Above, Below (Through the Cracks) || Part Six ||
//
Sherlock flinched as he heard the first shot, then the second. It was irrational to be afraid that John was further injured when he was the one with the gun and had already proved highly competent with it. Yet it was there, consuming his every thought as he did what he’d been instructed, what he needed to do to ensure their safety.
Close the door.
All he could think about was John.
Moriarty’s screams echoed through the tunnel and then John was there. He slipped through the gap, to the side where they would be safe, and threw his body weight into helping Sherlock pull the door closed.
Sherlock’s heart pounded with relief, with exertion, with joy to see he was no more harmed than he had been.
Then the door finally closed with an almighty scrape and clang of metal on metal.
“They’re not dead,” John panted as they pushed and pulled the levers to secure the door into place. Of course, they could be opened on the other side but everything gave them extra time.
“It was too dark,” John explained between ragged breaths, though he didn’t need to. Even a crack shot couldn’t have managed two fatal shots in that lighting at that distance, and still John sounded furious with himself. “I wounded Moran, Moriarty’s fine but seeing to him. It won’t be easy, opening this on his own.”
“Are you alright?” Sherlock asked, watching as John slumped back against the door. His own heart was racing as the adrenaline rush peaked and when John nodded he was flooded with relief.
They were alive. Moran and been shot and there was a door of solid, extremely difficult to move iron between them.
It was too much.
His knees gave out.
John caught him, strong hands at his elbow and waist, and asked: “Are you?”
//
The adrenaline was still rushing through his system, his blood and heartbeat pounding in his ears. John's skin, every nerve was on fire with sensation and he could feel everything. The flush and burn in his cheeks, the heavy rise and fall of his chest as he tried to catch his breath and ease the ache behind his ribs.
And him.
The consulting detective. John didn’t even know his real name but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Not with the long and lean but strong line of his body pressed against his own.
The consulting detective’s breaths were rapid and hitched, his cheeks were stained pink and there were beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. They were fitted together, from chest to hips, and all John could think about was how good it felt.
John was crowded into the consulting detective’s space, backing him up against the cool iron door and he wasn't complaining. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated in the darkness and fixed on John's lips.
He was leaning in, and the consulting detective was moving to meet him. They were sharing each deep, rasping breath and all John could think about was how much he wanted.
"Sherlock," the consulting detective breathed. Words whispered against John’s lips. “My name is Sherlock.”
//
“Sherlock,” John echoed.
Then they were kissing. Only it wasn't so much kissing as devouring.
Sherlock didn't know who had closed the final, minute, distance between them. It didn't matter. Not when John had said his name as though it were the most important thing in the world and was kissing him as though it were ending.
There was no finesse. It was all tongues and teeth and need.
It was perfect.
Sherlock fisted his hands in the back of John's jumper, biting into his mouth as desire and arousal and adrenaline coursed through his system. He found himself wanting. John’s hands and lips and body, everything. More intensely than he had wanted anything since the drugs and it was like a physical blow to pull away.
More, he wanted more but they were close. So very close to Mycroft, and safety and once Sherlock had used the information from the Lord Raven and connected all the pieces, discovered and stopped whoever was funding Moriarty and Moran, they would have all the time in the world.
John wanted this. Sherlock. It was plain to see in the disappointment in his face as Sherlock pulled away, the hitches in his breath as they kissed, the desire in his dilated pupils and the telltale twitches of arousal in John’s groin.
It was heady and intoxicating. It had been so long since someone had wanted Sherlock for himself, who thought he was astounding. Molly had only wanted her image of him, someone soft and weak who would be devoted and indebted to her.
John wanted danger and brilliance and Sherlock.
He kissed him again, because he could, because he couldn’t stop.
When Sherlock finally broke away, the ache in his lungs from lack of oxygen too much to stand, his heart was pounding again and his chest heaved. John’s lips were red and kiss-swollen and desire sparked and shuddered down Sherlock’s spine. He wanted John to look like that for all time and only for him.
Soon, he promised himself. Soon it would be over and John would be his.
“We are going to continue this,” Sherlock said, not resisting the temptation to speak the words against John’s lips. “And more, when this is over. We should move, that won’t stop Moriarty and Moran forever.”
“Three rounds left,” John answered. No apologies, or remorse as his right hand palmed Sherlock’s arse and the left returned the gun to the waistband of his jeans.
“One spare,” Sherlock said. He had complete confidence in John, that Sherlock would lead them and John would protect them. “We’ll reach Mycroft within the hour.”
“Well, best lead the way then,” John said, with a final quick and dirty kiss and then they were moving again.
It wasn’t just an incentive. It was a promise.
//
"Parliament?" John exclaimed, not exactly proud of the way it came out sounding more like a screech than anything else.
