Twisting And Turning The Colours In Rows (4/6)
Title: Twisting And Turning The Colours In Rows Part 4
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John; Mrs Hudson, Mycroft, Lestrade, Moriarty, Moran & other various Sherlock characters plus minor OCs
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: Violence, blood/gore, minor character death, bullying, homophobia, allusions to eating disorders
Notes: For sherlockbigbang 2012! Massive thanks to harlequinehands for creating such a beautiful piece of artwork for this undeserving fic, to a8c_sock for being a brilliant mod and friend and to everyone else who has helped me out with it, including my extremely helpful beta circ_bamboo (any mistakes that remain are my own), and my lovely cheerleader paintedame, and thanks also to my unofficial cheerleaders along the way (you know who you are, if I mention you all this will end up like an awards ceremony and someone will tell me to sit down)
Summary: Sherlock/Let The Right One In Fusion (knowledge of film/book not needed). John Watson is an isolated thirteen year old boy: he’s got a distant mother, a resentful older sister, and a sadistic bully at school called Moriarty who’s got it in for him. When Sherlock Holmes moves in next door, he and John form a rapid, intense friendship based on their mutual loneliness. Unfortunately for John, Sherlock has issues that go much deeper than loneliness.
“I need blood to live, yes.”
John lets that sink in. “So are you… are you dead? Undead? How old are you, really?”
The lightbulb above them flickers and Sherlock’s fingers tap out a short rhythm on the glass as he thinks about his answer. John copies the rhythm, softer, quieter.
“I’m conscious,” Sherlock says with a small shrug of one shoulder. “I move, respire, react to my environment… I miss a few of the basic life processes, but I think I qualify as ‘alive’. And I’m thirteen, like I told you.” A rueful smile, and his hand drops to his side. “But I have been thirteen for longer than is naturally possible.”
Disclaimer: This is the bit where they make me say I don't own anything. Sherlock is the property of the BBC, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and, of course, the one and only Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Let The Right One In belongs to John Ajvide Lindqvist
Word Count: ~28,500
On AO3
The stunning artwork of harlequinehands can be found here. Please go and lavish praise on her for her fantastic work.
In the morning, John wakes to find his mother sat at the end of his bed. He rubs his eyes and sits up. He must have finally dozed off at some point, but it’s the first day of his suspension, so his lack of sleep hardly matters.
“I have to take Harry to school and go to work now, John,” his mother says, taking down her ponytail and re-tying it with an expression of dissatisfaction.
John says nothing. Next door, all is silent.
“Remember the rules for when you’re here on your own,” she continues. “Don’t go out, and if anyone knocks at the door, don’t answer.”
She stands up, straightening her Sainsbury’s polo shirt and grumbling about ‘bloody social workers’, and then she leaves without saying goodbye.
John looks at his alarm clock, 07:35. He rolls onto his front, presses his face against the pillow with a low groan and wills himself to go back to sleep.
There is nothing else for him to do today.
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Sherlock plays his composition. He scrawls words under the gap he’s left for a title he hasn’t thought of yet: malincolico, patetico (melancholic, with great emotion).
He hears John get out of bed with a sigh.
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The door to 221B opens instantly when John knocks just once, cutting off the Morse code ‘talk to me’ he had been about to tap and scrape.
Sherlock stands there motionless, holding the door and looking more uncertain than John has ever seen him. He won’t meet John’s eyes. Neither of them speaks for a moment.
“I heard you breathing next door,” Sherlock says eventually. “I knew you were home.”
John adds ‘hearing’ to the plus side on his mental list of Sherlock’s suspected vampiric strengths and weaknesses. He adds ‘listens to me breathing’ to the list of things about Sherlock that creep him out.
“I was excluded,” John explains, “for hitting Moriarty.”
Sherlock nods, eyes still downcast.
John dips his head down to catch Sherlock’s gaze, then raises his head again with Sherlock following and reluctantly making eye contact. “May I come in?” John’s voice only shakes a little as he asks.
“Of course.” Sherlock steps back to pull the door wide open.
There’s a small tendril of dread poking icily at his stomach as John walks in and Sherlock closes the door behind them. He’s trapped here with a vampire, oh God, how stupid can you get?
Sherlock walks past him then, a pained, bitter smile on his face. “I’m not going to hurt you, John.”
He goes through the inner door to the flat and, watching John through the pane of glass, closes it so that John cannot follow.
“Maybe you’ll feel safer this way,” he says forlornly, tracing a finger over the patterns in the glass.
John goes up to the door and lays his left hand against the window. “Can you read minds?” he asks, hurt that Sherlock felt the need to put a barrier between them and shut him out. He’s not that afraid of him. Not really, not now.
Sherlock splays his right hand over the glass, over John’s. Their hands don’t match through the window - John has broader palms and Sherlock has longer fingers.
“No,” Sherlock says, “but I can read faces. And I can hear when your heart rate increases in fear.”
Another one for the list. “Are you a vampire?”
Sherlock looks down and moves his hand.
Don’t lie to me, please, John thinks. He moves his hand to meet Sherlock’s again, pressing their fingertips together.
The glass isn’t as cold as he knows Sherlock’s skin to be.
“I need blood to live, yes.”
John lets that sink in. “So are you… are you dead? Undead? How old are you, really?”
The lightbulb above them flickers and Sherlock’s fingers tap out a short rhythm on the glass as he thinks about his answer. John copies the rhythm, softer, quieter.
“I’m conscious,” Sherlock says with a small shrug of one shoulder. “I move, respire, react to my environment… I miss a few of the basic life processes, but I think I qualify as ‘alive’. And I’m thirteen, like I told you.” A rueful smile, and his hand drops to his side. “But I have been thirteen for longer than is naturally possible.”
The door opens with a creak and Sherlock beckons John into the rest of the flat.
Artificial light is the only source of luminance in the place. All of the windows are completely blocked out with wood and cardboard. The first room they enter is obviously meant to be the sitting room, although it’s hard to tell from the distinct lack of furniture. Whatever havoc Sherlock wreaked last night, it has been cleared away since. There are a few boxes piled up in the corners, not yet unpacked. The carpet is a dull, faded green colour and borders (dull, faded) cream linoleum as the sitting room runs into the kitchen. Said kitchen is clean and looks like it has barely been used. A large fridge is the focus of the room, and John wonders what might be in it, shuddering at the images of dismembered body parts that come to mind.
John and Sherlock stand awkwardly near the doorway and listen to the fridge hum. Sherlock’s stomach rumbles in the near-silence.
“The blood, do you…” John breaks off, unable to say it.
“I don’t drink from living people now,” Sherlock answers his question anyway. “Mrs Hudson was taking donated blood from the hospital to sustain me,” his eyelashes flutter as he looks down and away, “but she’s not here anymore.”
“Who is she?”
“She was my nanny, from before. Mine and Mycroft’s, until I… changed, and then Mycroft had her sacked to stop her finding out my secret. After what happened to my last guardian though, she came back onto Mycroft’s radar and he thought her job and our history made her an appropriate successor.”
“Mycroft’s your older brother, right? Is he like you?”
“No. He’s nearly forty now. We used to be only seven years apart. And I thought that was a big age gap.” Sherlock laughs mirthlessly.
“Did you use to?”
Sherlock frowns. “Did I use to what?”
“Drink blood from living people? You said you don’t now. What about before?”
Sherlock’s eyes go to the mantelpiece and alight on the skull that sits on top of it. John’s eyes follow, and he flinches when he sees the skull.
