario, but he has a good piece.

Stroke by stroke, the scratching transitions into a full investigation. Across his cheek, along his jaw, under his nose. The inspection of his nose bit is strange, but a soft grunt is enough to make it stop. The touch moves lower, moves to his mouth and John turns his face away, moves just enough to lie face-down. One cheek still rests against the bare skin of Sherlock's side, and Sherlock shifts with him. He massages John's scalp gingerly, the touch full of tension until John groans his approval. It helps. Stuck here without water, let alone anything for his head, John will take whatever he can.

They stay like this for what feels like an unreasonable amount of time. Except it can't be. Sherlock should have become too bored and wandered away by now. John chalks it up to modern attention spans and the lack of modern anything here. He closes his eyes and lets himself feel like a lazy old dog on a Sunday. Sherlock's certainly petting him like one, as if he's fragile.

"We need to talk," John remembers. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth as he tries to speak.

Sherlock shushes him.

John is glad to be shushed. The shirtless cuddling is innocent, at least at the moment. He'll lay down the boundaries later. He'd move his arm off from Sherlock's middle, but there's honestly no space.

He feels Sherlock's stomach rumble against his arm. It's an odd sensation. Sherlock ignores it, so John does as well. It repeats, now audibly. Sherlock tenses under him. John entirely fails to respond. Normally, he'd press, but he can't be arsed to make Sherlock get up and eat. A lack of movement is a very good thing. It's very dim in the cabin, wonderfully dim, and Sherlock leaving would let in light and make noise besides.

He hurts too much to doze and attempt to sleep it off, but he hardly wants to. No, he'll force through. Slowly. Even so, he's nearly drifting off despite himself when Sherlock's stomach begins making painful sounding noises.

John grunts at him.

Sherlock sighs. "I'm not going to-" His stomach interrupts him.

John shoves at him with his shoulder. "Go. Don't like the noise."

It's a terrible excuse, but it's enough to make Sherlock move. John stays where he is, face down on the bunk. It smells terrible, but not as terrible as the inside of his mouth tastes. He pulls the sheet up, cold. A moment later, something cloth lands on his back.

"Huh?"

"Your shirt," Sherlock tells him.

"Ta."

"...Ta?"

"Ta," John confirms.

Sherlock rubs his back a little.

John hums. If he knew the word for "disconcerting", he'd use it. Too nice. Hard to protest when all he wants is an aspirin. Still, it makes him feel as if there's some head in the fridge Sherlock is trying to apologize for, as if this Sherlock is the sort to apologize for a head in the fridge, which he probably isn't. Sherlock touches John as if certain permission will be revoked any minute. Admittedly, he’s not far off.

Once John is close to comatose, Sherlock leaves. For some time, John wobbles toward the edge of unconsciousness, kept awake only by the sounds of the ship and the knowledge that he desperately needs to drink something. He repeatedly pulls his tongue from the roof of his mouth. It makes an interesting sound, one he'd rather it not make.

Finally, John remembers the cows. Cows and Sherlock never smelling of alcohol. Milk. Better than nothing. Better than more beer. Hair of the dog never cured anyone.

It takes John a very long time to muster the will to sit up and put his shirt on. He stands, faces the sway of the ship with more stoicism than he'd thought he possessed at the moment, and puts his jacket on as well. Where are his boots? Oh. He puts those on, too.

The journey to the hold is a quick, miserable one. He opens the door without anyone speaking to him and enters. Inside, there is perfect, blessed silence.

Perfect silence in a room full of cows.

Cows and Sherlock.

John's hand stays on the door, a stabilizing touch. Because his head hurts and the ship rocks, and that makes everything a bit dizzy. He blinks a little. This doesn't help. The cows are all still focused on Sherlock, every last one turned toward him like iron fillings to a magnet. Sherlock is still hunched by one, hands gentle on the animal's wide neck. His back is to John, his head bowed.

He's making noises. The only noises in the room. Soft, slurping sounds. Wet sounds, swallowing, gulping sounds.

John backs up. He doesn't move through the door, merely shifts enough to make the hinges creak.

A twitch in Sherlock's shoulders proves he's heard, but it's long moments before he finishes. John waits, his stomach a tight, sick knot. When Sherlock straightens, he doesn't turn around.

"Yes?" Sherlock asks.

