The Book of Wingless: Aeternum Vale, Part Two
Part Two of my AU verse
John limps along the pathway, savouring the brisk, clear weather. The limp makes walking almost unbearable, but he refuses to allow it to restrict the things he used to enjoy. Doggedly, he continues with single-minded stubbornness.
He almost walks straight past the man on the bench, intent on his task. “John! John Watson!” Startled, he swings round, leaning heavily on the cane, ache in his leg intense.
“Stamford, Mike Stamford!” the man introduced, gesturing to himself. “We were at Barts together.” And yes, he does recognise him. John feels a rare smile on his face as he steps forward to greet his old friend.
“Yes, sorry, yes. Mike. Hello.” The smile is slightly forced, and even this much social contact seems strange, alien to him. He shakes hands gingerly, feeling the genuine joy from Mike tingling warmly in his palm. Not unpleasant, much better than the oily disdain of his therapist.
Mike laughs, only slightly put off by his tightly wound demeanour. “Yeah, I know, I got fat.”
John almost laughs. “No, no.” Trails off, uncertain. It’s harder to think, to chat calmly, when it feels as though half of him is absent. Unsure of things suddenly, everything is slightly off kilter.
“I heard you were abroad somewhere, getting shot at. What happened?”
The question is genuine, and Mike is a quietly humming pool of calm emotions, keeping John grounded. He falters, glares at the man probably sharper than what he’d intended. Obvious, really. He twitches the cane, the other man’s eyes flicker to it. “I got shot.” Simple.
Mike blinks and John relents. Maybe he can relearn this, living without his Guardian guiding him. “Coffee?” he offers. Ten minutes later, he was blessing the park bench they’d found, and the hot, bitter liquid they were sipping.
It’s like relearning a disused skill, talking to people. He keeps it light, far away from the war. Trained on Mike. “Are you still at Barts, then?”
Mike chuckles. ”Teaching now, yeah. Bright young things, like we used to be.” John could remember that far back, but it felt like a different life. Calmer and cleaner. “God, I hate them.”
During the time of his Healing and Helping Guardian. Learning to rebuild people’s souls.
If only he could put together his own, if he could remember how.
Dangerously, the conversation turns back to him. “What about you? Just staying in town, till you get yourself sorted?”
Brisk replies. “I can’t afford London on an Army pension.”
“You couldn’t bear to be anywhere else.” Mike glances at him, and John suddenly remembers how keen the Stamford of old had been. A mix of Healing and Helping with Sight, if he remembered correctly. A dangerously useful combination. “That’s not the John Watson I know.” John can feel the calm contentment from Mike shift suddenly, and there’s that concern that has his skin itching so much lately.
He’s sick of feeling everyone’s pity, feeling it crawling all over him like unwelcome spiders. “Yeah, I’m not the John Watson...” he stops, ashamed. He hadn’t meant to snap. A twinge of pain in his leg.
Mike is clearly trying to choose words carefully. John stifles the desire to throttle his well-meaning old friend. “Couldn’t Harry help?”
John snorts. Doesn’t dwell on that thought for long. “Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”
“I don’t know, get a flat share or something?”
A second laugh, more bitter than the first. “Come on, who’d want me for a flatmate?”
And suddenly, the pity is gone, replaced by a mischievous chuckle and wicked spike of excitement from Mike that has John twitching. The last time he’d felt that particular brand of emotion, they’d ended up half-naked and sprinting drunk through the college dorms. “What?” he asks nervously.
“You’re the second person to say that to me today.”
“Who was the first?”
Molly watches as he unzips the bag, and inspects the cadaver. As carefully controlled as her face is, she can’t help but feel the barely contained glee bounding round the room from her overexcited Guardian. Molly tries to avoid glancing at the ferret weaving round the floor, dancing with his tail waving. Not many people are able to see their Guardian’s physical forms, and the few times she’d been caught out watching him, people had reacted unfavourably.
It was just best hidden, was all.
As was the smile that kept threatening to break out as she watched the handsome man leaning over the body. Her heart thumped in her chest, as she paced about nervously. He was completely engrossed in the cadaver, which was fortunate, as her hapless Angel had chosen to skip merrily round his feet, chattering cheerfully. He was as drawn to Sherlock as she was, she supposed. It made sense, he was a part of her.
Of course, he could just be excited about the body. Her Guardian took as much happiness out of a good autopsy as Sherlock took out of his cases, and she tried carefully not to think about what that reflected about her. The cadavers were interesting, that was all, all whispered secrets and the unfolding of everything people kept hidden.