“An old friend,” Sherlock says, nodding at the mantelpiece. “That’s Victor. He used to procure blood for me before Mrs Hudson. Through more… morally dubious means.”
“Jesus, what happened to him?”
“He got caught,” Sherlock says dispassionately, “but he did have the best taste in coats. I assume you’ve noticed mine is too big for me.”
“You kept his coat?”
“He left it to me.”
“What about his skull?”
“A keepsake. A memento, a reminder,” Sherlock lists the words angrily, raging at himself. “It’s sentiment, isn’t that right?”
John points at the skull, wide-eyed in disbelief. “No, Sherlock, that is not sentiment.”
Sherlock ignores him, mumbling to himself. “I don’t have anything of Mrs Hudson’s, not even her brooch. The hospital must have that, somewhere. Perhaps I can ask Mycroft... And I suppose you’re going to leave me now, too.”
“What?”
Sherlock looks up at John’s face. “You,” Sherlock says. “You’re going to leave me… no, I’ll have to leave you. Yes, of course, I’ll have to move on, like I always do.”
He’s talking to himself again. John crosses his arms, holds onto himself tightly to keep from falling apart.
“I can’t-” he starts and then stops, shaking his head. “I can’t deal with this right now, Sherlock, I want to go home.”
Sherlock, who is standing between John and the door, doesn’t move.
“I want to go home,” John repeats, moving into Sherlock’s personal space and drawing himself up to his full height, still a few inches shorter than Sherlock. “If you’ll let me.”
Sherlock instantly begins to move out of John’s way, but John still pushes past him in his haste to escape.
“I was right,” Sherlock says behind him, quiet and subdued. “I’m always right.”
John is nearly at the front door, but he has to turn and ask before he leaves, he has to. “What about?”
“I told you we couldn’t be friends.”
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Sherlock’s parting words follow John around for the rest of the day. He skips lunch and only picks at his food in the evening, listless and distracted.
“What’s eating you?” Harry asks from across the table.
John wants to laugh for the first time that day, and so he does.
Harry rolls her eyes, calls him a freak, and resumes her meal.
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The knock comes after dark the next day. It’s not altogether unexpected, but it is later in the day than John had thought it would be. When he thinks about it as he goes to get the door though, he remembers that his flat isn’t sun-proof like Sherlock’s, so it makes sense for him to come later. So many things make sense now.
Luckily, it’s a night John has to himself - his mum works a late shift in the petrol station on a Tuesday and Harry goes to kick-boxing and then stays at Clara’s. Considering how much Sherlock can deduce about people from what seems to be very insignificant evidence, John wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Sherlock was aware of these family quirks when he planned the visit.
John opens the door warily, and finds a bedraggled-looking Sherlock on the threshold. The deep blue of Sherlock’s shirt is a marked contrast to the lack of colour in his face, framed by lank, untamed curls. His skin is wan and seems almost translucent under the stark strip-lighting of the corridor.
“May I come in?” he asks.
Jaw set, John grips the door handle in his clammy fist and opens the door wider in invitation.
“You have to say it, John.”
“What if I don’t?” John asks him. “Is there a barrier you can’t cross?” He pokes the air in front of himself.
“Please, just say it.” Sherlock sounds tired and strained. Good, John thinks, so I’m not the only one.
“No, I want to know: what happens? Tell me. I’m fed up with your secrets and your mysteries, Sherlock.”
“You want to know?” Sherlock is getting angry now, John can tell. His pale lips have thinned and his eyes are bright and sharp.
“I just said so, didn’t I?”
John pulls the door fully open as a challenge. Sherlock strides in with his head held high, passes John in the entrance and turns to face him. He stands still, like he’s waiting for something.
“What?” John asks.
“You wanted to know, and I’m showing you.”
So John watches. As he does, some of the righteous anger seems to leave Sherlock and he begins to just look sad again, from the vulnerable hunch of his shoulders to his limp hands at his sides. His eyes are still bright, but they’re soft around the edges now.
“Invite me in, John,” he pleads.
“I want to know what happens,” John says, but he’s less firm than before in the face of Sherlock’s dismay.
There’s something martyr-like in Sherlock’s expression as he stands there, just waiting. John holds his breath without realising it.
The blood comes from his scalp first.
Sherlock manages not to wince as the cut opens on the back of his head, out of John’s line of sight, and the blood runs down through his hair, down the nape of his neck, down under the collar of his shirt.
It’s beginning.
“Please, John,” Sherlock whispers.
John wants to give in at that, but he’s curious, and he’s still angry, he’s still hurt because he’s been lied to. He still wants to know if there was anything real about their friendship, and he’s starting to think that this is possibly the most real he has seen Sherlock in all their time together. So he says nothing and folds his arms, drawing no comfort from the gesture.
The blood comes from Sherlock’s nose next.
“Sherlock, you-”
Sherlock shakes his head, and a bloody tear leaks out of his right eye. A matching trail escapes his left eye a moment later.
Blood drips out of his ears, down his forehead, sliding wet and hot along his cheeks and jaw.
Several cuts form on his chest and his shirt is soon soaked with blood.
John can only watch with mounting panic.
Sherlock opens his mouth to speak and scarlet dribbles from his lips instead of words, and it’s this that breaks John out of his horrified fugue state.
“Stop,” he cries, reaching out to take Sherlock’s shoulders in his hands. They’re moist and slippery with blood as he gives him a small shake. “Stop!”
Sherlock tries to speak again and more blood comes out. His forehead slices open and John realises with a jolt what Sherlock is trying to say, what he needs to say.
“You can come in,” he gasps out in desperation. “I invite you in, Sherlock. Please- you can come in! Stop.”
And it does stop then. The cuts close immediately, and Sherlock sags under John’s hands. The trails of blood remain, a grotesque reminder of what has just happened, Sherlock’s alabaster skin streaked and stained with crimson.
John sighs out his relief and uses his grip on Sherlock’s shoulders to gather him close to his chest in an embrace. His heart races, and he’s trembling just as much as Sherlock is in his arms.
“Why did you come in?” he asks, tightening his hold as Sherlock falters and falls against him, feeble as a kitten.
“I knew you wouldn’t let it go too far,” Sherlock mumbles the reply, voice thready and hushed. “I know you, John, you’re too good to let me die.”
John hides his face in Sherlock’s neck when tears blur his vision.
“What was that?” he asks. “Why did it happen?”
Sherlock clenches a hand in the back of John’s jumper to stop it from shaking. “I don’t know, I just… don’t know.”
They cling together like that for too long, standing in a pool of Sherlock’s blood in John’s hallway.
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In the shower, the white shampoo lather turns rust-coloured as Sherlock washes his matted, sticky hair. He moves under the scalding spray with his eyes shut and doesn’t look down at the blood as it washes away down the drain.
He uses John’s shower gel and smiles at the familiar scent of lime that lingers after he gets out of the shower, wrapping himself in a large, white towel. He sniffs his own arm, pleased to find he smells like John.
His smile sours when he remembers he won’t stay smelling pleasant for long if he doesn’t feed.
He can hear John puttering about in the kitchen and living room, heartbeat placid and calm. Sherlock closes his eyes, swaying slightly on the spot as he listens, intent on that steady rhythm, trying to pick up on any subtle nuances to it.
There are none, because John is healthy. John is fine. Sherlock opens his eyes again, satisfied.