"Are these milk cows?" John asks.

"No." His back remains turned, his head bowed.

"Oh."

The cows begin to shift, to properly make noise again. The world feels real again.

"All right," says John. "Never mind, then."

He retreats into the hall and Sherlock fails to so much as twitch. John closes the door. John walks away.

Well, that was more disturbing than a head in the fridge.

Sometime in the afternoon, sitting out of the way on deck and as much in the shade as he can manage, John realizes his headache has diminished. Not gone, not entirely, but diminished. He's still terribly dehydrated, but they'll reach land tomorrow or the day after. He'll be all right.

What he's less certain about is the man currently approaching him.

"Feeling better?" Sherlock asks, taking a seat next to John below the stairs. Their legs may stretch out between them, but Sherlock is close, sitting shin-to-thigh with him.

"A bit," John allows.

He wants to ask.

He should probably ask.

"Sherlock," he begins. There are words to come after, all strange and awkward. He has them in English, but only in English.

"You said you wanted to talk. You mentioned it this morning in bed."

John clears his throat. He looks across the deck, unable to withstand Sherlock's unwavering gaze. "I did, yes. About last night."

"Ah." With a lift of the chin, Sherlock settles back against the barrel behind him. "I've overstepped."

"You were carrying on as usual," John allows. "Nothing wrong in that, but it's awkward now."

"I see." Sherlock looks across the deck as well.

"I know it can't be comfortable having me like this," John continues. It's easier now with the force of those eyes lifted. "I'm not your John Watson and I know it hurts-"

"Yes, so stop saying it," Sherlock snaps.

"-but pretending I’m him won't help," John says over him. "Look. I'm sorry, but I need you to stop treating me like I'm him."

"I'm not. I understand that man wasn't you. I understand that on a very fundamental level, John. He wasn't you. I know. We've been over this."

"I'm not sure you do," John replies. "This is a language problem. It has to be. This isn't the way you'd be reacting otherwise."

"And how would I be reacting?" Sherlock challenges. "Tell me that."

"Resentful. Hurting. Avoidant." To name a few.

"I've already done that."

"Not that I've seen."

Sherlock frowns back at him. "Yes you have."

"No," John says. "No, I haven't. Or else you were very quick."

"I wasn't, and you have," Sherlock insists. He leans forward, hand on John's knee. "Are the-" strange word "-coming back?"

"Sorry, I don't know what that means."

"When you entirely forget an event that you were present for," Sherlock explains. "You'd be standing, talking, moving, but not yourself." And then the word has meaning.

"I'd black out? No, sorry, he'd black out?"

"No, not him. You."

John shakes his head. "No, still no. I haven't blacked out. Look, anything that happened before the morning I couldn't speak, that wasn't me."

Sherlock's hand tightens on his knee. His facial expression doesn't change. "What do you mean by that?"

Oh, Christ. "I only came here that morning," John says. "Until that morning, it wasn't me here. I don't remember anything that came before because I don't know it. It wasn't me who lived it."

Sherlock's eyes slowly widen. "And you simply... woke. With nothing to trigger you. Was it timing? Are you remotely aware of the mechanics?"

"I was injured in Afghanistan and I woke up here," John says. He hasn't the words for a bullet wound. "It's happened before."

"Afghanistan?"

"A place. Far away. I left England and I went to Afghanistan. There's a war. I was there to be part of the war. I've tried to explain before, but I didn't have the words to do it well. I still don't. I was in Afghanistan and I was hurt. I woke up here instead. Then I went to sleep and woke up in other places."

"You dreamed."

"No, I was awake."

"Oh, not this again." Sherlock leans forward. "They feel real. I believe you when you say they felt real. But those are dreams. The war is over, no one is firing at you, and this is where you are now."

"But not all the time," John insists. "I go to sleep and I wake up in London, or Chelmford, or another London."

Sherlock mouths the names before changing tactics. "If you don't remember anything before four days ago, how do you know me?"

"I don't. Not you, this you. I met another man named Sherlock Holmes somewhere else."

"Where?"

"England," John says. "In London. At St. Bart's."

A smile breaks across Sherlock's face. "No, that was here," he says, sounding so very relieved. "We met at Bart's."

"No," John says. "That was you and the other John Watson. I'm talking about me and another Sherlock Holmes. I know it sounds strange, but at least try to listen."

