This Is The Wonder That's Keeping The Stars Apart
Title: This Is The Wonder That's Keeping The Stars Apart. Chapter One.
author: ghislainem70
word count: 3500/?
summary: One year after the Fall, John visits Sherlock's grave and tells him his secret. That night, he learns that Sherlock had a secret, too, and John is irresistibly drawn to take a journey in that same world: a mysterious D/s club for the chosen few. Events will parallel and overlap with the events of Sherlock S2 and S3, missing scenes will happen and overall, this fic is intended as an anodyne for certain events in Series 3.
warnings: D/s, BDSM, kink, explicit sex, violence, angst, non-canon AU.
disclaimer: I own nothing. Title: from e.e. cummings' "i carry your heart with me." (1952)
On the first anniversary of the death of Sherlock Holmes (John never, ever used the word suicide, not even when he was all alone, as he nearly always was, now), John visited Sherlock’s grave.
It was already looking a bit neglected. More than a bit, if he was being honest. A fine coat of dirt had settled into the vivid letters against the black marble, and there was a bunch of withered flowers laying there. These had been left by someone else. He felt a twinge that he paused to identify as. . . he swallowed hard.
It had been a long time since he had seen his therapist. But now, struggling with the dark twinge in his chest, he remembered that she had said that he ought to “work on identifying his feelings.” Not the everyday feelings like being tired or hungry or aggravated or -- (bored, a baritone voice whispered), not those; those were easy, and weren’t enough. She had wanted the hard ones. Anger. Fear. Loneliness. Later, there had been other ones, but John’s mind couldn’t settle on those. Not before, and definitely not afterward.
So, John acknowledged the twinge as. . . resentment? No, being honest was part of why he was here. It was jealousy, that was what the feeling was. Without picking around the edges of the jealousy as his therapist would no doubt have wanted, and specifically refusing to feel ashamed about it, John moved on to the simple task at hand. He sighed and rubbed at Sherlock’s stone with his handkerchief until it was black and shining and mostly clean again.
When he was finished, his mind, still so sluggish, skittered away from the remains of the jealousy to make a feeble attempt at deduction. Mycroft wouldn’t leave flowers, if he came here at all after the formal necessity of the funeral. Lestrade? No, Lestrade couldn’t bear the crushing weight of guilt, and John definitely hadn’t given him any reason to feel different. The Woman - Irene Adler? Where did that come from? The jealousy, he supposed. The jealousy flared up at the mere thought of her name - “the Whip Hand,” and he didn’t push it down like all the other times because today was about being honest, for once. Irene was dead too, of course. But Irene had lived on at least in Sherlock’s memory, and almost certainly his music even if Sherlock would never admit such an intimate thing. Sherlock had kept her mobile, a sleek, shining golden bauble, a strange sort of memento mori that Sherlock had curled his fingers around possessively. John had thought about that a great deal more than he knew was healthy or sane, even then. He wasn’t healthy or sane anymore, and maybe that was why today of all days, he was thinking about Irene. He imagined flowers from Irene Adler for Sherlock. . . they would be something exotic, something rare, something unique. Nothing like John Watson.
These flowers were just carnations. Now they were withered, brown and dry. He closed his eyes against the association that the image forced upon him, that flawless pale skin, blood in his hair and in the street. . . Stop, stop it now, he told himself. Honesty could only go so far.
Mrs. Hudson, then. She had left them. Now he was the one feeling the crush of guilt. He had avoided her more than Mycroft, more than Lestrade. She was the one that always assumed he was in love with Sherlock, and was always ready with a blithe quip and a blind eye to his everlasting protestations and denials.
So, today was about honesty. The last time he had visited Sherlock’s grave, he had asked him to give him a miracle, to stop this charade, to stop being dead.
John heard Sherlock’s voice, saw his face everywhere, and it wasn’t getting any better and he had admitted to himself quite recently that he didn’t want it to. So in a sense, Sherlock had answered his prayer.
