FIC: The Illusion of Free Will (3/?)
Title: The Illusion of Free Will 3/?
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG-13 (NC-17 overall)
Warnings/Spoilers: Bastardising of canon dialogue at times?
Summary: 4th May 1992 (Sherlock is 11, John is 38).
“A romance novel?” John asks, plucking the book out of Sherlock’s hands. An unexpected move, Sherlock doesn’t have time to tighten his grip to stop him. “Who are you and what have you done with Sherlock Holmes?”
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. The Time Traveler's Wife belongs to Audrey Niffenegger.
On AO3
4th May 1992 (Sherlock is 11, John is 38)
John looks sad today. Sherlock has a hard time comprehending the emotions of most people, but he can read them easily enough. John is especially easy to read, with his expressive, open face. He’s honest from his skin right down to his bones, despite outwardly being the most secretive conversation partner Sherlock has ever had to deal with.
The grief isn’t just obvious from John’s face - there’s the slow, resigned way he pulls on the shirt Sherlock has left in the basket for him, the minor exacerbation of his limp, the missing extra pounds around his middle that Sherlock is used to seeing on younger versions of him.
John’s movements suggest he is tired. Tired the way Mummy is always tired these days.
When he gets over the initial disorientation of his jump though, John smiles like seeing Sherlock is the greatest gift in the world, like there’s nowhere else he would rather be. Sherlock supposes the meadow is quite lovely in late spring, but he can certainly think of many places he would rather be. In general, that is. Not when John is around, because that’s different.
When John is around, there’s nowhere Sherlock would rather be either. He doesn’t know what that means yet, but he thinks about it sometimes. He mainly thinks about it at school when he’s bored out of his skull, looking around at the other boys with a smirk because he knows something they don’t. He has something they don’t.
The dewy grass is cold against his legs as Sherlock sits and continues to read his book while John dresses behind a tree. He’s always so private. Honestly, it’s not like Sherlock hasn’t seen him naked ten or so times already. John is oddly prudish about certain things.
Sherlock turns a page in his book, snapping the paper taut as he does. The sound carries across the meadow.
“Give me a minute, Sherlock,” John’s voice rings out. “It’s called patience.”
Sherlock huffs - right again. John is a master in his ability to interpret almost all of Sherlock’s non-verbal cues, never failing when Sherlock tests him. It’s annoying.
Mycroft’s shirt and trousers are as comically oversized as ever on John when he pops his head round the tree with a grin that’s a few millimetres too wide to be real. Sherlock measured John’s smile when he was seven, no need to do it again. Height will be the same, but he expects weight is going to be down this time. It’s a pity he neglected to bring the scales in his agitation over bringing the book.
“Done,” John declares.
“Good,” Sherlock replies, not looking up from his reading.
“Someone’s in a mood.”
John sits down heavily beside him, the flowers around them swaying in the displaced air the movement creates. Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock watches John stare out ahead, obviously not wanting to interrupt Sherlock when he’s this focused on something. Sherlock envies him for the way he can sit there, so quiet and serene with his own thoughts the way Sherlock never is.
Eventually though, John peers over Sherlock’s arm when he becomes curious to see which book it is today that’s monopolising his attention. Sherlock watches John’s eyebrows rise.
“A romance novel?” John asks, plucking the book out of Sherlock’s hands. An unexpected move, Sherlock doesn’t have time to tighten his grip to stop him. “Who are you and what have you done with Sherlock Holmes?”
Sherlock grits his teeth and snatches it back. “It’s research.”
He hunches his shoulders and John nudges one with his own, clearly attempting to get back into his good graces. It won’t work - Sherlock doesn’t appreciate being teased.
“Okay, calm down. What kind of research?”
Sherlock hesitates. He brought the book out here with the intention of having John ask him about it, because he wants to ask John questions in return. He does want to learn, but the thought of admitting to a lack of knowledge in this area is just awful. It’s better to admit it to John than it would be to his classmates though.
“At school,” he says slowly, “this book was being passed around.”
John nods and makes a circular ‘go on’ gesture with his hand.
It really is awful to try and ask this. The whole thing is worse than he imagined because it’s embarrassing too, for some reason. Sherlock feels warm blood suffusing his face - an involuntary physiological reaction. A blush. He’s not done that in front of John before. He frowns as he thinks about it. He’s not blushed in front of anyone, really. It’s a useless reaction to have in this circumstance, what purpose does it serve but to alert others to weakness?