Sherlock tries to take his hands and says with absolute confidence, "You're confused."

"I'm not. It's just... big. And I don't have the words for it yet. But I'm not the John Watson who was here before, not even before that." It's beginning to sound as if there were multiples. Somehow. John's even less certain about that.

"I understand that,” Sherlock says. “Something has caused you to change again. I don't know what the trigger was yet, and I don't know whose-" strange word "-this is, but we can work around this," Sherlock promises him. "This proves it was more than Moriarty who took you from me. This is more than a reaction to broken-" strange word. "You developed your own language overnight. Of course it's more than a reaction."

"Sorry, a broken what?"

Sherlock repeats it.

John frowns at him. "I don't understand."

Sherlock touches his breastbone. "When I speak," he says, emphasizing the last word in English.

"How you taught me all the words?"

"Yes! Yes, exactly. Glamour."

"Glamour," John repeats.

Sherlock nods. "You say you don't remember."

"Because I wasn't there when it happened."

Sherlock holds up one hand to silence him. "I'll tell you. What we know: Moriarty came to Bart's. He put his glamour on you and held you hostage against me. He made you say things and do things that you would never have done otherwise. The man he made you be is not you. I know that. You are not responsible for anything he made you do. You know that.

"I killed Moriarty and broke the glamour. You're all right now. Or, you were all right. You were going to be. You were improving.

"Then this. This is clearly more than a relapse. So, the question arises: whose glamour is this now? It can't be Moriarty and I was sure he didn't have anyone else with him, only those men under glamour. If you can't remember who it was, that makes it all the more difficult to fix."

"Wait, hold on," John interrupts. "That's not, no. That's not what I'm saying."

"No, I know what you're saying, and it's wrong."

John sets his jaw. "Beg pardon?"

"I understand that you believe this, John," Sherlock assures him. "Truly, I do."

"I believe it because it's true."

Sherlock tries to put his hand back on John's knee. John counters by pulling his legs up and sitting cross-legged. After a pause, Sherlock does the same, steepling his fingers.

"John," he says, "your mind has been sorely played with. You may not remember it, but it happened."

"And then something else happened too," John insists. "Are you going to listen to me or are you going to sit here and tell me I'm crazy?"

"You're not crazy," Sherlock says. "You've been poorly used. There's a difference."

"He was poorly used," John corrects. "I'm not him, either of him."

"You're new. I do see that now."

"We do agree on that much?"

Sherlock nods. "We do."

"All right." John chews his lip, looking down at his folded hands. If only his head didn't hurt so much. "I told you all of this before. I had to say it in English. Do you remember when I spoke to you? For a long time."

Sherlock nods. "Yes."

"Right then. This is what I was saying." He explains. For a considerable amount of time, he explains. He pauses only when Sherlock informs him they're attracting attention, which is true. They retreat into the humid dark of the cabin and sit, John in the chair, Sherlock on the bunk. John continues speaking. His mouth turns drier and drier. He uses every detail he has, every detail he can think of, but once the issue of technology enters the discussion, he knows he's lost Sherlock entirely.

"That's very elaborate," Sherlock admits.

"Could I have come up with that on my own? Or could have someone told me all of that and made me remember it all at once?"

"A combination," Sherlock tells him. "You could have been given the basic instructions, told to think of the rest, and only be triggered once the entire situation had been devised."

"Even supposing that was possible, why?" John demands. "You think someone did this to me for, what, fun? To do what?"

"To make you go mad," Sherlock answers simply. "To make you appear mad, certainly. Not to mention, this effectively took away your voice. It's a bizarre yet effective security measure. Barely a fortnight after you were no longer needed and you go mad in a way utterly unrelated to-" strange word.

"Unrelated to what?" John asks.

"People like me," Sherlock says.

"As opposed to...?"

"People like you. As in, animals like cats and animals like dogs."

"You mean... people with glamour and people without?" John asks. It's a strange skill, John will admit, but John can hardly point fingers on that account.

Sherlock nods. "People with glamour who drink and people without who eat, yes." Strange word "-and humans."

John frowns at him. "I... what?"

"What?"

"Sorry, I don't think I followed that," John apologizes. "Did you just say you're not human? Do I understand that word right? Human, as in the kind of animal that I am."