He leaves the bathroom in a cloud of steam, covered from neck to toe in the towel. He finds John in the kitchen, putting Sherlock’s ruined shirt and trousers and - so that’s why John is blushing - underwear into a black plastic bag.
John turns at the sound of Sherlock’s approach and laughs fondly at the sight of him: the littlest vampire all wrapped up in a fluffy towel, damp hair plastered to his head and just starting to curl at the ends.
“You can borrow some of my clothes,” John says, drawing nearer to Sherlock to lay a hand on his arm and turn him in the direction of the right bedroom.
Sherlock doesn’t say “thank you”. He’s going to look ridiculous in one of John’s jumpers.
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It’s just a moment of innocent adolescent curiosity, just a quick glimpse.
A quick, stolen glimpse through the door that Sherlock had left slightly ajar when he went to dress in some of John’s clothes.
When John looks through the crack in the door, Sherlock is wrapped in the towel still, contemplating the jumper on the bed. He’s selected and laid out one of John’s knitted jumpers, the beige one that John had been wearing the night after they first met. The first thing Sherlock had seen him in besides his school uniform.
With his back to John, Sherlock sheds the towel with a fluid movement of his shoulders, and John sees a body not entirely unlike his own, really. Head, back, arms, waist, legs, feet. (John skips over the middle bit quickly in embarrassment.)
Of course, Sherlock is different from him in superficial ways: fair skin dotted with sparse freckles and moles where John’s is lightly tanned and mostly unmarked, slender and bony where John is shorter and sturdy. He’s not powerfully built like Moran, Sherlock’s strength lies in his grace - he’s built to be agile like a runner, not a brutal like a fighter.
Sherlock turns around and John ducks back from the door, face burning with shame. He’s seen too much.
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“There’s a research facility,” Sherlock waves a hand, “all very top secret, Mycroft is heavily involved, naturally. They’re looking into a cure.”
John, curled up on the sofa next to him, gapes.
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Oh, I should probably mention: I’m not the world’s only vampire.”
“Never said you were.” John pauses, thinking about his next question. “Are they close to finding one? A cure, I mean.”
“Not right now.”
They lapse into silence, content and companionable rather than awkward. John smiles at nothing in particular.
Sherlock is clean and comfortable in his borrowed clothing, though the jumper is too short in the arms and the jeans equally too short for his legs.
The blood in the hallway has been mopped up and no evidence remains. John has never been more thankful that they never got around to carpeting that bit of the flat.
“You’ll make a good doctor, John,” Sherlock says all of a sudden.
John doesn’t know what to say. Direct compliments from Sherlock are not something he is entirely used to. “I… um, thank you.”
He thinks of his future, his plans. All of them until now had involved becoming a doctor or joining the army. Often both.
Nowhere in this picture did a permanently 13 year old vampire fit in. The thought makes John feel anxious, and he reaches out to clutch at Sherlock’s hand.
“You’ll always be my friend,” he says, trying not to make it too obviously a question.
Sherlock smiles, but it doesn’t look entirely happy. “I said I would be.”
John wants to say more, but there’s the sound of a key turning in the lock and shit, he’s lost track of time.
“My mum!” he whispers, but Sherlock is already up and heading for John’s bedroom.
John chases after him, just getting out of the living room in time before the front door opens.
In his bedroom, Sherlock is nowhere to be found. From the cold air that’s coming in, there’s only one way he can have gone.
John goes to the window and plants his palms on his desk as he leans forward to look out. Sherlock is crouching on the windowsill outside his own bedroom, grinning widely. John can’t help the small giggle that bursts out of his mouth and he claps a hand over it. It sets Sherlock off, quietly snickering as he opens his window and climbs back into 221B. His head pops out again instantly after, still laughing.
Their mirth dies down and they end up just looking at each other for a short time.
Sherlock’s lingering smirk turns into a genuine smile. “Goodnight, John,” he calls across from his window.
“Night, Sherlock.”
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Sherlock plays an imaginary symphony that night to the tempo of John’s heart while John sleeps on next door, unaware.
He continues to listen to the steady rhythm he’d been using as his metronome for a long time afterwards, and then calls Mycroft.
“I need you to come get me,” is what he opens with.
“It’s nearly four in the morning, Sherlock,” is the weary reply. Sherlock would ordinarily feel a spark of vindictive pleasure at waking his brother, but it’s just not there tonight. “And I’m busy for the remainder of the week. I’m not at your beck and call.”
Sherlock grits his teeth. “Fine, Monday evening then. I want to go back into the research programme.”
“You mean you’re willing to ‘be their guinea pig’ now? Whatever could have changed your mind?”
Sherlock closes his eyes. That smug bastard, he knows about John somehow, of course he does.
A heavy sigh from Mycroft. “I’ll be there after dark on Tuesday,” he says, and hangs up.
Good, Sherlock thinks, that’s… good. And yet, it feels like the one outcome he didn’t want.
Moving on was always on the agenda. It has to be, for him.
He’s getting nowhere with the Carl Powers case because he looks like a child trying to do an adult’s job, so there’s no point staying for that. The only thing worth staying for now is John, but John has plans. John has a future that doesn’t include Sherlock. Not as he is currently. Not like this.
He knows he’s played at this for too long - this isn’t something he can have.
John -
I must be gone and live,
or stay and die,
but do believe that I am
(and shall remain)
very sincerely yours.
- Sherlock Holmes
It’s the same note, the very same one. John takes the pin out of the door to 221B, takes the scrap of paper off the pin with shaking fingers, pricking himself as he does. Sure enough, the music is there on the back. Sherlock must have taken the note off his desk the night before when he climbed out the window.
John knocks on the door for a fifth time, then pounds his fist against the wood over and over, only stopping when a neighbour shouts at him from inside her flat.
Putting his back to the door, John lets himself slide down against it until he hits the ground. The note flutters out of his numb fingers.
Sherlock is gone.
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On the other side of the door, only necessity keeps Sherlock silent, when all he wants to do is break everything that is still whole in the flat.
It’s better to cut John off entirely while he waits for Mycroft. If he sees him again, he might change his mind.
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John is beyond glad to get back to school on Monday. The last few days of his suspension had been unbearable: alone with himself and his thoughts about what it was that he said, what he did, that made Sherlock leave.
He’s read that note so many times that the ink is starting to fade from where his fingers have touched it, trying to find some hidden meaning.
I must be gone and live or stay and die.
Would it really have killed Sherlock to stay with him?
He misses half of his lessons in a distracted daze, he forgets to leave the classroom during breaktime. The only thing that brings him back to life is when he has to go out onto the field at lunchtime and sees Moriarty with a bandage over his ear.
John scurries past him, not making eye contact. He can still feel Moran’s vengeful eyes on his back as he goes.
The confidence he felt that previous Monday is gone, and John feels more despondent, more fearful than ever. They’re going to hurt him and he knows it. It’s going to be bad this time, something to make sure he never forgets his place.
A Rubik’s cube in one pocket and the Swiss Army knife in the other.
He’s back to square one.
It’s worse than that even, because he can remember a time when he felt something besides hopeless. He remembers feeling happy.
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“All right, lads, listen up!” Mr Wiltshire yells over the raucous chatter in the boys’ changing room. “The leisure centre is open again now the police are done with their investigations, so that means monthly swimming is back on, starting tomorrow, first thing!”
A chorus of groaning and mumbled dissent from the assembled boys.
“I know, but if you fall in a river and drown,” Wiltshire continues, “at least it won’t be my fault.”