He couldn’t decide what to do with his hands. They were folded behind his back, but he took a step forward and put one hand firmly on the cold curve of the headstone. He knew was standing right over Sherlock’s grave, and imagined the expanse of dark earth between the soles of his feet and the lid of the coffin.
“Hello,” he said. “It’s John. It’s been a year today. Did you know that? Probably not, you never were very good with time. I’m no good with it now either. It’s like I’m. . . stuck, and I figure you know where. Anyway, a year. I thought a lot about what I should say today. And I decided that, umm, even though it’s too late. . ." He had to stop and clear his throat and dash away a few tears here, but he plunged on: “. . . far too late, I’m going to be honest. There’s something I always wanted to say to you, and never did.”
He could see the distorted reflection of his own face in the curve of the polished top of the gravestone. It seemed fitting, that he looked as twisted on the outside as he felt on the inside. Time to set it free.
“I love you. I was in love with you then, and I never said and you never knew. Hopelessly in love, in fact, since I’m trying to be honest. I know you didn’t want that from anybody, especially me. But it keeps me up at night, Sherlock-- if I had said it, if I had told you, would it have made the difference? Even at the last minute, up on that roof, would you have stopped if I said it then? I still wonder, every day, if you hadn’t felt so alone, if. . . because you told me once, you only had one friend, and that was me, and that obviously wasn’t enough. In the end. So I’m telling you now, and I’m so sorry I never did when I had the chance-“
He stopped himself from saying, you brilliant bastard, because his feelings that had started with jealousy and twisted into the steady longing that he was never going to get used to and was never going to give up, kept him honest: “You, you were so beautiful to me, inside and out, not just your brilliant mind, I wish I had told you that, too. . .“
Now he could either keep on all day with the most ill-timed declaration of love that he figured there had ever been, or he could quit before he tore the remains of his heart to shreds.
“So I guess I know I’m not getting that miracle, and you aren’t coming back. But maybe you could see your way clear to send me a sign that you want me to keep on remembering like I do. Which is every hour of every day.”
He reached down for what he had brought for Sherlock. First he took away the withered carnations, and shoved them in his pocket. Then he took a deep breath, and put a single red rose on the grave. He smiled briefly. The red looked stunning against the glossy black marble, and he told himself that Sherlock would be secretly pleased by such a dramatic, romantic gesture -- even though he would never admit such an intimate thing.
The sun was setting, it was getting colder. This bought one of the omnipresent visions of Sherlock in his coat, Sherlock before the fire in 221b, warmth after cold. Time to go home, which would always be 221b, but wasn’t anymore.
###
People found John Watson, even after he moved away from 221b. He never took new cases, though. He had a stack of Lestrade’s cards, and handed them over while saying as little as possible. Also, it was a little surprising how many people still didn’t know Sherlock was dead, and wouldn’t believe that the great detective was permanently unavailable for consultation. After his visit to Sherlock today and the unburdening of his guilty heart, he was in no mood for anything but whisky and the dark when his doorbell rang, two brief, polite buzzes. He couldn’t see down into the street like in Baker Street, but this flat had a peephole to look out, and he did, not caring that his visitor probably heard him on the other side of the door.
Tall. Slender. Dark hair. Impeccable overcoat, thankfully a tweedy brown. Still, his heart contracted a little. He didn’t open the door, but he didn’t pull away either.
“Doctor Watson? I’ve come on a personal matter. It’s rather complicated. May I come in?”
“I don’t take-- cases,” John said through the door. “I can refer you to Scotland Yard.”
“It’s nothing that I want to involve the police in - won’t you let me talk to you, just for a minute?” The man’s voice was smooth, toff, and thankfully rather high pitched.
“No. I’m afraid I can’t,” John said. He did pity the man. He sounded. . . heartbroken. He huffed a small laugh. Join the club, he whispered to himself.
“In that case, I should tell you that you really don’t want to send me away, Doctor Watson. I have something that I think you’d be interested in,” the man said.