Though he felt it was somewhat deserved. Sherlock had led him through a winding maze of tunnels for over an hour since their run in with Moriarty and Moran. It had been impossible to keep himself orientated, even before Sherlock told him the geography Below didn’t match that of Above and he’d given up.
He’d followed Sherlock without question towards the brother that was supposedly going to keep Sherlock and John safe, enough for him to put all the pieces together. To put an end to all the death and then John would be able to do something about Moriarty and Moran, before they hurt anyone else. Not that Sherlock knew about that part of the plan.
What John had not been expecting was to end up in a large, cavernous stone cellar. It was lit by paraffin torches and filled with wooden crates and a large stone and iron staircase on the far wall.
What had given away their real location was the sign John had spotted as they’d climbed out of the grate, which John presumed had once given Thames access. In his opinion, it didn't bode well that the sign said:
Robert Catesby
Thomas Winter
Thomas Percy
John Wright
Guido Fawkes
Robert Keyes
Hung, drawn, quartered. 1606
Sherlock brushed the dirt and rust from his hands, and looked around the cellar with the look on his face that John was quickly learning meant he was seeing everything. “Yes, we are currently below Parliament and we are about to go inside. Presuming that we are able, that is. This cellar was destroyed in 1834.”
John silenced the part of himself that wanted to point out that clearly it couldn’t have been destroyed if they were standing in it. He licked his lips and took a deep breath. “One of those, makes sense if you’ve lived Below for five years, things yeah?”
A smile curled the corner of Sherlock’s lips before he was climbing the stairs, impossibly long legs taking them two at a time. John suppressed some truly filthy thoughts.
“I’ll teach you everything, as soon as this is through,” Sherlock promised whilst giving John a look that practically screamed hurry up.
John obeyed, reaching Sherlock just as he pulled the large oak door open and light and noise flooded into the dim. They were looking out into a large octagonal hall, with impressively carved walls and arches, ornate stained glass windows and four marble statues. John recognised it off the BBC News.
Sodding hell, they really were in Parliament. One of the highest security buildings in London and they were just about to go strolling around like they were invisible.
Except that they were. Only the last rational and desperately hopeful part of John’s brain shouted furiously that they weren’t. That either Sherlock, or John, or both of them were stark raving mad and about to get arrested.
Then Sherlock was off again, his long strides eating up the tiled floor and tailcoat swishing dramatically behind him. No one paid him any notice.
John took a deep breath, told the voice to shut up and ran after Sherlock.
//
“Mycroft’s office is upstairs, unless it has moved in the last ten years,” Sherlock said, leading John through the maze of stairs, corridors and grand halls that made up Parliament.
Sherlock doubted that Mycroft would have moved office, he would be in the same one as his father, and his father before him, when they held both the Peerage and the office. The biggest obstacle they would face was Sherlock's memory. He had only been to Mycroft's office once before and he'd been so full of cocaine it was a wonder he had been able to recognise Mycroft, let alone remember the route he had been led on by the MI6 agent sent to retrieve him from his squat in Brixton.
He realised with an uncomfortable start that they were on the wrong floor. Mycroft's office was on the fourth and top floor. The drugs had left Sherlock's memory of that period of time significantly less reliable than he was used to, or liked.
He did a u-turn and John stopped Sherlock with a hand on the crook of his elbow. "You didn't tell me your brother was an MP."
Sherlock chuckled at the image of Mycroft being elected into any sort of position. Popularity was never something Mycroft had been able to achieve, not when he was such an insufferably annoying know-it-all. “That's because he isn't."
"Then why are we running through Parliament?" John asked, his face suggesting he found this most ridiculous part of their recent activities.
It sent a sharp flood of affection, warm and tender through Sherlock’s chest.
"He's a member of the house of Lords, but his influence extends much further," Sherlock explained.
That Mycroft was a Lord was irrelevant, it just allowed Sherlock to easily locate him. It was his position whispering in ears of the government and the intelligence services that Sherlock required.
//
Inside Parliament was a maze. A really bloody ornate maze full of people who made both him and Sherlock look like right scruffbags with their mismatched, grubby clothes and muddy boots and in Sherlock's case, shoes and socks.
It was a bloody good job no one could see them, and their appearance was proof enough that they couldn't. If just one person walking around caught a glimpse of John or Sherlock it would have been obvious they didn't belong.
John even more so than Sherlock. Sherlock’s brother was a Lord and that made Sherlock... Well, John wasn't exactly sure of the titles but he knew it made him more than a bit posh.
It explained a lot. The way Sherlock held himself, the way he moved and the way he spoke. It was there, under the rough edges he'd gained from years of drugs, homelessness and finally Below.