“Looking forward to it, sir,” pipes up Moriarty, sat on one of the benches while his mates stand around him. He looks like a king on a throne, minions and guards all set to do his bidding.
“That’s a good lad, Jim,” Wiltshire says, casting a glare at the opposite side of the room where John sits, trying to make himself look as small as possible. “Good to see you back on your feet.”
John looks up and sees Moriarty smirk. “Yes, sir, thank you. It’s good to be back with all my friends.”
The smirk gets turned in John’s direction. John almost bares his teeth in return, before he remembers the fact that he can’t say “all my friends” the way Moriarty can. He’s got nothing, and that makes him vulnerable. He doesn’t need to call attention to himself right now, he needs to keep his head down and survive.
“Watson, stop dawdling over there and get out to the field,” Wiltshire barks. “I don’t want to see you in here when I get back to lock up.”
John does what he has to - he gets his head down and gets on. “Yes, sir.”
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Sherlock hates Mycroft’s car. He hates how polished it is, he hates the fact that it smells like money, and he hates that Mycroft has a chauffeur, giving him free reign to sit in the back with his younger brother and gloat.
Mycroft sits primly, back straight and legs crossed. By contrast, Sherlock lounges against the leather seats, periodically pushing himself back up when he slides down too far.
“I did warn you, Sherlock.”
Sherlock ignores him. In the thirty years they’ve been brothers, Sherlock has been thirteen years old for over half of them. He’s justified in his petulant ways.
Sighing at Sherlock’s lack of response, Mycroft dips a hand into his suit jacket to pull out something that glints, something that probably contains jewels, because it casts little rainbows on the car door where Sherlock has been resolutely staring. Sherlock is interested despite himself and looks towards Mycroft’s hand, curiosity overcoming his desire not to appear so.
“What have I told you about sentiment? Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.”
Mycroft turns the object over in his hands, holds it up to the light and examines it as though it contains the mysteries of the universe. It’s Mrs Hudson’s brooch, Sherlock realises. Typical Mycroft, always one step ahead.
“Give it to me,” Sherlock demands.
“I wonder, what will you take from the next person after I find you a new… situation?”
Nothing, Sherlock thinks firmly. He will take nothing because he will require nothing. He will form no attachment to any living soul he meets from this day on. Nor to any dead soul for that matter, although he’s always been detached when it comes to the victims of the puzzles he solves…
Puzzles. The Rubik’s cube. He’d meant to take it back before leaving Baker Street Court but hadn’t found it on John’s desk the night before, suspecting then that John must actually carry it on his person.
He thinks about telling Mycroft they have to turn around and go back, thinks about stealing into John’s room and taking something, anything, any item so that he can delete (never delete, only store) what he doesn’t need, but keep a focus for the memories in case he should want them back, a tactile object to bury them in.
He has nothing of John’s. How could he forget to take something?
Sentiment.
Did he forget at all? Or did he purposely ‘forget’ so this would happen? So he would have a reason to go back?
He can’t. Not now. He can’t tell Mycroft they have to return, because then Mycroft will know and Sherlock couldn’t stand that.
“Are you going to answer me?” Mycroft’s voice cuts into his thoughts.
Sherlock scowls and looks down at his shoes, still ignoring his brother as he natters on uselessly. He could always use those as the focus, Sherlock supposes, seeing as he still has John’s trainers adorning his feet. He would just loathe using shoes for that particular purpose. Sentiment, again.
He considers the trainers, the mud on the soles so telling of where John has been (and now Sherlock too). There are probably still dead skin cells on the laces…
Shoes. Eczema.
Sherlock sits suddenly upright. “Mycroft, stop talking this instant. We have to go back.”
“Are you going to give me a valid reason, dear brother? One that doesn’t involve this-” Mycroft sniffs haughtily, “this John character?”
“I am,” Sherlock says.
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John hasn’t missed the chlorine. He hasn’t missed the way the pool water stings his eyes and his nose. He hasn’t missed the way he has to discard most of his clothes before emerging, exposed and vulnerable, to swim with classmates who hate him.
He puts his (neatly folded) clothes into a locker with a sigh, placing the Rubik’s cube on top of the pile. Then he thinks better of it and takes it with him instead, something tangible to hold on to if things get unbearable. Just one hour at the pool. He can do an hour, hiding out at the shallow end while Mr Wiltshire focuses on improving the stronger swimmers like he always does. So much for not wanting anyone to fall in a river and drown.
After half an hour, he dares to think he might make it. He hasn’t seen Moriarty at all, and Moran is over with their teacher.
He thinks he’s going to make it.
Some time later, Mr Wiltshire shouts that it’s the end of the lesson and everyone begins to make a move for the showers. A loud scream pierces the air all of a sudden, echoing off the tiled walls of the pool, and Mr Wiltshire starts running in the direction of the changing rooms.
John moves to get out too, placing the Rubik’s cube on the edge of the pool so he can plant both hands on either side of it and pull himself out.
A foot across his left hand stops him. John cries out in pain as the shoe grinds down over his knuckles. It’s an expensive, Italian leather shoe. One of a pair that no one in their school can afford except for one person.
“That’ll be Sebastian, providing a distraction for our beloved Coach.”
John looks up at Moriarty’s face, watches him bend down to pick up the Rubik’s cube. The grin he’s sporting makes John feel sick.
“What’s this, then?” Moriarty asks in that lilting voice of his, the one that’s soft on the surface, concealing a deeper layer of menace - a layer you’d only find if you already knew it existed.
“It’s mine, give it back.”
John makes a grab for the cube, splashing water over Moriarty who straightens up and moves back a pace, huffing in irritation. As Moriarty stands - fully clothed, dry, looming over him - John feels incredibly small and insignificant in the pool.
“Ah, ah,” Moriarty says, wagging a mocking finger at him with one hand, testing the weight of the cube in the other. “It’s rude to snatch.”
John glares at him in silence.
“So, it’s important to you,” Moriarty continues. “A token from the boyfriend? He can’t be imaginary if he gives you gifts now, can he?”
“Give it back.”
Moriarty purses his mouth in an exaggerated pout. “Hmm, no. I think I’d like to hang on to it for now. You’ve been carrying it around like some good luck charm; I want to see if it brings me any luck. You’ll get it back, say… tonight? If you meet me here at eight thirty, we’ll play a little game so you can win it back.”
“I’m not stupid,” John says. “I know your game, what makes you think I’ll play?”
“Eight thirty, John, or your trinket here?” Moriarty moves the cube as if to toss it over his shoulder. “It’ll be gone for good. And I know it’s something you want to get back. Desperately.”
He walks away then, leaving John to drag himself out of the pool with trembling limbs.
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Sneaking out, as usual, had been no bother.
As John walks briskly through the streets (the snow mostly melted, grey sludge everywhere) towards the pool, he’s not feeling afraid.
He knows that Moriarty wants to play a ‘game’, and he knows the aim of the game will be to hurt him as revenge for Moriarty’s ear. But what does it matter if someone hurts him? There’s no one to care, now.
He’s got his knife in his pocket, anyway. He’s pretty sure he’s going to use it tonight, if only to make this all stop.
But he’s not here to hurt anyone, not really. He just needs that Rubik’s cube back, he can’t lose it. He can’t lose that memory. It’s already starting to feel like he might have dreamt Sherlock - a vampire boy who wanted to be John’s friend. Everything about him is impossible. But John can’t have made him up, surely.