John was alert to any hint of threat, but the man didn’t sound like he was threatening anything. John evaluated the tone of his voice, and decided he sounded a little like a man that he had once interviewed with Sherlock. The man had been a collector of rare stamps. There was a special tone that he had when talking about his collection. This man sounded a little like that.
He looked at the glass of whisky in his hand, his companion for the evening. He had a strong sensation of Sherlock, disapproving, even scornful. Turning away a potentially intriguing case in favor of sitting alone at night in his sterile flat, second-rate whisky and bad telly. He opened the door.
A whiff of elegant, expensive men’s cologne preceded the man who swept in rather dramatically, making John wince. Tall, slim, fit, and impeccably groomed. Chiseled jawline, unnaturally blue eyes (contacts there, John deduced), classically handsome but with an indefinable air of delicacy.
“Edwin Veere,” the man said, putting out his hand. John shook it.
“Drink?” John wasn’t in the mood for the niceties of tea, not after today and all that honesty. Maybe the distraction of a case was just the thing to get his mind off his lacerated heart.
Veere eyed the whisky, and politely shook his head in the negative. John could tell he was used to a far better class of liquor. He shrugged and poured himself another two fingers’ worth.
“I’m not a detective, you know. I’m a doctor. But I’m willing to listen, I figure you came a way to see me. Sherlock Holmes --- you do know he’s. . ." John stopped, and the man nodded with an expression of respectful sympathy. John distracted himself by examining the man more closely. He was groomed to a high sheen, like an expensive motorcar. John thought he looked like he lived in Knightsbridge. John noted the shopping bag, Hackett in Sloane Street. The man clutched the bag tighter.
“We were so sorry to hear of Mr. Holmes’ death. My condolences. If he were here, I believe he would want you to help me.”
John noted the “we,” and decided to let it stand, let the man tell his story in his own way, something that bored Sherlock nearly to tears-- but John Watson didn’t have anything else on tonight. Or any other night.
“Well, Sherlock. . . he was very particular about cases. He had a numerical system, a scale -- never mind. You said you had something I’d be interested in. Why don’t we start with that, if you don’t mind?” John was somewhat mesmerised by Veere’s hands, clutching the Hackett bag. His fingers were long and his nails well-groomed.
He also had definite red marks around his wrists that peeked out from below his snowy shirt cuffs.
Raw, recent. John was under no illusions what had made the marks. They had precise boundaries between the redness of the marks and the tanned skin --- tanning bed, or recent holiday in the sun? he wondered idly. It was the sort of thing that Sherlock would have been able to tell at glance. As was the fact that Veere had been bound in handcuffs, possibly as recently as this morning. And he didn’t think it was trouble with the police. The hair on the back of his neck pricked, ever so gently.
“I’m here because my … friend, Jason Kilbraith, is missing, since two days ago.”
“And you haven’t told the police?”
“No.”
John had already deduced the reason for that. The story was in the cuff marks, plain to see.
“Is Jason hurt?”
Veere bit his lip. “Not the way you mean.”
John stood up. He had a definite feeling he didn’t want to get involved in this, and didn’t want to examine why. Honesty today was for Sherlock, but that was over and finished now. “Look. I think I can, ah, reassure you. This sort of thing, your friend - it’s not a crime, you know. The police will look for him and help you find him, if you report it. You can even talk to a friend of mine at Scotland Yard, he’s not missing persons but he’ll help if I ask.”
Veere shook his head and reached inside the bag. He withdrew a mobile.
“It’s not something I can take to the police, and you won’t understand unless you look at this.” Veere looked at him with steady, pleading eyes. Used to getting his way, John thought, and the idea made him unaccountably angry for a moment. John was actually across the room now, opening the door. This had been a bad idea. He was in no fit shape to help anyone, not himself and especially not reckless, expensive toy-boys who liked to play games with handcuffs. Anyone could guess where that kind of thing could end up if things got out of hand. John had seen the evidence on Molly’s slab more than once. He held out one of Lestrade’s cards.