“How fresh?”
She leapt to answer him, in case he thought she’d been ignoring him. Or worse, staring at him like a lovestruck puppy. “Just in. 67, natural causes. Used to work here. I knew him, he was nice.” She moved closer, ignoring the whispering coming from the body bag. Smoked when I was young, should have quit then, shouldn’t have started, spots on the lungs, wear on my right foot, I always did favour it, can you see? Can you hear? Made dancing difficult. I always did love to dance...
Sherlock zipped up the bag with a flourish, shutting the whisper off, and gave a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, but she melted a little anyway. “Fine.” He looked at her, pale eyes gleaming. “We’ll start with the riding crop.”
She doesn’t even hold back the flinches as he set unto the body with abandon. It wouldn’t hurt the cadaver; there were only traces of him left in there. He’d stopped feeling when his heart had stopped.
Sometimes it was best not to overthink the things Sherlock did, or really, to think about them at all... Such a strange, wonderful man. Her Guardian, settled on the table, danced about, egging the Detective on with ferret cries.
It was also probably best not to overthink how terribly bloodthirsty her Angel could be. She cautiously approaches him, tries a joke. “So, bad day was it?”
He doesn’t even look at her and she knows her face is probably frozen in a caricature of a smile. “I need to know what bruises form in the next twenty minutes. A man’s alibi depends on it. Text me.”
She knows it’s silly, knows it will end exactly how the last twenty times have ended. After all, he only smiles at her to get what he wants, and it never reaches his eyes, but she’s far gone enough to recognise that it doesn’t matter. “Listen, I was wondering. Maybe later, when you’re finished...”
He looks up at her and his eyes narrow. She pauses, waiting for the cutting words, and her Guardian hisses slightly. “You’re wearing lipstick. You weren’t wearing lipstick before.”
Stunned. “I, er... refreshed it a bit.” Tries not to hope.
He eyes her with the air of one hunted. “Sorry, you were saying?”
No regrets. “I was wondering if you’d like to have coffee.”
That half smile again. “Black, two sugars, please. I’ll be upstairs.” And he’s gone, leaving her stunned. Her Guardian chirps, eyeing the swinging door, and she scoops him up.
“That could have gone better,” she whispers to the ferret, running a finger down his warm back. Black eyes meet hers, and she feels a soft rush of love and happy from him.
It could be worse. She could be Severed.
She wonders what Sherlock’s Angel looks like.
Whatever John had been expecting, it hadn’t quite encompassed the man standing in front of him. Tall, smartly dressed, and with a riot of dark curls, and ice blue pale eyes that cut straight through him, John felt his back straightening into a defensive army posture just at the sight of him. The man stands over a table filled with chemistry gear, staring back at them.
John realised he was staring, and glanced about. “Bit different from my day.” The place had certainly changed.
Mike chuckled. “Oh, you’ve no idea.” The older man’s eyes hadn’t moved from the tall man, who had turned back to his experiment.
A deep, low voice cut in. “Mike, can I borrow your phone? There’s no signal on mine.” John started, and glanced again at the man. His eyes were intent on the desk.
Mike stepped forward. “And what’s wrong with the landline?”
“I prefer to text.”
Mike waved his arm vaguely. “Sorry, it’s in my coat.”
John watched as the man’s face flickered with... something, and he realised abruptly that there was no undercurrent of emotions running off of the strange man, like there was off Mike. Like there was off everyone John had ever met.
A spark of curiosity lit, John took several steps towards him, reaching his hand into his pocket. Any excuse to get closer, to see if he could sense, something, anything. “Er, here... use mine.”
The man looked startled. “Oh. Thank you.” Blue eyes scanned him again, flickered to Mike, and back again.
Mike introduced them as the man took the phone from John’s outstretched palm. “This is an old friend of mine, John Watson.” He moved with an odd grace, gliding towards him almost, long fingers elegant. John shifted slightly as his finger’s brushed the phone, a slight amount of skin contact was all it had ever taken for his powers to kick in before. And... there it was.
It was something, but before John could even begin to puzzle it out, it was gone. Discomforted, he stood next to the man who, to his senses, wasn’t there, and blinked rapidly a few times. This was either the queerest or greatest sensation ever, not having someone else’s emotions cluttering his.
Thankfully, his power only ever seems to focus on one person at a time. And with it keenly focussed on the empty void that was this new person, Mike’s constant flow of calm had been shut off.