John caught a fleeting glimpse of the Thames out the large windows that lined the hall as they dodged around all the suit-clad men and occasional woman. It was interesting that they were still solid Above, that although no one could see them they could still walk into John. He wondered if that would be enough to make him visible, noticeable for one of those fleeting, meaningless moments Sherlock had described. That was probably why Sherlock was being so careful of the people around him, when he'd done nothing of the sort at the Floating Market.
John followed Sherlock's lead. He stored the questions away for later, when it was all over and Sherlock and he had all the time in the world.
Sherlock continued to plough on through the labyrinth of corridors that all looked pretty much the same, occasionally turning around to take a different turn. The sense of urgency in every step they took had John's heart pounding in his chest, adrenaline thrumming through him.
They were almost there. Sherlock's brother would give them somewhere to stay and John would keep him safe. Then they'd go and stop whoever was behind it, and John would deal with Moriarty and Moran.
They'd make Below safe. Together.
//
Mycroft's office was as abhorrently grandiose as Sherlock remembered it and never would Sherlock have ever believed he would be so relieved to see it.
They had passed Mycroft's assistant without a glance. Her attention not leaving her Blackberry once as Sherlock pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped inside.
Sherlock’s heart pounded inside his chest, fear and elation and anticipation all coming crashing together in a flood of emotions he’d not felt with such overwhelming power in a very long time.
Mycroft looked up.
There was recognition in his eyes.
For just a moment, Sherlock thought he might collapse from the relief that rushed through him. Mycroft could see him.
//
There was no mistaking that Mycroft could see them both. The minute Sherlock strode in to his older brother’s office like he owned the place, Mycroft’s head had snapped up and it’d been there in his eyes.
He saw Sherlock, and then John, as he shut the door behind them, dropped his pack to the floor and came to stand next to Sherlock, their shoulders brushing.
It was enough of an earth shattering relief for John and he’d only suffered glances that washed over him without acknowledgment that anything stood in the section of air he occupied, for less than a day. He couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like for Sherlock, to have the complete, true recognition of another human being after five years. Not just any person either, his big brother.
“Sherlock,” Mycroft said with a smirk and enough amusement in his voice that it made the hairs on the back of John’s neck stand on end.
Instantly he did not trust Mycroft.
Even if he was the only person on the planet with a mind impressive enough to be able bridge the gap in the two realities of Above and Below, it had been five years. Five years since Sherlock had vanished and even longer than that since he had started taking the drugs, from what John knew.
The first emotion Mycroft should have been feeling was shock, or relief. He shouldn’t been looking so entertained.
“You look a great deal better than the last time you stood in this office.” Mycroft’s nose wrinkled. “Though perhaps not cleaner or better dressed.”
John tensed and wished that Sherlock could actually read John’s mind, could hear his concerns. Only one look at him out the corner of his eye and he could see that Sherlock was completely consumed by his relief. The relief that John wanted to feel, because they were here, they’d done what they needed to do and soon it would all be over and they’d be free.
Sherlock had assured him that with Mycroft they would be safe.
John’s gut told him they were far from it.
//
“Mycroft,” Sherlock breathed and willed his body not to start shaking under the weight of the relief and the gratitude he was feeling to his brother.
He ignored the slight on his appearance, the allusion to the drugs and his last visit. For once none of it mattered, there was nothing less important than goading Mycroft in return about his weight or his self-serving manipulations of the government.
Never before had Sherlock been so glad to be in Mycroft’s company and he knew his face, his entire being screamed it to Mycroft. He didn’t need to say it, but he wanted to. “I’m glad to see you, frère.”
Mycroft chuckled, sitting back in his seat behind his large oak desk. Sherlock scanned the paperwork across it and there was only one piece actually related to his position as a Lord. There was the usual urge to comment and Sherlock suppressed it as Mycroft smirked.
“Do take a seat,” Mycroft offered, gesturing to the leather chairs on the other side of his desk, flicking off the computer screen before Sherlock was in a position to see what was on it. “Your friend too.”
“Ah, yes,” Sherlock said. He turned to John who for just one terrible second he had forgotten was there, caught up in Mycroft seeing him and the chance to be safe. Only John did not look relieved like he should, his shoulders were tense and his jaw clenched tight and for one moment Sherlock was completely lost. Why was John not feeling the same as Sherlock?
Perhaps he was disgruntled that Sherlock had forgotten about him, especially after what had happened between them in the tunnel. After all, John didn’t realise that Mycroft wouldn’t need to be told such things. He would already have deduced them.
“Mycroft, this is Doctor John Watson,” Sherlock said. The one thing Mycroft would not have been able to learn without more time, or help, was John’s name. “My friend,” he added for John’s benefit.