“If you won’t go to the police, then I think you’d better leave. I’m not really. . . good with this kind of thing,” he said as Veere was fiddling with the touch screen on the mobile. There was the sound of a smattering of applause from the tiny speaker, which was surprisingly loud in the quiet of the flat, and a male voice said,
“Now to Number 25. Some of you may well say we have saved the very best for last. Number 25 needs no introduction here. As stated in the prospectus, this specimen is reserved only for those with a demonstrated track record with rebellion, especially topping from below. Minimum bid is five hundred thousand. Discerning bidders will see that he is worth every penny. ”
John closed his eyes. He didn’t want to look at the screen. “Is that your friend Jason? He’s got himself into, what, some kind of sex ring?”
Veere smiled a little, a soft, secret smile. “Please just listen, Doctor Watson."
There was a silence, and then a murmuring of the crowd. There was an indistinct voice, a woman’s. “I should like three, please,” she said, as though choosing chocolates at a very exclusive confectioner’s shop.
John heard the distinct whiz and snap of a whip, or maybe a crop, on bare flesh. He didn’t know how he knew this for sure, but under the circumstances it couldn’t be anything else. He stopped himself imagining it. The room felt warmer, close even with the door open. He wondered if his neighbor could hear this. He closed the door.
“Count for mistress, Number 25,” the male voice said sharply.
“One,” Sherlock said, rock steady and politely contemptuous.
John was immobilized by the cold, cold spike that drove through his gut and pierced the last remaining scraps of his heart. He was glad for the chill, it distanced him from the threat, or maybe it was the promise, of heat jolting his cock, low and vicious and raw. It was true what he had said to Sherlock today at his grave. He was always stuck in time now, in that sliver of a moment before Sherlock fell from the roof, that moment when John could still hear Sherlock’s breath, maybe even the choking back of tears, he could never decide, the infinitesimal moment before he said, “Goodbye, John.”
There was another crack, another smack. “Two,” Sherlock snapped, coldly superior. John closed his eyes, ignored the horrible weight and heat in his cock, refusing to actually look at the mobile screen.
It was the first time he had heard Sherlock’s voice since that day. One year ago exactly. And it shook him, finally, out of frozen time. He felt a stab of greed and held out his hand for the mobile without a word. Veere took one long look at his face and gave it to him, and he closed his fingers around it tightly, remembering the first day at Barts, handing Sherlock his mobile. Sherlock deducing him, taking him apart. As much as John would allow. Which was quite a lot, and not enough.
John's fingertip slid down to find the little button on the side of the mobile that silenced the sound before Sherlock could count, “three.”
Veere said, “Mr. Holmes set a record that day, did you know? I’m certain that the man that bought Mr. Holmes is the one that has Jason. And if we don’t find him soon, I’m afraid it’ll be too late.”
John opened his eyes, looked at Veere for a long minute. Veere looked down, unable to face whatever he saw in John’s eyes.
“I’ll take the case,” John said over the hard lump in his throat. “On one condition.”
“Name it. Money is no object, I assure you.” Veere was reaching for his wallet. John shook his head sharply, and Veere’s manicured hand crept back into his pocket.
“I keep the mobile.“
Veere nodded. “Of course, sir.”
“No need to call me sir,” John said shortly. His hand worried at the mobile. Sherlock’s voice.
Sherlock, dead and gone and in his grave.
In his mind he heard Sherlock counting, “Three,” with magnificent insolence, before stopping himself imagining more. Sick, so sick, he must be very sick to want to hear this. Maybe he would delete it. He promised himself that he would delete it.
“Please sit down,” John said.
Veere sat quietly in the chair opposite John. “Where should I start?”
John took a hard swallow of the whisky and focused on the burn, all the way down, a strange contrast to the sluggish ice in his veins, the whispered threat of fire beneath. Then he realised that he wanted to be alert, awake, more than any time he could remember since. . .
He put the whisky down.
“Start at the beginning,” he said.
next: Chapter 2 here