He walks into the swimming pool with his head up, chin tilted in defiance, and goes to play the game.
Part 5
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John; Mrs Hudson, Mycroft, Lestrade, Moriarty, Moran & other various Sherlock characters plus minor OCs
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: Violence, blood/gore, minor character death, bullying, homophobia, allusions to eating disorders
Notes: For sherlockbigbang 2012! Massive thanks to harlequinehands for creating such a beautiful piece of artwork for this undeserving fic, to a8c_sock for being a brilliant mod and friend and to everyone else who has helped me out with it, including my extremely helpful beta circ_bamboo (any mistakes that remain are my own), and my lovely cheerleader paintedame, and thanks also to my unofficial cheerleaders along the way (you know who you are, if I mention you all this will end up like an awards ceremony and someone will tell me to sit down)
Summary: Sherlock/Let The Right One In Fusion (knowledge of film/book not needed). John Watson is an isolated thirteen year old boy: he’s got a distant mother, a resentful older sister, and a sadistic bully at school called Moriarty who’s got it in for him. When Sherlock Holmes moves in next door, he and John form a rapid, intense friendship based on their mutual loneliness. Unfortunately for John, Sherlock has issues that go much deeper than loneliness.
“I need blood to live, yes.”
John lets that sink in. “So are you… are you dead? Undead? How old are you, really?”
The lightbulb above them flickers and Sherlock’s fingers tap out a short rhythm on the glass as he thinks about his answer. John copies the rhythm, softer, quieter.
“I’m conscious,” Sherlock says with a small shrug of one shoulder. “I move, respire, react to my environment… I miss a few of the basic life processes, but I think I qualify as ‘alive’. And I’m thirteen, like I told you.” A rueful smile, and his hand drops to his side. “But I have been thirteen for longer than is naturally possible.”
Disclaimer: This is the bit where they make me say I don't own anything. Sherlock is the property of the BBC, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and, of course, the one and only Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Let The Right One In belongs to John Ajvide Lindqvist
Word Count: ~28,500
On AO3
The stunning artwork of harlequinehands can be found here. Please go and lavish praise on her for her fantastic work.
In the morning, John wakes to find his mother sat at the end of his bed. He rubs his eyes and sits up. He must have finally dozed off at some point, but it’s the first day of his suspension, so his lack of sleep hardly matters.
“I have to take Harry to school and go to work now, John,” his mother says, taking down her ponytail and re-tying it with an expression of dissatisfaction.
John says nothing. Next door, all is silent.
“Remember the rules for when you’re here on your own,” she continues. “Don’t go out, and if anyone knocks at the door, don’t answer.”
She stands up, straightening her Sainsbury’s polo shirt and grumbling about ‘bloody social workers’, and then she leaves without saying goodbye.
John looks at his alarm clock, 07:35. He rolls onto his front, presses his face against the pillow with a low groan and wills himself to go back to sleep.
There is nothing else for him to do today.
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Sherlock plays his composition. He scrawls words under the gap he’s left for a title he hasn’t thought of yet: malincolico, patetico (melancholic, with great emotion).
He hears John get out of bed with a sigh.
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The door to 221B opens instantly when John knocks just once, cutting off the Morse code ‘talk to me’ he had been about to tap and scrape.
Sherlock stands there motionless, holding the door and looking more uncertain than John has ever seen him. He won’t meet John’s eyes. Neither of them speaks for a moment.
“I heard you breathing next door,” Sherlock says eventually. “I knew you were home.”
John adds ‘hearing’ to the plus side on his mental list of Sherlock’s suspected vampiric strengths and weaknesses. He adds ‘listens to me breathing’ to the list of things about Sherlock that creep him out.
“I was excluded,” John explains, “for hitting Moriarty.”
Sherlock nods, eyes still downcast.
John dips his head down to catch Sherlock’s gaze, then raises his head again with Sherlock following and reluctantly making eye contact. “May I come in?” John’s voice only shakes a little as he asks.
“Of course.” Sherlock steps back to pull the door wide open.
There’s a small tendril of dread poking icily at his stomach as John walks in and Sherlock closes the door behind them. He’s trapped here with a vampire, oh God, how stupid can you get?
Sherlock walks past him then, a pained, bitter smile on his face. “I’m not going to hurt you, John.”
He goes through the inner door to the flat and, watching John through the pane of glass, closes it so that John cannot follow.
“Maybe you’ll feel safer this way,” he says forlornly, tracing a finger over the patterns in the glass.
John goes up to the door and lays his left hand against the window. “Can you read minds?” he asks, hurt that Sherlock felt the need to put a barrier between them and shut him out. He’s not that afraid of him. Not really, not now.
Sherlock splays his right hand over the glass, over John’s. Their hands don’t match through the window - John has broader palms and Sherlock has longer fingers.
“No,” Sherlock says, “but I can read faces. And I can hear when your heart rate increases in fear.”
Another one for the list. “Are you a vampire?”
Sherlock looks down and moves his hand.
Don’t lie to me, please, John thinks. He moves his hand to meet Sherlock’s again, pressing their fingertips together.
The glass isn’t as cold as he knows Sherlock’s skin to be.
“I need blood to live, yes.”
John lets that sink in. “So are you… are you dead? Undead? How old are you, really?”
The lightbulb above them flickers and Sherlock’s fingers tap out a short rhythm on the glass as he thinks about his answer. John copies the rhythm, softer, quieter.
“I’m conscious,” Sherlock says with a small shrug of one shoulder. “I move, respire, react to my environment… I miss a few of the basic life processes, but I think I qualify as ‘alive’. And I’m thirteen, like I told you.” A rueful smile, and his hand drops to his side. “But I have been thirteen for longer than is naturally possible.”
The door opens with a creak and Sherlock beckons John into the rest of the flat.
Artificial light is the only source of luminance in the place. All of the windows are completely blocked out with wood and cardboard. The first room they enter is obviously meant to be the sitting room, although it’s hard to tell from the distinct lack of furniture. Whatever havoc Sherlock wreaked last night, it has been cleared away since. There are a few boxes piled up in the corners, not yet unpacked. The carpet is a dull, faded green colour and borders (dull, faded) cream linoleum as the sitting room runs into the kitchen. Said kitchen is clean and looks like it has barely been used. A large fridge is the focus of the room, and John wonders what might be in it, shuddering at the images of dismembered body parts that come to mind.
John and Sherlock stand awkwardly near the doorway and listen to the fridge hum. Sherlock’s stomach rumbles in the near-silence.
“The blood, do you…” John breaks off, unable to say it.
“I don’t drink from living people now,” Sherlock answers his question anyway. “Mrs Hudson was taking donated blood from the hospital to sustain me,” his eyelashes flutter as he looks down and away, “but she’s not here anymore.”
“Who is she?”
“She was my nanny, from before. Mine and Mycroft’s, until I… changed, and then Mycroft had her sacked to stop her finding out my secret. After what happened to my last guardian though, she came back onto Mycroft’s radar and he thought her job and our history made her an appropriate successor.”
“Mycroft’s your older brother, right? Is he like you?”
“No. He’s nearly forty now. We used to be only seven years apart. And I thought that was a big age gap.” Sherlock laughs mirthlessly.
“Did you use to?”
Sherlock frowns. “Did I use to what?”
“Drink blood from living people? You said you don’t now. What about before?”
Sherlock’s eyes go to the mantelpiece and alight on the skull that sits on top of it. John’s eyes follow, and he flinches when he sees the skull.