Sherlock turns his face away.
“Let me guess,” John says, when it becomes clear that Sherlock isn’t going to explain. “It’s confusing to you. You don’t understand the characters’ actions. Right?”
Without turning back to meet John’s eyes again, Sherlock nods.
He liberated the book from William Powell’s P.E. bag on Thursday after the idiot went home without his kit. Initially, Sherlock’s plan had been to replace the book on Friday morning before William could retrieve his bag, for the sake of honing his stealth skills rather than from any fear of being identified as the thief. No one would suspect freaky Sherlock of having any interest in such a book.
However, after he finished reading it (on a whim, of course) at around eleven o’clock on Thursday night, his plan changed. He re-read it on Friday evening, highlighted key phrases, and set it aside to bring out to his meeting with John on Saturday.
“You’re what, ten or eleven?” John says. “Sherlock, don’t worry about it. These things will come naturally when you’re older, or- or maybe they won’t. Which is still fine.”
John’s face is slightly red when Sherlock looks at him again. This must embarrass him too.
“The other boys are confused by it themselves,” John continues. “That’s why they’re so interested in it right now. When I was about your age, I remember going out with Tania Fairweather, and we kissed once on the lips. The next day she came into school crying that she was pregnant.”
John laughs at the memory, but Sherlock doesn’t laugh with him. He scowls instead, feeling a strange animosity towards Tania Fairweather. Probably because her anatomy knowledge at Sherlock’s age was appalling compared with his. Sherlock knows how babies are made, thank you very much, Mycroft.
“I understand the basic biology, John.”
He sees John stifle another laugh at his petulant tone and narrows his eyes further. John’s age and experience also make him a very condescending conversation partner, in addition to his dreadful evasiveness.
“So,” John says, “tell me what the problem is.”
“It’s not the characters’ actions so much as their… motives.”
John smiles, three millimetres short of happy. Fond, then.
“That’s what I mean when I say that you’ll understand when you’re older.”
“I don’t think I want to,” Sherlock says, stomach churning at the mere thought of feeling anything that remotely resembles the… the urges he’d read about in the book. The lack of control the characters had over them was alarming.
He can’t imagine ever feeling that way about girls. Attending a boys’ school means he hasn’t had much contact with the so-called ‘fairer sex’, but if they’re anything like his female cousins (shrill, aggravating, overly concerned with the colour pink) then he wants nothing to do with them.
At present, he finds boys and girls equally bothersome. He likes books and science and solitude. And John. He likes John more than any of those other things.
The skin around John’s eyes crinkles with his smile - definitely fond. “It’s fine if you don’t, Sherlock. Remember this, because it’s important: if you feel something, or if you don’t feel something, that’s fine. Nothing is really normal or abnormal.”
Sherlock scoffs at him. ‘Normal’ and ‘abnormal’ are societal constructs he doesn’t care for and John knows it. Particularly ‘normal’.
“You must know,” he says. “You can tell me. When I get older, do I turn into them?” Sherlock indicates the book and the characters, pointing (unintentionally and somewhat unfortunately) at the word ‘clitoris’.
John clears his throat, embarrassed again. “That would be telling, Sherlock.”
----
30th January 2010 (John is 32, Sherlock is 29)
John has been kidnapped by a man who knows he can time travel, he’s sent a text to a murderer, and now he’s in a restaurant with Sherlock waiting for said murderer to show up.
There is a candle on the table to make it more ‘romantic’.
John has never had a stranger evening in his entire life, and that is saying something.
The street outside is quiet, but Sherlock’s attention is fixed on it, waiting for the moment anything suspicious should occur. There’s a sort of tension laced throughout his body, like he’s poised, like he’ll be ready at a moment’s notice to spring out of his chair and give chase. John recognises the tension - he was the same in Afghanistan. Sherlock really is like him in this regard, John thinks, but his battlefield has more glass and concrete, less sand and heat.
“So, who was he?” John asks.
Sherlock had said it could be a long wait. Might as well at least try and get some answers.
After a moment, Sherlock’s head swivels towards him, away from Northumberland Street. “I’m sorry?”