Sherlock looks at him very oddly indeed. "That's what a human is, yes."

"And you're...."

Sherlock repeats the word, voice full of impatience, eyes full of concern. And something else. The fear is back, the dread of rejection to come.

People who drink and have glamour, he had said. Who drink.

John thinks of the cow and the swallowing. John thinks of the scars on his leg and the way Sherlock had proudly, tentatively claimed them.

"You're a vampire," John says, using the new word.

"If you're going to try to stab me over it again, could we not do it on the sheets?" Sherlock asks dryly.

"I'm not... No," John says. "I'm just... surprised."

"You saw me this morning in the hold."

"Yes, and I was surprised then too."

"Less surprised than you should have been, for absolute ignorance," Sherlock counters. "The last time you discovered my species, your reaction was much more adverse."

"You mean, he tried to stab you?"

Sherlock's mouth pulls to the side. "You remember."

"No-you just said."

Sherlock pauses, nods slightly. "The question arises: why the calm reaction now?"

"Um." John blinks a little. "Well, you're not exactly a threat to me. That's a start. I don't hurt people who don't threaten me. I've been helpless here in more ways than I can count, and you've only ever helped me." He scratches the back of his neck. "The rest of it doesn't seem terribly important, really."

"No?"

"Should it?" John wets his lips as much as possible with a dry tongue. "I mean, what's the normal reaction?"

"That depends on where you're from," Sherlock replies. "Where we're going, it doesn't matter as much. Where we met, it mattered greatly. This place you say you've come from in your sleep, what there?"

"Only humans," John says.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "You think there are only humans."

"No," John says, a solid no. "I'm a doctor. I know there are only humans."

Sherlock's eyebrows flick up. "You're a doctor."

"Yes."

"Prove it."

John blinks at him again. "I-How? You've largely recovered from your chest problem and I wouldn't know how to treat a, uh. A vampire in the first place."

"Basic anatomy will do."

"When I don't know the words in your language?" John thinks for a moment. "Is there paper? A pencil?"

"There can be."

John nods. "Get them and I'll show you."

It takes a spot of procuring. John remains in the cabin until Sherlock returns. They go to the galley and the adjoining mess to sit at the table. Then, with utter confidence, John begins to draw. Two versions, one from the side, one from the front. As he sketches the internal organs, he feels Sherlock tense beside him, but John doesn't look up.

"There," John says. He begins to point and name in English. Once finished, he looks up at Sherlock, more than slightly smug. "Any questions?"

Sherlock gapes at him. Any other man, and this would be nothing more than an expression of curiosity and surprise, the brow furrowed, eyes focused and mouth slightly open. On Sherlock, it's gaping. "Where did you learn that?"

"England," John says. "London. Bart's, actually."

Sherlock looks at the drawings and bites his lip. His teeth look normal, which immediately arrests John's interest. They did snog last night (four nights ago) and John hadn't noticed a thing. Retractable fangs? They might fold back like a snake’s. John wonders while Sherlock digests his evidence.

"At Bart's with Mike Stamford?" Sherlock asks.

John startles. "What? Yes."

Sherlock abruptly looks much calmer, much more self-assured. He nods to himself, and John realizes he's somehow negated his own evidence.

"Sorry, no," John corrects. "Not Bart's here. Not this... place, not here. Not a place you know. In England. A different place. The same names, but a different place."

"Might I tell you about this 'place'?" Sherlock offers.

"No," John says. "I'm not from here, anywhere here. I'm from somewhere else. I'm different. You know I'm different. You can tell. I'm not whoever he was."

"He is a soldier," Sherlock replies, eyes flicking down to John's right side, his thigh. "Are you a soldier?"

The answer sticks in his throat.

"Yes," Sherlock concludes.

"I used to be."

"John, that's a poor lie. What's more, it's a sullen one."

"I'm a doctor."

"Defensive now."

"Sherlock!"

Sherlock smiles at him faintly. It could be John's imagination, but John knows his face too well, his nuances too thoroughly. "There's your temper," Sherlock remarks, as if he's opened the front door and let the cat in. "I did wonder where it had gone."

John takes a deep breath and fights down the urge to stand up and storm off. It takes some fighting.

"All right," he says instead. "Tell me about this place. Where we left and where we're going."

Sherlock smiles, all with his eyes, and begins.

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