“An old friend,” Sherlock says, nodding at the mantelpiece. “That’s Victor. He used to procure blood for me before Mrs Hudson. Through more… morally dubious means.”
“Jesus, what happened to him?”
“He got caught,” Sherlock says dispassionately, “but he did have the best taste in coats. I assume you’ve noticed mine is too big for me.”
“You kept his coat?”
“He left it to me.”
“What about his skull?”
“A keepsake. A memento, a reminder,” Sherlock lists the words angrily, raging at himself. “It’s sentiment, isn’t that right?”
John points at the skull, wide-eyed in disbelief. “No, Sherlock, that is not sentiment.”
Sherlock ignores him, mumbling to himself. “I don’t have anything of Mrs Hudson’s, not even her brooch. The hospital must have that, somewhere. Perhaps I can ask Mycroft... And I suppose you’re going to leave me now, too.”
“What?”
Sherlock looks up at John’s face. “You,” Sherlock says. “You’re going to leave me… no, I’ll have to leave you. Yes, of course, I’ll have to move on, like I always do.”
He’s talking to himself again. John crosses his arms, holds onto himself tightly to keep from falling apart.
“I can’t-” he starts and then stops, shaking his head. “I can’t deal with this right now, Sherlock, I want to go home.”
Sherlock, who is standing between John and the door, doesn’t move.
“I want to go home,” John repeats, moving into Sherlock’s personal space and drawing himself up to his full height, still a few inches shorter than Sherlock. “If you’ll let me.”
Sherlock instantly begins to move out of John’s way, but John still pushes past him in his haste to escape.
“I was right,” Sherlock says behind him, quiet and subdued. “I’m always right.”
John is nearly at the front door, but he has to turn and ask before he leaves, he has to. “What about?”
“I told you we couldn’t be friends.”
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Sherlock’s parting words follow John around for the rest of the day. He skips lunch and only picks at his food in the evening, listless and distracted.
“What’s eating you?” Harry asks from across the table.
John wants to laugh for the first time that day, and so he does.
Harry rolls her eyes, calls him a freak, and resumes her meal.
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The knock comes after dark the next day. It’s not altogether unexpected, but it is later in the day than John had thought it would be. When he thinks about it as he goes to get the door though, he remembers that his flat isn’t sun-proof like Sherlock’s, so it makes sense for him to come later. So many things make sense now.
Luckily, it’s a night John has to himself - his mum works a late shift in the petrol station on a Tuesday and Harry goes to kick-boxing and then stays at Clara’s. Considering how much Sherlock can deduce about people from what seems to be very insignificant evidence, John wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Sherlock was aware of these family quirks when he planned the visit.
John opens the door warily, and finds a bedraggled-looking Sherlock on the threshold. The deep blue of Sherlock’s shirt is a marked contrast to the lack of colour in his face, framed by lank, untamed curls. His skin is wan and seems almost translucent under the stark strip-lighting of the corridor.
“May I come in?” he asks.
Jaw set, John grips the door handle in his clammy fist and opens the door wider in invitation.
“You have to say it, John.”
“What if I don’t?” John asks him. “Is there a barrier you can’t cross?” He pokes the air in front of himself.
“Please, just say it.” Sherlock sounds tired and strained. Good, John thinks, so I’m not the only one.
“No, I want to know: what happens? Tell me. I’m fed up with your secrets and your mysteries, Sherlock.”
“You want to know?” Sherlock is getting angry now, John can tell. His pale lips have thinned and his eyes are bright and sharp.
“I just said so, didn’t I?”
John pulls the door fully open as a challenge. Sherlock strides in with his head held high, passes John in the entrance and turns to face him. He stands still, like he’s waiting for something.
“What?” John asks.
“You wanted to know, and I’m showing you.”
So John watches. As he does, some of the righteous anger seems to leave Sherlock and he begins to just look sad again, from the vulnerable hunch of his shoulders to his limp hands at his sides. His eyes are still bright, but they’re soft around the edges now.
“Invite me in, John,” he pleads.
“I want to know what happens,” John says, but he’s less firm than before in the face of Sherlock’s dismay.
There’s something martyr-like in Sherlock’s expression as he stands there, just waiting. John holds his breath without realising it.
The blood comes from his scalp first.
Sherlock manages not to wince as the cut opens on the back of his head, out of John’s line of sight, and the blood runs down through his hair, down the nape of his neck, down under the collar of his shirt.
It’s beginning.
“Please, John,” Sherlock whispers.
John wants to give in at that, but he’s curious, and he’s still angry, he’s still hurt because he’s been lied to. He still wants to know if there was anything real about their friendship, and he’s starting to think that this is possibly the most real he has seen Sherlock in all their time together. So he says nothing and folds his arms, drawing no comfort from the gesture.
The blood comes from Sherlock’s nose next.
“Sherlock, you-”
Sherlock shakes his head, and a bloody tear leaks out of his right eye. A matching trail escapes his left eye a moment later.
Blood drips out of his ears, down his forehead, sliding wet and hot along his cheeks and jaw.
Several cuts form on his chest and his shirt is soon soaked with blood.
John can only watch with mounting panic.
Sherlock opens his mouth to speak and scarlet dribbles from his lips instead of words, and it’s this that breaks John out of his horrified fugue state.
“Stop,” he cries, reaching out to take Sherlock’s shoulders in his hands. They’re moist and slippery with blood as he gives him a small shake. “Stop!”
Sherlock tries to speak again and more blood comes out. His forehead slices open and John realises with a jolt what Sherlock is trying to say, what he needs to say.
“You can come in,” he gasps out in desperation. “I invite you in, Sherlock. Please- you can come in! Stop.”
And it does stop then. The cuts close immediately, and Sherlock sags under John’s hands. The trails of blood remain, a grotesque reminder of what has just happened, Sherlock’s alabaster skin streaked and stained with crimson.
John sighs out his relief and uses his grip on Sherlock’s shoulders to gather him close to his chest in an embrace. His heart races, and he’s trembling just as much as Sherlock is in his arms.
“Why did you come in?” he asks, tightening his hold as Sherlock falters and falls against him, feeble as a kitten.
“I knew you wouldn’t let it go too far,” Sherlock mumbles the reply, voice thready and hushed. “I know you, John, you’re too good to let me die.”
John hides his face in Sherlock’s neck when tears blur his vision.
“What was that?” he asks. “Why did it happen?”
Sherlock clenches a hand in the back of John’s jumper to stop it from shaking. “I don’t know, I just… don’t know.”
They cling together like that for too long, standing in a pool of Sherlock’s blood in John’s hallway.
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In the shower, the white shampoo lather turns rust-coloured as Sherlock washes his matted, sticky hair. He moves under the scalding spray with his eyes shut and doesn’t look down at the blood as it washes away down the drain.
He uses John’s shower gel and smiles at the familiar scent of lime that lingers after he gets out of the shower, wrapping himself in a large, white towel. He sniffs his own arm, pleased to find he smells like John.
His smile sours when he remembers he won’t stay smelling pleasant for long if he doesn’t feed.
He can hear John puttering about in the kitchen and living room, heartbeat placid and calm. Sherlock closes his eyes, swaying slightly on the spot as he listens, intent on that steady rhythm, trying to pick up on any subtle nuances to it.
There are none, because John is healthy. John is fine. Sherlock opens his eyes again, satisfied.
He leaves the bathroom in a cloud of steam, covered from neck to toe in the towel. He finds John in the kitchen, putting Sherlock’s ruined shirt and trousers and - so that’s why John is blushing - underwear into a black plastic bag.