“The man I met this evening, the one who tried to pay me off.”
Sherlock had labelled him earlier as ‘the most dangerous man you’ll ever meet’. It was hardly comforting, and it wasn’t enough of an answer to satisfy John.
Sherlock huffs in irritation, and looks back out the window. “He’s my older brother, Mycroft.”
John, who had been taking a sip of water, almost chokes at that. “He’s your brother.”
“Yes, I believe that’s what I just said.” Sherlock glares at him.
“And he wants to bribe your new flatmate either into moving out, stealing from you, or spying on you?”
Sherlock’s head whips round again. “Stealing from me? You never mentioned that. What did he want?”
Before John can answer, Sherlock is speaking again. “Oh, the journal, of course. He’s been dying to get his hands on that for years.”
“I refused,” John says. “I wouldn’t steal from you.”
“I know that. I expect you’re wondering why my brother would want you to?”
John nods. He mainly wants to know what sort of man goes around kidnapping people in the name of extracting information from them about his sibling’s movements.
“Simple jealousy,” Sherlock says with a sneer. “Growing up, he thought some of the hero-worship he was due as my older brother was displaced from him to you. He’s always seen you as something of an interloper. Since he started to actually believe you were real, that is.”
John leans forward across the table slightly, intent to find out more about his history, his future with Sherlock. “So I was like an older brother to you?”
Sherlock grimaces at the insinuation, for whatever reason. John tries not to be upset by it. He always wanted to be an older brother. He felt like one, most days, what with Harry being the way she was.
“Not exactly,” Sherlock says at length and John can tell he’s skirting around something, he just can’t tell what. “But Mycroft still views you as a threat. To him and to me. Did he give you that line about constantly worrying about me?”
“Yeah. Why am I a threat to you?”
If anything, he reckons Sherlock is a threat to him, to his mental health and physical well-being no doubt.
Sherlock blinks, his expression closes off and he looks away. “How am I to know what goes through his twisted brain? He isn’t to be trusted. There’s that saying about not trusting someone farther than you can throw them, isn’t there? It applies here, considering the job I’d have throwing Mycroft more than a nanometre at his current weight.”
John is silent for a moment, considering the depth of resentment in Sherlock’s tone. Harry is hardly his best friend, but John can’t fathom having the sort of relationship with her that Sherlock has with his own brother. The man is more like an enemy to him than anything, the way Sherlock talks.
From what he’s seen so far, Sherlock’s other relationships with people amount to: a superficial acquaintance with and tolerance for Stamford, indifference towards the infatuated girl who brought him coffee in the lab, some measure of affection for his landlady, mutual hatred for Anderson the forensic officer and DS Donovan, and some complicated symbiotic thing with DI Lestrade providing him cases and Sherlock providing solutions in return.
“Do you trust anyone?” John asks.
Sherlock looks at him evenly, focus pulled off the street and back to John. “I trust you.”
“Oh.” John tries to parse that, feeling a heavy burden settle on his shoulders. He barely knows Sherlock; he hasn’t earned the man’s trust yet. “In the past,” he begins carefully, licking his lips. “What did we do together? I doubt I helped you with your homework.”
He’s done calculations based on the years of the entries he read in the journal. The earliest was dated 1987, when Sherlock could only have been six years old. The more he sees of this prickly, brilliant adult Sherlock, the more he wants to see him in his formative years. Knobbly-kneed and permanently scowling, perhaps. John smiles at the mental image.
Sherlock is clearly thinking about his answer, the street behind him forgotten for a moment. “We talked,” he says eventually. “You answered my questions.”
“What about?”
“People,” Sherlock shrugs, and once again John gets the idea that there’s something he’s not saying. “Human interaction. You didn’t need to help me with my homework, you’re quite right, but you still taught me things about life. In some ways, you helped shape the person I am today.”
John laughs. “Oh, don’t put that on me!”
There’s a brief flicker of something like hurt in Sherlock’s eyes before he looks away again, saying nothing.
John replays his last sentence in his head, and cringes when he thinks back on one of Sherlock’s from earlier: I trust you.
He’s not doing a good job of earning it, really, is he?
“Sorry,” he says. “There’s- there’s nothing wrong with the person you are today, I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did,” Sherlock says, bland and toneless. “It’s all right, most people feel the same.”
