[fic] sherlock - renegades (11/12)
Sam’s Shanghai apartment is located in eastern Pudong, barely ten minutes by cab from the international airport. It’s a cramped space and one of the windows overlooks an alleyway where two chickens cluck and scratch at the dirt.
“Sorry,” Sam says as she opens the windows to air out the smell of mothballs, “They gave me a pretty cheap apartment here since I only come in on technological consults every once in a while.”
“It’s fine,” John says, even as Sherlock wipes away the dust that’s accumulated on the tiny box television with a finger. Sam disappears into the kitchen and John looks around. The only bed in the apartment is wooden with no mattress-pillows laid over a reed mat.
“If you have your own money, I can give you the names of a few cheap hotels around here,” Sam says as she returns, “I can’t use my card since they’ll be tracking it. Otherwise, my sofa folds out into a futon.”
John looks at Sherlock. Sherlock rubs the dust off his fingertip and manages a smile, “This will be fine.”
_____
Sam refuses John’s company to go to the market. “I already don’t speak the regional dialect” she says, “They’d try to rip me off even more if I brought a foreigner with me.”
“We should follow her,” Sherlock says, the moment her footsteps fade down the stairs.
“Have a little faith, Sherlock.”
“She could be turning us in,” Sherlock says, “She practically knows who we are.”
“She wants to see her sister. She wants to go to university. She can’t do either of those things if she turns us in.”
“She could just be toying with us,” Sherlock insists.
“Sherlock.”
Sherlock crosses his arms and looks out the window. John keeps a gun close to hand, just in case.
_____
Sam washes out a pan and sets it on the gas stove. She pulls out a chopping knife and tests the edge of it with a finger before turning her attention onto the washed vegetables in the sink.
“When was the last time you saw Moriarty?” Sherlock asks from the couch.
She flicks water off the leaves into the sink and says, “I’ve never met him.”
“You work for him,” John says, “What do you mean you’ve never met him?”
“I’ve talked to him over the phone once. At least I think it was him,” she places the vegetables on the wooden board and starts to chop, “I get my orders through text, usually from Moran’s number.”
“Who’s Moran?”
“The second-in-command,” she glances over her shoulder at them, “He’s the only one who’s in regular contact with Moriarty. Or so he says. Sometimes I have to wonder if Moriarty even exists.”
“He exists,” Sherlock says, idly flipping the television remote in his hand.
“I’ve never seen him,” Sam says, “I don’t think any of the other recruits have either. And if we have, we weren’t even properly introduced.” She steps across the kitchen, “External liaisons definitely haven’t. Some people don’t take him seriously because they’ve never met him, but he always sorts those out quick and nobody has to ask twice.” She palms a cigarette lighter off the top of the refrigerator and lights the gas stove. “It’s why his name opens doors. Nobody wants to be on his bad side. He's like this supernatural entity.”
Sherlock has his fingers steepled against his lips as he stares at the wall. “Tell me,” he says, “How many people work for Moriarty?”
“On the core team? Maybe twenty. External liaisons? Hundreds. They’re just a text away,”
Sherlock smiles. “Interesting.”
_____
Sherlock’s already asleep. John stands at the open window and listens to the clatter and laughter of their neighbours downstairs playing mahjong.
Sam sits in the plastic chair next to him. She pulls her feet up onto the seat so she’s hugging her knees and looks at Sherlock when she says quietly, “You really think he can do it?”
“Yes,” John says and he’s a little surprised by how quickly the answer comes. “With your help, I think he can.”
She puts her chin on her knees. John has a hard time believing that this is the same young woman who had taunted them at the gala barely a week ago.
“My sister is all I have left,” she says, “I don’t have any friends any more. I can’t make friends because of what I do.” She looks at the ground again, “Sometimes I go to the university and I pretend that I’m a student. I want to correct the professors and I want to tell them how to make their code more efficient but I can’t, because I’m not supposed to be there.”