John turns at the sound of Sherlock’s approach and laughs fondly at the sight of him: the littlest vampire all wrapped up in a fluffy towel, damp hair plastered to his head and just starting to curl at the ends.
“You can borrow some of my clothes,” John says, drawing nearer to Sherlock to lay a hand on his arm and turn him in the direction of the right bedroom.
Sherlock doesn’t say “thank you”. He’s going to look ridiculous in one of John’s jumpers.
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It’s just a moment of innocent adolescent curiosity, just a quick glimpse.
A quick, stolen glimpse through the door that Sherlock had left slightly ajar when he went to dress in some of John’s clothes.
When John looks through the crack in the door, Sherlock is wrapped in the towel still, contemplating the jumper on the bed. He’s selected and laid out one of John’s knitted jumpers, the beige one that John had been wearing the night after they first met. The first thing Sherlock had seen him in besides his school uniform.
With his back to John, Sherlock sheds the towel with a fluid movement of his shoulders, and John sees a body not entirely unlike his own, really. Head, back, arms, waist, legs, feet. (John skips over the middle bit quickly in embarrassment.)
Of course, Sherlock is different from him in superficial ways: fair skin dotted with sparse freckles and moles where John’s is lightly tanned and mostly unmarked, slender and bony where John is shorter and sturdy. He’s not powerfully built like Moran, Sherlock’s strength lies in his grace - he’s built to be agile like a runner, not a brutal like a fighter.
Sherlock turns around and John ducks back from the door, face burning with shame. He’s seen too much.
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“There’s a research facility,” Sherlock waves a hand, “all very top secret, Mycroft is heavily involved, naturally. They’re looking into a cure.”
John, curled up on the sofa next to him, gapes.
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Oh, I should probably mention: I’m not the world’s only vampire.”
“Never said you were.” John pauses, thinking about his next question. “Are they close to finding one? A cure, I mean.”
“Not right now.”
They lapse into silence, content and companionable rather than awkward. John smiles at nothing in particular.
Sherlock is clean and comfortable in his borrowed clothing, though the jumper is too short in the arms and the jeans equally too short for his legs.
The blood in the hallway has been mopped up and no evidence remains. John has never been more thankful that they never got around to carpeting that bit of the flat.
“You’ll make a good doctor, John,” Sherlock says all of a sudden.
John doesn’t know what to say. Direct compliments from Sherlock are not something he is entirely used to. “I… um, thank you.”
He thinks of his future, his plans. All of them until now had involved becoming a doctor or joining the army. Often both.
Nowhere in this picture did a permanently 13 year old vampire fit in. The thought makes John feel anxious, and he reaches out to clutch at Sherlock’s hand.
“You’ll always be my friend,” he says, trying not to make it too obviously a question.
Sherlock smiles, but it doesn’t look entirely happy. “I said I would be.”
John wants to say more, but there’s the sound of a key turning in the lock and shit, he’s lost track of time.
“My mum!” he whispers, but Sherlock is already up and heading for John’s bedroom.
John chases after him, just getting out of the living room in time before the front door opens.
In his bedroom, Sherlock is nowhere to be found. From the cold air that’s coming in, there’s only one way he can have gone.
John goes to the window and plants his palms on his desk as he leans forward to look out. Sherlock is crouching on the windowsill outside his own bedroom, grinning widely. John can’t help the small giggle that bursts out of his mouth and he claps a hand over it. It sets Sherlock off, quietly snickering as he opens his window and climbs back into 221B. His head pops out again instantly after, still laughing.
Their mirth dies down and they end up just looking at each other for a short time.
Sherlock’s lingering smirk turns into a genuine smile. “Goodnight, John,” he calls across from his window.
“Night, Sherlock.”
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Sherlock plays an imaginary symphony that night to the tempo of John’s heart while John sleeps on next door, unaware.
He continues to listen to the steady rhythm he’d been using as his metronome for a long time afterwards, and then calls Mycroft.
“I need you to come get me,” is what he opens with.
“It’s nearly four in the morning, Sherlock,” is the weary reply. Sherlock would ordinarily feel a spark of vindictive pleasure at waking his brother, but it’s just not there tonight. “And I’m busy for the remainder of the week. I’m not at your beck and call.”
Sherlock grits his teeth. “Fine, Monday evening then. I want to go back into the research programme.”
“You mean you’re willing to ‘be their guinea pig’ now? Whatever could have changed your mind?”
Sherlock closes his eyes. That smug bastard, he knows about John somehow, of course he does.
A heavy sigh from Mycroft. “I’ll be there after dark on Tuesday,” he says, and hangs up.
Good, Sherlock thinks, that’s… good. And yet, it feels like the one outcome he didn’t want.
Moving on was always on the agenda. It has to be, for him.
He’s getting nowhere with the Carl Powers case because he looks like a child trying to do an adult’s job, so there’s no point staying for that. The only thing worth staying for now is John, but John has plans. John has a future that doesn’t include Sherlock. Not as he is currently. Not like this.
He knows he’s played at this for too long - this isn’t something he can have.
John -
I must be gone and live,
or stay and die,
but do believe that I am
(and shall remain)
very sincerely yours.
- Sherlock Holmes
It’s the same note, the very same one. John takes the pin out of the door to 221B, takes the scrap of paper off the pin with shaking fingers, pricking himself as he does. Sure enough, the music is there on the back. Sherlock must have taken the note off his desk the night before when he climbed out the window.
John knocks on the door for a fifth time, then pounds his fist against the wood over and over, only stopping when a neighbour shouts at him from inside her flat.
Putting his back to the door, John lets himself slide down against it until he hits the ground. The note flutters out of his numb fingers.
Sherlock is gone.
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On the other side of the door, only necessity keeps Sherlock silent, when all he wants to do is break everything that is still whole in the flat.
It’s better to cut John off entirely while he waits for Mycroft. If he sees him again, he might change his mind.
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John is beyond glad to get back to school on Monday. The last few days of his suspension had been unbearable: alone with himself and his thoughts about what it was that he said, what he did, that made Sherlock leave.
He’s read that note so many times that the ink is starting to fade from where his fingers have touched it, trying to find some hidden meaning.
I must be gone and live or stay and die.
Would it really have killed Sherlock to stay with him?
He misses half of his lessons in a distracted daze, he forgets to leave the classroom during breaktime. The only thing that brings him back to life is when he has to go out onto the field at lunchtime and sees Moriarty with a bandage over his ear.
John scurries past him, not making eye contact. He can still feel Moran’s vengeful eyes on his back as he goes.
The confidence he felt that previous Monday is gone, and John feels more despondent, more fearful than ever. They’re going to hurt him and he knows it. It’s going to be bad this time, something to make sure he never forgets his place.
A Rubik’s cube in one pocket and the Swiss Army knife in the other.
He’s back to square one.
It’s worse than that even, because he can remember a time when he felt something besides hopeless. He remembers feeling happy.
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“All right, lads, listen up!” Mr Wiltshire yells over the raucous chatter in the boys’ changing room. “The leisure centre is open again now the police are done with their investigations, so that means monthly swimming is back on, starting tomorrow, first thing!”
A chorus of groaning and mumbled dissent from the assembled boys.
“I know, but if you fall in a river and drown,” Wiltshire continues, “at least it won’t be my fault.”