“No, they don’t, I’m sure there’s someone, a friend, or a girlfriend maybe-”
“Girlfriend?” Sherlock cuts him off dismissively, looking at him with a sort of terrible intensity in his gaze that makes John want to squirm in his seat. “No, not really my area.”
John feels his face begin to turn red as he realises the implication, as he realises his mistake. “Or- or a boyfriend?”
Sherlock’s sharp stare doesn’t change as he gives a small shake of his head. “No.”
“Right,” John gives a short, awkward laugh, trying to dispel some of the charged atmosphere that’s built up. “Okay. So you’re unattached, like me. Fine. Good.”
Silence falls, thick and uncomfortable as the seconds tick by.
Sherlock opens his mouth to speak: “John, um… I don’t know how to say this…” just as John also begins to talk too: “You said at Bart’s that the girl, Molly, she wasn’t…”
They both stop, just looking at each other across the table.
Sherlock is the one to continue, visibly steeling himself before he does. “John, I don’t know what you think, and I don’t know how much Mycroft has said to you this evening, but I hope you don’t think that I-”
Oh God, Sherlock must be under the impression he’s being propositioned. And he’s trying to reject him by the sounds of it.
“No,” John says quickly, clearing his throat and then speaking over Sherlock. “No, I’m not asking. No.”
“Of course,” Sherlock says at once, turning his attention back to Northumberland Street. “My misapprehension. Won’t happen again.”
After a further moment of uncomfortable silence, Sherlock nods at something outside the window.
“Look across the street. Taxi.”
John turns in his seat to look, easily spotting the taxi idling by the side of the road. He can just about read the number plate from his current position and memorises it.
“Stopped,” Sherlock says. “Nobody getting in, nobody getting out.”
They both watch as the silhouette of the passenger in the back - male, by the look of it - turns his head to look out of both the left and right windows.
“Why a taxi?” Sherlock continues, talking more to himself now than to John. “Oh, that’s clever. Is it clever? Why is it clever?”
“That’s him?”
“Don’t stare,” Sherlock orders.
“You’re staring.”
“We can’t both stare.”
Sherlock gets to his feet, taking his coat and scarf with him as he strides out the door. This was what he was poised for. He’s no longer coiled; it’s his time to strike. Without another thought, John grabs his own jacket and follows.
His cane is left, forgotten in the restaurant.
There’s a mad genius to chase after.
----
30th January 2010 (Sherlock is 29, John is 32)
It would be the perfect time, Sherlock thinks. Adrenaline coursing through their veins, hearts beating in tandem, both breathing hard to get oxygen back into lungs that burn from the cold London air.
They’re drunk on the moment, giggling with their backs against the wall, leaning towards each other.
It would be the perfect, perfect time to lean further, to press his body against John’s, to press his lips against John’s. They could kiss, right there in the hallway of number 221 where Mrs Hudson could find them at any minute, exasperated but affectionate as she reminded them they had two perfectly good bedrooms upstairs for this sort of thing.
It would be the perfect time, if John had any of the memories and feelings Sherlock wanted him to have. If John hadn’t soundly rejected him at Angelo’s.
He’d been preparing for it, but that didn’t make it any better. When John mentioned Molly, Sherlock thought back to what he had said about her not being the one he wanted and he was so sure that John must be figuring out Sherlock’s feelings and some of the things that happened in the past that he had to go and say it: I hope you don’t think that I-
It was a good thing John did interrupt him then, because he’s not sure how he would have finished that sentence.
I hope you don’t think that I was in love with you.
I hope you don’t think that I coerced you into moving in with me because I was in love with you.
I hope you don’t think that I’m in love with you.
Sherlock shakes his head. Present tense. Wrong. That expression in general: in love with. Wrong.
It wasn’t that. Surely. He’d know if it were that, wouldn’t he?
He must have known how that sentence would end at the time, or he wouldn’t have begun it. It must have been something sensible, something logical. Not something sentimental, something so banal and obvious.
Eight years is a long time. It’s long enough to grow up and accept that his adolescent infatuation was just that. John had once called it that himself. ‘Infatuation from closeness’ he had called it, speaking of himself like he was a safe adult figure for Sherlock to be attracted to as a teenager. It had infuriated Sherlock at the time, reminding him of insipid girls with crushes on their unattainable teachers. He hated to be likened to them by someone he held in such high regard.