“We’re going to find your sister,” John says.
“You don’t know what Moriarty can do,” she says, looking up at him.
“When he’s gone,” John promises, “You’re going to walk away into a new life.”
_____
Pale twilight filters through the windowed ceiling of the lobby and birds chirp from the indoor trees. The elevators are straight ahead. One receptionist texts on her phone while the other one types on the computer. The security guard is deep in conversation with a man in a suit.
“Stay close to me,” Sam instructs quietly, “This is Moran’s territory and we don’t want to let him know that you’re here. Look casual, like you belong.”
_____
The office that Sam leads them to is deserted. She pauses as they enter and scans the open space of cubicles before looking over her shoulder at them. “Okay. Follow me. Keep your head down.”
Sam takes a convoluted path through the cubicles, sticking close to the partitions and never raising her head above the walls. John follows her in a low crouch. They end up in an open office at the back of the room.
“This is the computer I work on when they have me come in on consults,” she says, as she shuts the door after them, “It can access the main database. If there’s anything useful about the organization, it’s going to be located on the main database.” She seats herself being the computer and starts to type. John can’t follow the screens that flash up on the computer screen, but Sherlock seems fascinated.
“Fair warning: most things get deleted from the database after a month. Ongoing or important projects might stay a little longer but never longer than six months. Long term reports get hidden away on temporary addresses until we want to retrieve them.”
“Is there a full list of addresses somewhere?” Sherlock asks.
“It’s encoded,” she replies, shoving their flash drive into the USB port, “I wrote the program but I don’t have the key. Only Moriarty has that.”
Sherlock taps his fingers against his arm as he watches Sam work. John moves to glance out the window and then to the door to keep a lookout.
“Okay,” Sam says, “It’s all yours.”
John turns around to see Sherlock seating himself in front of the computer. The screen is reflected in his eyes.
Sherlock smiles as he scrolls. “Interesting.”
_____
John is helping Sam chop eggplant when Sherlock wanders into the kitchen and says, “You’ve changed the way that instructions are sent.”
Sam looks at him. She’s on her tiptoes, rummaging through the spices in the cabinet, “What?”
“There used to be three columns,” Sherlock says, “The first column used to be a cipher, the last two the address of a website with further instructions. There are four columns here.”
“Oh,” Sam shuts the cabinet, “Yeah, there was an alarm back in July when there was a break-in at an external liaison. The idiot was writing everything down in notebooks. I got called in to design a new system.”
John exchanges a look with Sherlock.
“Look,” she says, “I just realized that we don’t have any soy sauce or vinegar and the market’s about to close. I’ll explain it to you as soon as I get back.”
She grabs her jacket and her bag and holds up three fingers, “Three minutes. I’ll be back and you’ll have your answers. Promise.”
_____
Fifteen minutes pass.
John dumps the eggplant into a bowl of water. He wipes his hands and says, “There’s something wrong.”
Sherlock finally looks away from his computer screen and looks at his watch. He stands and reaches for his jacket.
“Er,” John says, “Should one of us wait here in case?”
“Stay here,” Sherlock agrees and reaches for the doorknob-just as it opens.
There’s a strange man standing in the doorway with Sam in a headlock under his arm. Sherlock takes a step back.
“Hello,” he says, looking between Sherlock and John.
“Run,” Sam gasps out. The man’s arm tightens around her neck.
“I’d advise against that, actually,” the man says, “See, you have something of mine and I’d really like it back.”
“Sebastian Moran,” Sherlock says.
Moran smiles. “And I know your face, of course. Jim was over the moon about finding you, Sherlock Holmes.”
Moran steps into the apartment, dragging Sam with him. She claws at his arms but he doesn’t seem to notice that he's bleeding from her scratches. He keeps his eyes on Sherlock.
“You’ve been very useful, Sam,” Moran says, “We’ve been wondering where you disappeared off to, Mr. Holmes. Jim was so excited about carrying out the last bit of his plan and you just-you just took that from him. So yes, thank you Sam, for leading me to enemy number one.”