“Looking forward to it, sir,” pipes up Moriarty, sat on one of the benches while his mates stand around him. He looks like a king on a throne, minions and guards all set to do his bidding.
“That’s a good lad, Jim,” Wiltshire says, casting a glare at the opposite side of the room where John sits, trying to make himself look as small as possible. “Good to see you back on your feet.”
John looks up and sees Moriarty smirk. “Yes, sir, thank you. It’s good to be back with all my friends.”
The smirk gets turned in John’s direction. John almost bares his teeth in return, before he remembers the fact that he can’t say “all my friends” the way Moriarty can. He’s got nothing, and that makes him vulnerable. He doesn’t need to call attention to himself right now, he needs to keep his head down and survive.
“Watson, stop dawdling over there and get out to the field,” Wiltshire barks. “I don’t want to see you in here when I get back to lock up.”
John does what he has to - he gets his head down and gets on. “Yes, sir.”
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Sherlock hates Mycroft’s car. He hates how polished it is, he hates the fact that it smells like money, and he hates that Mycroft has a chauffeur, giving him free reign to sit in the back with his younger brother and gloat.
Mycroft sits primly, back straight and legs crossed. By contrast, Sherlock lounges against the leather seats, periodically pushing himself back up when he slides down too far.
“I did warn you, Sherlock.”
Sherlock ignores him. In the thirty years they’ve been brothers, Sherlock has been thirteen years old for over half of them. He’s justified in his petulant ways.
Sighing at Sherlock’s lack of response, Mycroft dips a hand into his suit jacket to pull out something that glints, something that probably contains jewels, because it casts little rainbows on the car door where Sherlock has been resolutely staring. Sherlock is interested despite himself and looks towards Mycroft’s hand, curiosity overcoming his desire not to appear so.
“What have I told you about sentiment? Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.”
Mycroft turns the object over in his hands, holds it up to the light and examines it as though it contains the mysteries of the universe. It’s Mrs Hudson’s brooch, Sherlock realises. Typical Mycroft, always one step ahead.
“Give it to me,” Sherlock demands.
“I wonder, what will you take from the next person after I find you a new… situation?”
Nothing, Sherlock thinks firmly. He will take nothing because he will require nothing. He will form no attachment to any living soul he meets from this day on. Nor to any dead soul for that matter, although he’s always been detached when it comes to the victims of the puzzles he solves…
Puzzles. The Rubik’s cube. He’d meant to take it back before leaving Baker Street Court but hadn’t found it on John’s desk the night before, suspecting then that John must actually carry it on his person.
He thinks about telling Mycroft they have to turn around and go back, thinks about stealing into John’s room and taking something, anything, any item so that he can delete (never delete, only store) what he doesn’t need, but keep a focus for the memories in case he should want them back, a tactile object to bury them in.
He has nothing of John’s. How could he forget to take something?
Sentiment.
Did he forget at all? Or did he purposely ‘forget’ so this would happen? So he would have a reason to go back?
He can’t. Not now. He can’t tell Mycroft they have to return, because then Mycroft will know and Sherlock couldn’t stand that.
“Are you going to answer me?” Mycroft’s voice cuts into his thoughts.
Sherlock scowls and looks down at his shoes, still ignoring his brother as he natters on uselessly. He could always use those as the focus, Sherlock supposes, seeing as he still has John’s trainers adorning his feet. He would just loathe using shoes for that particular purpose. Sentiment, again.
He considers the trainers, the mud on the soles so telling of where John has been (and now Sherlock too). There are probably still dead skin cells on the laces…
Shoes. Eczema.
Sherlock sits suddenly upright. “Mycroft, stop talking this instant. We have to go back.”
“Are you going to give me a valid reason, dear brother? One that doesn’t involve this-” Mycroft sniffs haughtily, “this John character?”
“I am,” Sherlock says.
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John hasn’t missed the chlorine. He hasn’t missed the way the pool water stings his eyes and his nose. He hasn’t missed the way he has to discard most of his clothes before emerging, exposed and vulnerable, to swim with classmates who hate him.
He puts his (neatly folded) clothes into a locker with a sigh, placing the Rubik’s cube on top of the pile. Then he thinks better of it and takes it with him instead, something tangible to hold on to if things get unbearable. Just one hour at the pool. He can do an hour, hiding out at the shallow end while Mr Wiltshire focuses on improving the stronger swimmers like he always does. So much for not wanting anyone to fall in a river and drown.
After half an hour, he dares to think he might make it. He hasn’t seen Moriarty at all, and Moran is over with their teacher.
He thinks he’s going to make it.
Some time later, Mr Wiltshire shouts that it’s the end of the lesson and everyone begins to make a move for the showers. A loud scream pierces the air all of a sudden, echoing off the tiled walls of the pool, and Mr Wiltshire starts running in the direction of the changing rooms.
John moves to get out too, placing the Rubik’s cube on the edge of the pool so he can plant both hands on either side of it and pull himself out.
A foot across his left hand stops him. John cries out in pain as the shoe grinds down over his knuckles. It’s an expensive, Italian leather shoe. One of a pair that no one in their school can afford except for one person.
“That’ll be Sebastian, providing a distraction for our beloved Coach.”
John looks up at Moriarty’s face, watches him bend down to pick up the Rubik’s cube. The grin he’s sporting makes John feel sick.
“What’s this, then?” Moriarty asks in that lilting voice of his, the one that’s soft on the surface, concealing a deeper layer of menace - a layer you’d only find if you already knew it existed.
“It’s mine, give it back.”
John makes a grab for the cube, splashing water over Moriarty who straightens up and moves back a pace, huffing in irritation. As Moriarty stands - fully clothed, dry, looming over him - John feels incredibly small and insignificant in the pool.
“Ah, ah,” Moriarty says, wagging a mocking finger at him with one hand, testing the weight of the cube in the other. “It’s rude to snatch.”
John glares at him in silence.
“So, it’s important to you,” Moriarty continues. “A token from the boyfriend? He can’t be imaginary if he gives you gifts now, can he?”
“Give it back.”
Moriarty purses his mouth in an exaggerated pout. “Hmm, no. I think I’d like to hang on to it for now. You’ve been carrying it around like some good luck charm; I want to see if it brings me any luck. You’ll get it back, say… tonight? If you meet me here at eight thirty, we’ll play a little game so you can win it back.”
“I’m not stupid,” John says. “I know your game, what makes you think I’ll play?”
“Eight thirty, John, or your trinket here?” Moriarty moves the cube as if to toss it over his shoulder. “It’ll be gone for good. And I know it’s something you want to get back. Desperately.”
He walks away then, leaving John to drag himself out of the pool with trembling limbs.
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Sneaking out, as usual, had been no bother.
As John walks briskly through the streets (the snow mostly melted, grey sludge everywhere) towards the pool, he’s not feeling afraid.
He knows that Moriarty wants to play a ‘game’, and he knows the aim of the game will be to hurt him as revenge for Moriarty’s ear. But what does it matter if someone hurts him? There’s no one to care, now.
He’s got his knife in his pocket, anyway. He’s pretty sure he’s going to use it tonight, if only to make this all stop.
But he’s not here to hurt anyone, not really. He just needs that Rubik’s cube back, he can’t lose it. He can’t lose that memory. It’s already starting to feel like he might have dreamt Sherlock - a vampire boy who wanted to be John’s friend. Everything about him is impossible. But John can’t have made him up, surely.
He walks into the swimming pool with his head up, chin tilted in defiance, and goes to play the game.
Part 5