Sherlock forgave him quite soon after he said it though. John redeemed himself well on that day.
The knock at the door comes right on time and it puts an end to Sherlock’s reminiscing.
Sherlock watches, grinning widely as John takes his cane from Angelo and looks back at him with an awestruck expression. At least that’s one thing he’s managed to fix between them tonight.
The front door closes and Sherlock is thinking of what to say next when Mrs Hudson comes out of her flat. Her face is a sight - a mask of unhappiness and anxiety. “Sherlock, what have you done?”
“Mrs Hudson?”
“Upstairs,” she says. It sounds like she’s been crying.
Sherlock runs up the steps, pleased to hear following John behind him, and throws open the door to find Lestrade lounging in his armchair and other police officers milling about the flat, turning it upside down. One of them is just lifting the journal out of one of the boxes.
“What are you doing?” Sherlock demands, stalking across the room and snatching the book from the startled young man who gives it up without a fight. Sherlock rolls his eyes. Amateurs.
Trying not to hug the book protectively against his chest, he tucks it under one arm and turns to Lestrade.
“Something you don’t want us to see?” Lestrade asks, raising an eyebrow and nodding at the journal.
“Something you have no business looking at. Not that it stopped you the first time.”
“Calm down,” Lestrade shrugs, angling his head towards the officer whose hands are still frozen in the same position they were in when Sherlock tore the book from them, “he was the first to touch that. Besides, that’s not what we’re interested in. I knew you’d find the case. I’m not stupid.”
“You can’t just break into my flat,” Sherlock seethes.
Without realising, he clutches the journal a bit tighter. Lestrade’s raised eyebrow makes a reappearance and Sherlock loosens his grip with a scowl.
“And you can’t just withhold evidence! And I didn’t break into your flat.”
“Well what do you call this then?” Sherlock throws up his free hand.
Lestrade looks around, his expression conveying pure innocence. Sherlock knows better. “It’s a drugs bust.”
A small weight makes itself known as it drops through Sherlock’s stomach. He blinks at the feeling, recognising it as being linked with fear. Panic. The cold sensation that’s spreading through him fits too.
John is going to know now. He’s going to find out.
“Seriously?” comes John’s voice from behind him, “this guy? A junkie? Have you met him?”
Sherlock closes his eyes. So loyal, so trusting. The certainty in John’s voice only makes it worse.
It isn’t the same, he tells himself, John doesn’t know him well enough yet for it to matter. The John from the future, the John he cares about is this John anyway, so he must have already known about the drugs when he was visiting Sherlock.
He already knew, but he never said anything. Why? It would explain a few things, like all the sad, disapproving looks at his arms when John thought he wasn’t watching.
“Haven’t you met him?” Lestrade asks John, amusement in his tone.
Not this again. Sherlock is going to have to kill the man before he gives the whole game away. At this point, he almost wishes Lestrade had just left him for dead when he was high rather than taken care of him for long enough to hear the sort of pathetic, desperate things that must have come out of his mouth regarding John.
“I don’t know what you mean, but I know he isn’t an addict!”
Sherlock turns to look at John, worrying his lower lip between his teeth, stopping when he catches himself doing it. He closes in, moving his body in front of John’s as if to shield him, to stop him talking to Lestrade. “John-”
But John is still going: “I’m pretty sure you could search this flat all day and you wouldn’t find anything you could call recreational!”
Maybe. Maybe, if they don’t pull up the floorboards, John.
“John, you probably want to shut up now.”
John’s eyes flick from Lestrade to Sherlock. “Yeah, but come on…”
Sherlock gives him a meaningful look. Yes, there are illegal substances in this flat, he tries to communicate through his eyes alone. He can’t say it aloud in front of the police, despite how obvious it must be from his behaviour. Despite Lestrade knowing already.
“No,” John says after what feels like an hour holding his stare.
“What?”
“You.”
“Shut up,” Sherlock snaps at his disbelieving tone. It was all partly John’s fault anyway, so he shouldn’t take that tone with him, even if he is oblivious to the fact.