“Let her go,” John says, “She has nothing to do with this. We forced her to bring us here.”
“Let her go?” Moran laughs, “She wasn’t coerced. She willingly gave everything up to you, didn't she? You painted a pretty picture of what the future could be like, and she played straight into your hands like putty.” Moran shakes Sam and puts his mouth close to her ear, growling low, “You’re a stupid fuck, you know that.”
She’s crying as she tries to pry him off.
“Do you know what we do to traitors?” Moran growls. He throws her to the ground and she struggles to breathe, back heaving. Moran pulls a gun from his back pocket and points it at her.
She looks up, right at John and rasps out, “Hong-mei.”
“Don’t!” John shouts the same moment the gunshot explodes.
She slumps forward, face first into the ground. Blood streams down the back of her neck and pools on the cement floor.
“Oh god,” John hears himself saying. He’s only peripherally aware that there’s a gun trained on him.
“Let’s not do anything stupid,” Moran says. He sees the whiteness of Moran's teeth bared in a grin but not the gleam of the gun.
Second gunshot.
Moran’s head hits the doorframe in a spray of blood. John barely registers the death.
“We have to go,” Sherlock says.
“We can’t leave her,” John says.
“In five minutes this flat is going to be swarming with policemen. We need to go.”
John can’t move. He looks down at Sam. She doesn’t have any family. The police won’t know who she is. She deserves a proper burial.
Sherlock touches his arm, then his face and he says, “John, I need you, I need you to come with me. I can’t leave without you.”
John forces himself to take a breath. And then he reaches forward to pick up the gun (that killed Sam) from the ground and says, “Let’s go.”
_____
They’re on a bus headed south towards Hangzhou. There’s a television playing a show about feudal China attached to the ceiling near the front. The muted noise of clanging swords and foreign dialogue reaches them all the way in the back. John barely noticed that Sherlock had used his piss-poor Mandarin to buy them bus tickets and that the other passengers hadn’t bothered to hide their staring. John hadn’t cared. Now, he stares out the window at the dark fields.
Sherlock has his laptop open and he’s scrolling through columns of numbers. Maybe trying to figure out what Sam’s new system is.
“I have to find her sister,” John whispers, “When we get back.”
Sherlock turns his head to look at John. John looks at him. The light of the computer screen reflects off Sherlock’s cheek.
“Okay,” Sherlock says.
_____
Sherlock drinks coffee in their hotel room and alternates between reading old reports and staring at line after line of indecipherable encrypted instructions on the computer. John brings Sherlock more coffee and food that he ignores-cigarettes if he starts getting too frustrated-and stays out of his way.
They need to move fast. Every hour leads closer to the hour that Moriarty tires of tarnishing the Holmes name and finally decides to look in the right direction. John keeps his gun close at hand and half expects hunters to crash through their hotel door at any moment.
_____
John is accidentally asleep on top of the covers when Sherlock crawls onto the bed next to him and shakes his shoulder. The lamp is still on when John jerks awake and opens his eyes to look at Sherlock.
“I’ve got it,” Sherlock announces. He’s grinning. “John, I’ve got it. We can go home.”
John is awake now. Home.
“London,” Sherlock says, “We can go home to London.”
“Jesus Christ,” John says.
“I’ve figured out the code, I have all the information I need,” Sherlock says, “We can go back.”
“Baker Street,” John says and pulls Sherlock down for a kiss. Sherlock grins against his lips and John slides his hand into Sherlock’s hair, pulling him closer. Sherlock adjusts himself so that he’s straddling John’s hips. He tastes like terrible coffee and stale smoke but John keeps kissing him anyway, pushes at the hem of Sherlock’s shirt with his fingertips until Sherlock gets the hint and pulls away to draw it over his head. It’s been weeks since they’d last touched.
“Come on,” Sherlock demands against his mouth and John pulls his shirt off too.