For the first time in a very long time, John’s emotions were completely his own.
He didn’t get time to savour the feeling. “Afghanistan or Iraq?” spoke the smooth voice.
Mike was grinning, as John blinked again and then stared at the man. “Sorry?”
“Which was it, in Afghanistan or Iraq?”
“Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you....?”
John was interrupted by the door swinging open and a young woman entering. As soon as she moved towards John and the man, John felt her emotions slam him, a maelstrom of sensation.
Nervousness, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end; fierce, unrequited love, his heart hammered along in sympathy; and a slight edge of... pain. Pain caused by the dark-haired man, although it hadn’t deadened her feelings at all. After the few moments of peace he’d had, John flinched and shifted away from her, pushing it all behind his weakened barriers, wishing for the impenetrable ones of old.
The man smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and John thought that, along with the lack of feeling, he had never seen anything so cold. “Ah, Molly, coffee, thank you.” He took the cup from her, she shyly bowed her head. “What happened to the lipstick?”
John slipped his phone back in his pocket as she answered, voice soft and gentle. “It wasn’t working for me.”
“Really?” replied the stranger. “I thought it was a big improvement. You’re mouth’s too... small now.”
And there it was again. The flare of pain. John flinched along with her, in sympathy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker on the floor, like a small creature scuttling along the tiles, but at a quick glance, it was gone.
The girl’s, Molly’s, Angel, he thought? Figures it would be something small and docile. “OK,” she whispered, slinking out, head low.
John watched her go, somewhat gratified that there was someone just as miserable as him in the world, and slightly jealous of her still-living Angel. He realised abruptly he was being spoken to and snapped back to attention.
“I’m sorry, what?” he asked, not at all sorry.
“I play the violin when I’m thinking and sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.”
John stared at him, nonplussed. “You told him about me?” he asked Mike, wondering frantically, when? They’d been together the whole afternoon, there simply wasn’t time...
Mike shook his head. “Not a word.”
“Then who said anything about flatmates?”
The man turned his back on them, rummaging about. “I did. Told Mike this morning I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for.” He pulled his coat on, over the tailored suit he wore. John flinched at the coat, it was clearly expensive. “Now here he is, just after lunch, with an old friend clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn’t a difficult leap.”
John met those pale eyes unflinchingly when the man turned back to face him, tying a scarf round his neck. Keeping his voice calm, he asked, “How did you know about Afghanistan?”
The man ignored him. “Got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together, we ought to be able to afford it. We’ll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o’clock. Sorry, got to dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.”
John realised at some point his mouth had dropped open and he closed it, with a snap as the man swept past him. “Is that it?” he barked, turning to face the man again.
“Is that what?” The man stepped away from the door, and paced back towards him, eyes narrowed. John didn’t allow his face to flicker, but the emotionless void his powers kept reaching into made his stomach turn.
“We’ve only just met and we’re going to go and look at a flat?” He wanted to be sure he had this correct. What was Mike playing at?
“Problem?” That smile again, not reaching the eyes. John glanced at Mike and was slightly heartened to see him still smiling, still calm.
John shook his head in disbelief. “We don’t know a thing about each other. I don’t know where we’re meeting. I don’t even know your name.”
Suddenly those eyes were on him again and it was different this time, he was being unravelled from a look, and he wanted to slam his shields up and run from the scrutiny. “I know you’re an Army Doctor and you’ve been invalided home from Afghanistan. You’ve got a brother who’s worried about you, but you won’t go to him for help because you don’t approve of him, possibly because he’s an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know your therapist thinks your limp’s psychosomatic, quite correctly, I’m afraid. Probably left over from the strain of losing your Guardian in traumatic circumstances. A Sight and Senses class, if I’m correct, which I often am, and not your second. Third, at least. Your second was a Healing and Helping class, an odd but not improbable combination.” He paused, thankfully, since John was pretty sure he hadn’t taken a breath the entire time. They stared at each other, one face blank, the other slack with shock. “That’s quite enough to be going on with, don’t you think?”
He swept out the door, leaving a stunned silence in his wake, then spun back dramatically. “The name’s Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221B Baker Street.” A cheeky grin that actually met his eyes this time, lighting his face wickedly as he winked, to John’s disquiet. “Afternoon.”
John stared at the door, and then Mike, who laughed and shrugged nonchalantly. “He’s always like that.”
John nodded. “Right.”