It was already apparent in Mycroft’s eyes he suspected that John meant something to Sherlock. Something significant.
He was correct.
//
“Pleasure to meet you,” Mycroft said to John and offered his hand.
John stepped forward and shook it politely, but firmly. Mycroft’s expression didn’t change. It was an all-knowing, not exactly benevolent look, with something that John did not trust for one second in his eyes.
“Sherlock-,” he started, no longer caring that this was supposedly their safe haven or that he might tip his hand to Mycroft. He needed to get Sherlock out of the office and tell him that there was something very, very not good going on.
Only Mycroft cut him off and John’s skin prickled.
“So tell me, little brother, what brings you to see me after so long?”
//
Sherlock told him.
He led John to the seats Mycroft had offered and accepted the water he poured for them, drinking down two glasses when he realised just how long it had been since he had put any decent amount of fluid into his overworked body.
Sherlock frowned at John, when he realised that his glass remained untouched, but Mycroft prompted him to continue.
Sherlock did. He told Mycroft of the most pertinent events of the previous five years, from when he had slipped through the cracks in the world to coming clean and establishing a reputation for himself and his skills. He sketched out in facts what he knew about Above and Below, how the worlds functioned both separately and together, sharing space and time, but hardly ever meeting.
Then, why he was there.
Nothing but the facts. No sentiment or compliments, neither of which Mycroft would approve of nor appreciate.
The violent and bloody deaths of the most powerful tribe leaders of Below, the people of most influence in the dark. Moriarty and Moran, the hired hands so clearly behind the murders but nothing but blunt, well paid instruments. His suspicions of motive, an attempt to abolish the tribal system for the sole purpose of gaining complete rule of Below.
A single person manipulating the people and ruling system of Below, all for power and control. A perpetrator he was certain he would be able to close in on, once Moriarty and Moran were no longer a factor. When all his energies did not need to be devoted to attempting to avoid them, trying to stay alive.
When Sherlock was finished he slumped back in his seat, as though a weight had been lifted from his chest. Mycroft was thoughtful, hands pressed together in mock prayer beneath his chin.
Then Sherlock considered Mycroft. Truly considered him and his complete lack of surprise or shock.
Mycroft had taken the news much more in his stride than Sherlock expected. He had prepared himself for more questions, more disbelief regarding the notion of Below. Like himself, Mycroft had always been a man of reason and science and facts.
Sherlock had suspected there might have been some accusations of it being a drugs-related delusion or hallucination.
Something twisted and tensed in his stomach. He sat up straight and Mycroft was smiling.
Such easy acceptance was not right.
//
Mycroft was smiling by the time Sherlock finished and John’s blood was running cold. His fingers were gripping the arms of his chair hard enough his knuckles had turned white.
The sense of dread he’d been feeling ever since Mycroft had first spoken was nothing compared to heavy weight of foreboding that now sat in his stomach.
“Well done,” Mycroft finally said, with a slow, mocking clap of his hands.
John could see Sherlock out the corner of his eye, all the relief gone and his whole body one, tense line.
“Sherlock,” John said, standing. They were leaving, he was going to make them leave. They would be safer on their own. He had no doubt about that.
//
It all happened in a second.
The oak panelling behind Mycroft’s desk was hiding a door. John barely had a second to recognise that he was surprised when it revealed Moriarty and Moran behind it.
Moran’s shoulder and arm were wrapped in blood soaked bandages and there were bloody stains all over both their suits and shirts.
“Fuck,” he cursed. Sherlock was frozen in the seat beside him and he pulled the gun from the back of his jeans and flicked the safety off.
They needed to get out and they need to get out now.
Then Moriarty was moving, and snarling, “I’m going to kill him.”
John had just enough time to recognise the look of cold malevolence and murder in his eyes before Moriarty crashed into him. There wasn’t even time to aim, let alone shoot and the gun slipped out of John’s hand, skidded across the floor.
Then John joined the gun on the ground, hitting it hard.
For someone as lean and small as Moriarty, he tackled like the biggest, meanest Prop John had ever met playing rugby. John’s whole body ached and he couldn’t catch his breath as Moriarty straddled him, eyes gleaming like a mad man before the first blow fell.
John’s jaw ached and his head throbbed. The only thought he could process was that it was Mycroft. He didn’t know how and he didn’t know why, he didn’t really care, he just knew the person Sherlock had thought was going to save him was behind this.
And Sherlock needed to run.
Moriarty and Moran had been sent to kill Sherlock. By Mycroft.
“Run!” John shouted, as Moriarty hissed and snarled threats and promises of pain and that he would give Moran his bloody insides as a gift, and then hit him again. “Sherlock, run!”
// Part Seven //