The lamplight illuminates everything. Sherlock’s eyes are immediately drawn to the scar on his shoulder and he pulls away to touch it.
“No,” John says, closing his hand over Sherlock’s fingers, “It’s not your fault.”
“Isn’t it?” Sherlock asks softly. He touches John’s temple with his fingertips and traces down his cheek. John catches his wrist and presses a kiss to the palm of his hand. They stare at each other, John’s lips against Sherlock’s hand, Sherlock half leaning forward over him.
Sherlock pulls his hand away slowly. He shifts his weight off John and slips off the bed. John sits up, “Sherlock?”
Sherlock disappears into the bathroom. John has half a mind to follow him when he reappears and tosses something at him. John catches it reflexively and opens his hand. The unscented lotion.
“I want you to fuck me,” Sherlock says. He unbuttons his trousers.
“Sherlock,” John says, “I don’t want to do something-”
“You told me to tell you when,” Sherlock slips out of his briefs and crawls back onto the bed on top of him, “I’m telling you now.”
John touches Sherlock’s jaw, not sure what he’s looking for in Sherlock’s face. “Okay,” he breathes, “Okay if you’re sure.”
Sherlock hooks his fingers into the elastic of John’s boxers and pulls them down. John tosses them onto floor with a flick of his ankle and reaches for the lamp.
“Leave it on,” Sherlock says. John stills and looks back up at him. Sherlock smiles tentatively.
“Come here,” John murmurs and Sherlock leans down to kiss him again. John strokes a hand down his side and Sherlock shifts against him, cock sliding against the crease in his thigh. He’s still soft but John’s intent on changing that. He flips them over.
“Is this okay?” John asks, looking down at Sherlock. Sherlock tilts his head back and hums. John can’t help but put his mouth on Sherlock’s pale throat. Sherlock’s fingers sink into his hair. John presses his tongue against the pulse in Sherlock’s neck, traces the vein down and leaves a bruising kiss on his collarbone. Sherlock’s hands tighten in his hair when he presses teeth against the bone and John leaves an apologetic kiss.
John slides down and is pleased to find that Sherlock’s half hard. He hasn’t ever given a blowjob before, but he knows what he likes, so he tries to keep his lips over his teeth and mouths the head of Sherlock’s cock, applying firm pressure at the base with hand. He tongues the slit and Sherlock’s hips jerk, cock hitting the roof of his mouth. He pulls away.
“Sorry,” Sherlock whispers. John kisses his inner thigh and goes back at it. Sherlock’s hands are back in John's hair as he tries to take more of the cock into his mouth. He can’t take more than a few inches at most. He’ll have to get better.
He moves his hand too, a slow pace as he licks at the underside of Sherlock’s cock. Sherlock’s breathing gets more erratic but he’s quiet-John can’t tell how he’s doing except for Sherlock’s hands in his hair, clenching and loosening sporadically. He pulls away after a moment and admires his handiwork: Sherlock’s cock flushed with blood against the pale skin of his hips.
“John,” Sherlock murmurs and John crawls back up to kiss him. Sherlock makes a face at tasting himself on John’s tongue and John laughs low against his cheek. Sherlock nudges his nose against John’s ear and says, “Come on, John.”
John grinds against Sherlock. He likes the feel of Sherlock’s erection against him, hot skin against his hip. Sherlock's breath hitches against his ear.
“Can you do it?” John asks as he presses the bottle of lotion in Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock looks into his face with half closed eyes before nudging John off. John scoots back as Sherlock sits up and squirts the lotion onto his fingers. He smears it around before squirting more and looks up at John as he angles his hips and touches himself, circles the hole once before pushing a slick finger in.
“Christ,” John breathes. Sherlock’s finger disappears in to the second knuckle and Sherlock sounds like he’s making an effort to control his breathing. He pulls out and uses two fingers, palm against his balls as he pushes in. His erection is starting to flag. John moves forward and kisses Sherlock’s knee. Sherlock has his eyes closed as he curls his fingers inside himself, and god, the way that his breath shudders-
“Come on John,” Sherlock half whines on a long exhale, “It’s good, I’m ready. Please.”