He quite wished he knew what he was getting himself into.
Part Three
John limps along the pathway, savouring the brisk, clear weather. The limp makes walking almost unbearable, but he refuses to allow it to restrict the things he used to enjoy. Doggedly, he continues with single-minded stubbornness.
He almost walks straight past the man on the bench, intent on his task. “John! John Watson!” Startled, he swings round, leaning heavily on the cane, ache in his leg intense.
“Stamford, Mike Stamford!” the man introduced, gesturing to himself. “We were at Barts together.” And yes, he does recognise him. John feels a rare smile on his face as he steps forward to greet his old friend.
“Yes, sorry, yes. Mike. Hello.” The smile is slightly forced, and even this much social contact seems strange, alien to him. He shakes hands gingerly, feeling the genuine joy from Mike tingling warmly in his palm. Not unpleasant, much better than the oily disdain of his therapist.
Mike laughs, only slightly put off by his tightly wound demeanour. “Yeah, I know, I got fat.”
John almost laughs. “No, no.” Trails off, uncertain. It’s harder to think, to chat calmly, when it feels as though half of him is absent. Unsure of things suddenly, everything is slightly off kilter.
“I heard you were abroad somewhere, getting shot at. What happened?”
The question is genuine, and Mike is a quietly humming pool of calm emotions, keeping John grounded. He falters, glares at the man probably sharper than what he’d intended. Obvious, really. He twitches the cane, the other man’s eyes flicker to it. “I got shot.” Simple.
Mike blinks and John relents. Maybe he can relearn this, living without his Guardian guiding him. “Coffee?” he offers. Ten minutes later, he was blessing the park bench they’d found, and the hot, bitter liquid they were sipping.
It’s like relearning a disused skill, talking to people. He keeps it light, far away from the war. Trained on Mike. “Are you still at Barts, then?”
Mike chuckles. ”Teaching now, yeah. Bright young things, like we used to be.” John could remember that far back, but it felt like a different life. Calmer and cleaner. “God, I hate them.”
During the time of his Healing and Helping Guardian. Learning to rebuild people’s souls.
If only he could put together his own, if he could remember how.
Dangerously, the conversation turns back to him. “What about you? Just staying in town, till you get yourself sorted?”
Brisk replies. “I can’t afford London on an Army pension.”
“You couldn’t bear to be anywhere else.” Mike glances at him, and John suddenly remembers how keen the Stamford of old had been. A mix of Healing and Helping with Sight, if he remembered correctly. A dangerously useful combination. “That’s not the John Watson I know.” John can feel the calm contentment from Mike shift suddenly, and there’s that concern that has his skin itching so much lately.
He’s sick of feeling everyone’s pity, feeling it crawling all over him like unwelcome spiders. “Yeah, I’m not the John Watson...” he stops, ashamed. He hadn’t meant to snap. A twinge of pain in his leg.
Mike is clearly trying to choose words carefully. John stifles the desire to throttle his well-meaning old friend. “Couldn’t Harry help?”
John snorts. Doesn’t dwell on that thought for long. “Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”
“I don’t know, get a flat share or something?”
A second laugh, more bitter than the first. “Come on, who’d want me for a flatmate?”
And suddenly, the pity is gone, replaced by a mischievous chuckle and wicked spike of excitement from Mike that has John twitching. The last time he’d felt that particular brand of emotion, they’d ended up half-naked and sprinting drunk through the college dorms. “What?” he asks nervously.
“You’re the second person to say that to me today.”
“Who was the first?”
Molly watches as he unzips the bag, and inspects the cadaver. As carefully controlled as her face is, she can’t help but feel the barely contained glee bounding round the room from her overexcited Guardian. Molly tries to avoid glancing at the ferret weaving round the floor, dancing with his tail waving. Not many people are able to see their Guardian’s physical forms, and the few times she’d been caught out watching him, people had reacted unfavourably.
It was just best hidden, was all.
As was the smile that kept threatening to break out as she watched the handsome man leaning over the body. Her heart thumped in her chest, as she paced about nervously. He was completely engrossed in the cadaver, which was fortunate, as her hapless Angel had chosen to skip merrily round his feet, chattering cheerfully. He was as drawn to Sherlock as she was, she supposed. It made sense, he was a part of her.
Of course, he could just be excited about the body. Her Guardian took as much happiness out of a good autopsy as Sherlock took out of his cases, and she tried carefully not to think about what that reflected about her. The cadavers were interesting, that was all, all whispered secrets and the unfolding of everything people kept hidden.