This was why Mycroft would pay John to move out and be gone from Sherlock’s life for good. This was why Mycroft saw John as a threat - not because he would ever intentionally hurt Sherlock, but because of what his absence could make Sherlock do to himself.
Sherlock didn’t do well when left completely alone with his own mind for eight years, adrift without the anchor he’d had since childhood.
He turns back to Lestrade to avoid saying any of this. “I’m not your sniffer dog.”
And that’s when Anderson comes into the picture, just when Sherlock thought it really couldn’t get any worse.
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG-13 (NC-17 overall)
Warnings/Spoilers: Bastardising of canon dialogue at times?
Summary: 4th May 1992 (Sherlock is 11, John is 38).
“A romance novel?” John asks, plucking the book out of Sherlock’s hands. An unexpected move, Sherlock doesn’t have time to tighten his grip to stop him. “Who are you and what have you done with Sherlock Holmes?”
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. The Time Traveler's Wife belongs to Audrey Niffenegger.
On AO3
4th May 1992 (Sherlock is 11, John is 38)
John looks sad today. Sherlock has a hard time comprehending the emotions of most people, but he can read them easily enough. John is especially easy to read, with his expressive, open face. He’s honest from his skin right down to his bones, despite outwardly being the most secretive conversation partner Sherlock has ever had to deal with.
The grief isn’t just obvious from John’s face - there’s the slow, resigned way he pulls on the shirt Sherlock has left in the basket for him, the minor exacerbation of his limp, the missing extra pounds around his middle that Sherlock is used to seeing on younger versions of him.
John’s movements suggest he is tired. Tired the way Mummy is always tired these days.
When he gets over the initial disorientation of his jump though, John smiles like seeing Sherlock is the greatest gift in the world, like there’s nowhere else he would rather be. Sherlock supposes the meadow is quite lovely in late spring, but he can certainly think of many places he would rather be. In general, that is. Not when John is around, because that’s different.
When John is around, there’s nowhere Sherlock would rather be either. He doesn’t know what that means yet, but he thinks about it sometimes. He mainly thinks about it at school when he’s bored out of his skull, looking around at the other boys with a smirk because he knows something they don’t. He has something they don’t.
The dewy grass is cold against his legs as Sherlock sits and continues to read his book while John dresses behind a tree. He’s always so private. Honestly, it’s not like Sherlock hasn’t seen him naked ten or so times already. John is oddly prudish about certain things.
Sherlock turns a page in his book, snapping the paper taut as he does. The sound carries across the meadow.
“Give me a minute, Sherlock,” John’s voice rings out. “It’s called patience.”
Sherlock huffs - right again. John is a master in his ability to interpret almost all of Sherlock’s non-verbal cues, never failing when Sherlock tests him. It’s annoying.
Mycroft’s shirt and trousers are as comically oversized as ever on John when he pops his head round the tree with a grin that’s a few millimetres too wide to be real. Sherlock measured John’s smile when he was seven, no need to do it again. Height will be the same, but he expects weight is going to be down this time. It’s a pity he neglected to bring the scales in his agitation over bringing the book.
“Done,” John declares.
“Good,” Sherlock replies, not looking up from his reading.
“Someone’s in a mood.”
John sits down heavily beside him, the flowers around them swaying in the displaced air the movement creates. Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock watches John stare out ahead, obviously not wanting to interrupt Sherlock when he’s this focused on something. Sherlock envies him for the way he can sit there, so quiet and serene with his own thoughts the way Sherlock never is.
Eventually though, John peers over Sherlock’s arm when he becomes curious to see which book it is today that’s monopolising his attention. Sherlock watches John’s eyebrows rise.
“A romance novel?” John asks, plucking the book out of Sherlock’s hands. An unexpected move, Sherlock doesn’t have time to tighten his grip to stop him. “Who are you and what have you done with Sherlock Holmes?”
Sherlock grits his teeth and snatches it back. “It’s research.”
He hunches his shoulders and John nudges one with his own, clearly attempting to get back into his good graces. It won’t work - Sherlock doesn’t appreciate being teased.
“Okay, calm down. What kind of research?”
Sherlock hesitates. He brought the book out here with the intention of having John ask him about it, because he wants to ask John questions in return. He does want to learn, but the thought of admitting to a lack of knowledge in this area is just awful. It’s better to admit it to John than it would be to his classmates though.