John squirts a sizeable amount of lotion on the palm of his hand and he runs it over his cock. Sherlock has his eyes open again, reaches for him and closes his still-slick fingers over the head of John’s cock. He circles the crown with his fingers and lifts his hips, “In.”
John grips Sherlock's hips as he positions himself, “Like this?”
“Like this,” Sherlock agrees, “Your face.” He moves his hips so that he’s touching John and all John needs to do is press forward and-
“Okay,” John whispers and god, Sherlock is tight, so fucking tight. Sherlock’s fighting the urge to tense up-John can tell by the tremor in his legs. John doesn’t move, just kisses the gasps from Sherlock’s mouth until Sherlock is pressing back against him. John sets a slow rhythm at first, not pulling out all the way and letting Sherlock adjust.
“Come on,” Sherlock growls, heels digging into the small of John’s back and John quickens his pace until Sherlock makes low noise at the back of his throat every time he meets John's thrusts. It’s good, it’s so fucking good because Sherlock is gasping and his nails are drawing blood from where they’re pressed in John’s back and John doesn’t care at all, just wants to keep collecting the noises that Sherlock’s making in his ear and-
Sherlock tenses and John doesn’t stop but he pulls back, wants to see Sherlock’s face. Sherlock comes between their joined bodies and his eyes are wide and unseeing on John’s face. Good, oh god, so good, and John can’t control his thrusts as he pounds into Sherlock, and sobs a breath against Sherlock's shoulder as the pleasure overtakes him and whites everything out.
Sherlock’s hand is in his hair.
“Sorry,” John whispers, forehead still pressed against Sherlock’s collarbone. Sherlock kisses the curve of his ear. John gets his breathing back under control and pulls all the way out. He stays draped over Sherlock for a few more moments, and then he rolls over.
John puts a hand on Sherlock’s stomach and starts to doze. Sherlock lays next to him for a while before sliding off the bed. John opens his eyes long enough to see him go into the bathroom.
Later, Sherlock lifts the covers and crawls back into bed. He fits his head under John’s chin and John is conscious long enough only to check for the gun on the beside table and to throw an arm over Sherlock's shoulder.
_____
Morning sunlight. John wakes to see Sherlock’s bare back, sitting at the edge of the bed.
He reaches out to touch Sherlock’s straight spine, runs a thumb over the dips in the small of his back. His voice is scratchy, “Good morning.”
Sherlock doesn’t reply. John frowns and pushes himself up.
“I understand-” Sherlock says, and the stiff tone of his voice wakes John immediately, “-if you didn’t want to continue this-” his voice breaks and it’s a moment before he continues, “-us. When we get our life back.”
“Sherlock,” John whispers-no, no, no.
“I harbour no illusions about the psychology of extraordinary circumstances,” Sherlock continues, “And I am fully aware that our circumstances have been extraordinary indeed. So when the time comes and you realize that you don’t want this any more, I won’t make you stay.”
“You fucking idiot,” John snarls. What the fuck? What the hell was this? Why would Sherlock-? “What are you saying? Do you even know what you’re saying?”
Sherlock doesn’t turn. John climbs off the bed and kneels in front of Sherlock.
“Look at me,” John says. Sherlock lifts his eyes off the floor.
“Since before,” John says, “I’ve wanted this since before we ever left.”
Sherlock doesn’t say anything, just looks at him. There is a blankness in his eyes that scares John.
“This isn’t just a thing,” John says. He touches Sherlock’s cheek, wants Sherlock to understand this more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life. “You. Me. Us.” His voice shakes. “Sherlock, I’m promising you forever.”
_____
The flight from Hangzhou International Airport to London Heathrow is fifteen hours.
When they land, John lets out a breath and thinks, finally.
to part twelve