“How fresh?”
She leapt to answer him, in case he thought she’d been ignoring him. Or worse, staring at him like a lovestruck puppy. “Just in. 67, natural causes. Used to work here. I knew him, he was nice.” She moved closer, ignoring the whispering coming from the body bag. Smoked when I was young, should have quit then, shouldn’t have started, spots on the lungs, wear on my right foot, I always did favour it, can you see? Can you hear? Made dancing difficult. I always did love to dance...
Sherlock zipped up the bag with a flourish, shutting the whisper off, and gave a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, but she melted a little anyway. “Fine.” He looked at her, pale eyes gleaming. “We’ll start with the riding crop.”
She doesn’t even hold back the flinches as he set unto the body with abandon. It wouldn’t hurt the cadaver; there were only traces of him left in there. He’d stopped feeling when his heart had stopped.
Sometimes it was best not to overthink the things Sherlock did, or really, to think about them at all... Such a strange, wonderful man. Her Guardian, settled on the table, danced about, egging the Detective on with ferret cries.
It was also probably best not to overthink how terribly bloodthirsty her Angel could be. She cautiously approaches him, tries a joke. “So, bad day was it?”
He doesn’t even look at her and she knows her face is probably frozen in a caricature of a smile. “I need to know what bruises form in the next twenty minutes. A man’s alibi depends on it. Text me.”
She knows it’s silly, knows it will end exactly how the last twenty times have ended. After all, he only smiles at her to get what he wants, and it never reaches his eyes, but she’s far gone enough to recognise that it doesn’t matter. “Listen, I was wondering. Maybe later, when you’re finished...”
He looks up at her and his eyes narrow. She pauses, waiting for the cutting words, and her Guardian hisses slightly. “You’re wearing lipstick. You weren’t wearing lipstick before.”
Stunned. “I, er... refreshed it a bit.” Tries not to hope.
He eyes her with the air of one hunted. “Sorry, you were saying?”
No regrets. “I was wondering if you’d like to have coffee.”
That half smile again. “Black, two sugars, please. I’ll be upstairs.” And he’s gone, leaving her stunned. Her Guardian chirps, eyeing the swinging door, and she scoops him up.
“That could have gone better,” she whispers to the ferret, running a finger down his warm back. Black eyes meet hers, and she feels a soft rush of love and happy from him.
It could be worse. She could be Severed.
She wonders what Sherlock’s Angel looks like.
Whatever John had been expecting, it hadn’t quite encompassed the man standing in front of him. Tall, smartly dressed, and with a riot of dark curls, and ice blue pale eyes that cut straight through him, John felt his back straightening into a defensive army posture just at the sight of him. The man stands over a table filled with chemistry gear, staring back at them.
John realised he was staring, and glanced about. “Bit different from my day.” The place had certainly changed.
Mike chuckled. “Oh, you’ve no idea.” The older man’s eyes hadn’t moved from the tall man, who had turned back to his experiment.
A deep, low voice cut in. “Mike, can I borrow your phone? There’s no signal on mine.” John started, and glanced again at the man. His eyes were intent on the desk.
Mike stepped forward. “And what’s wrong with the landline?”
“I prefer to text.”
Mike waved his arm vaguely. “Sorry, it’s in my coat.”
John watched as the man’s face flickered with... something, and he realised abruptly that there was no undercurrent of emotions running off of the strange man, like there was off Mike. Like there was off everyone John had ever met.
A spark of curiosity lit, John took several steps towards him, reaching his hand into his pocket. Any excuse to get closer, to see if he could sense, something, anything. “Er, here... use mine.”
The man looked startled. “Oh. Thank you.” Blue eyes scanned him again, flickered to Mike, and back again.
Mike introduced them as the man took the phone from John’s outstretched palm. “This is an old friend of mine, John Watson.” He moved with an odd grace, gliding towards him almost, long fingers elegant. John shifted slightly as his finger’s brushed the phone, a slight amount of skin contact was all it had ever taken for his powers to kick in before. And... there it was.
It was something, but before John could even begin to puzzle it out, it was gone. Discomforted, he stood next to the man who, to his senses, wasn’t there, and blinked rapidly a few times. This was either the queerest or greatest sensation ever, not having someone else’s emotions cluttering his.
Thankfully, his power only ever seems to focus on one person at a time. And with it keenly focussed on the empty void that was this new person, Mike’s constant flow of calm had been shut off.
For the first time in a very long time, John’s emotions were completely his own.
He didn’t get time to savour the feeling. “Afghanistan or Iraq?” spoke the smooth voice.
Mike was grinning, as John blinked again and then stared at the man. “Sorry?”
“Which was it, in Afghanistan or Iraq?”
“Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you....?”
John was interrupted by the door swinging open and a young woman entering. As soon as she moved towards John and the man, John felt her emotions slam him, a maelstrom of sensation.
Nervousness, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end; fierce, unrequited love, his heart hammered along in sympathy; and a slight edge of... pain. Pain caused by the dark-haired man, although it hadn’t deadened her feelings at all. After the few moments of peace he’d had, John flinched and shifted away from her, pushing it all behind his weakened barriers, wishing for the impenetrable ones of old.
The man smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and John thought that, along with the lack of feeling, he had never seen anything so cold. “Ah, Molly, coffee, thank you.” He took the cup from her, she shyly bowed her head. “What happened to the lipstick?”
John slipped his phone back in his pocket as she answered, voice soft and gentle. “It wasn’t working for me.”
“Really?” replied the stranger. “I thought it was a big improvement. You’re mouth’s too... small now.”
And there it was again. The flare of pain. John flinched along with her, in sympathy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker on the floor, like a small creature scuttling along the tiles, but at a quick glance, it was gone.
The girl’s, Molly’s, Angel, he thought? Figures it would be something small and docile. “OK,” she whispered, slinking out, head low.
John watched her go, somewhat gratified that there was someone just as miserable as him in the world, and slightly jealous of her still-living Angel. He realised abruptly he was being spoken to and snapped back to attention.
“I’m sorry, what?” he asked, not at all sorry.
“I play the violin when I’m thinking and sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.”
John stared at him, nonplussed. “You told him about me?” he asked Mike, wondering frantically, when? They’d been together the whole afternoon, there simply wasn’t time...
Mike shook his head. “Not a word.”
“Then who said anything about flatmates?”
The man turned his back on them, rummaging about. “I did. Told Mike this morning I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for.” He pulled his coat on, over the tailored suit he wore. John flinched at the coat, it was clearly expensive. “Now here he is, just after lunch, with an old friend clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn’t a difficult leap.”
John met those pale eyes unflinchingly when the man turned back to face him, tying a scarf round his neck. Keeping his voice calm, he asked, “How did you know about Afghanistan?”
The man ignored him. “Got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together, we ought to be able to afford it. We’ll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o’clock. Sorry, got to dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.”
John realised at some point his mouth had dropped open and he closed it, with a snap as the man swept past him. “Is that it?” he barked, turning to face the man again.
“Is that what?” The man stepped away from the door, and paced back towards him, eyes narrowed. John didn’t allow his face to flicker, but the emotionless void his powers kept reaching into made his stomach turn.
“We’ve only just met and we’re going to go and look at a flat?” He wanted to be sure he had this correct. What was Mike playing at?
“Problem?” That smile again, not reaching the eyes. John glanced at Mike and was slightly heartened to see him still smiling, still calm.
John shook his head in disbelief. “We don’t know a thing about each other. I don’t know where we’re meeting. I don’t even know your name.”
Suddenly those eyes were on him again and it was different this time, he was being unravelled from a look, and he wanted to slam his shields up and run from the scrutiny. “I know you’re an Army Doctor and you’ve been invalided home from Afghanistan. You’ve got a brother who’s worried about you, but you won’t go to him for help because you don’t approve of him, possibly because he’s an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know your therapist thinks your limp’s psychosomatic, quite correctly, I’m afraid. Probably left over from the strain of losing your Guardian in traumatic circumstances. A Sight and Senses class, if I’m correct, which I often am, and not your second. Third, at least. Your second was a Healing and Helping class, an odd but not improbable combination.” He paused, thankfully, since John was pretty sure he hadn’t taken a breath the entire time. They stared at each other, one face blank, the other slack with shock. “That’s quite enough to be going on with, don’t you think?”
He swept out the door, leaving a stunned silence in his wake, then spun back dramatically. “The name’s Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221B Baker Street.” A cheeky grin that actually met his eyes this time, lighting his face wickedly as he winked, to John’s disquiet. “Afternoon.”
John stared at the door, and then Mike, who laughed and shrugged nonchalantly. “He’s always like that.”
John nodded. “Right.”
He quite wished he knew what he was getting himself into.
Part Three