“At school,” he says slowly, “this book was being passed around.”
John nods and makes a circular ‘go on’ gesture with his hand.
It really is awful to try and ask this. The whole thing is worse than he imagined because it’s embarrassing too, for some reason. Sherlock feels warm blood suffusing his face - an involuntary physiological reaction. A blush. He’s not done that in front of John before. He frowns as he thinks about it. He’s not blushed in front of anyone, really. It’s a useless reaction to have in this circumstance, what purpose does it serve but to alert others to weakness?
Sherlock turns his face away.
“Let me guess,” John says, when it becomes clear that Sherlock isn’t going to explain. “It’s confusing to you. You don’t understand the characters’ actions. Right?”
Without turning back to meet John’s eyes again, Sherlock nods.
He liberated the book from William Powell’s P.E. bag on Thursday after the idiot went home without his kit. Initially, Sherlock’s plan had been to replace the book on Friday morning before William could retrieve his bag, for the sake of honing his stealth skills rather than from any fear of being identified as the thief. No one would suspect freaky Sherlock of having any interest in such a book.
However, after he finished reading it (on a whim, of course) at around eleven o’clock on Thursday night, his plan changed. He re-read it on Friday evening, highlighted key phrases, and set it aside to bring out to his meeting with John on Saturday.
“You’re what, ten or eleven?” John says. “Sherlock, don’t worry about it. These things will come naturally when you’re older, or- or maybe they won’t. Which is still fine.”
John’s face is slightly red when Sherlock looks at him again. This must embarrass him too.
“The other boys are confused by it themselves,” John continues. “That’s why they’re so interested in it right now. When I was about your age, I remember going out with Tania Fairweather, and we kissed once on the lips. The next day she came into school crying that she was pregnant.”
John laughs at the memory, but Sherlock doesn’t laugh with him. He scowls instead, feeling a strange animosity towards Tania Fairweather. Probably because her anatomy knowledge at Sherlock’s age was appalling compared with his. Sherlock knows how babies are made, thank you very much, Mycroft.
“I understand the basic biology, John.”
He sees John stifle another laugh at his petulant tone and narrows his eyes further. John’s age and experience also make him a very condescending conversation partner, in addition to his dreadful evasiveness.
“So,” John says, “tell me what the problem is.”
“It’s not the characters’ actions so much as their… motives.”
John smiles, three millimetres short of happy. Fond, then.
“That’s what I mean when I say that you’ll understand when you’re older.”
“I don’t think I want to,” Sherlock says, stomach churning at the mere thought of feeling anything that remotely resembles the… the urges he’d read about in the book. The lack of control the characters had over them was alarming.
He can’t imagine ever feeling that way about girls. Attending a boys’ school means he hasn’t had much contact with the so-called ‘fairer sex’, but if they’re anything like his female cousins (shrill, aggravating, overly concerned with the colour pink) then he wants nothing to do with them.
At present, he finds boys and girls equally bothersome. He likes books and science and solitude. And John. He likes John more than any of those other things.
The skin around John’s eyes crinkles with his smile - definitely fond. “It’s fine if you don’t, Sherlock. Remember this, because it’s important: if you feel something, or if you don’t feel something, that’s fine. Nothing is really normal or abnormal.”
Sherlock scoffs at him. ‘Normal’ and ‘abnormal’ are societal constructs he doesn’t care for and John knows it. Particularly ‘normal’.
“You must know,” he says. “You can tell me. When I get older, do I turn into them?” Sherlock indicates the book and the characters, pointing (unintentionally and somewhat unfortunately) at the word ‘clitoris’.
John clears his throat, embarrassed again. “That would be telling, Sherlock.”
----
30th January 2010 (John is 32, Sherlock is 29)
John has been kidnapped by a man who knows he can time travel, he’s sent a text to a murderer, and now he’s in a restaurant with Sherlock waiting for said murderer to show up.
There is a candle on the table to make it more ‘romantic’.
John has never had a stranger evening in his entire life, and that is saying something.
The street outside is quiet, but Sherlock’s attention is fixed on it, waiting for the moment anything suspicious should occur. There’s a sort of tension laced throughout his body, like he’s poised, like he’ll be ready at a moment’s notice to spring out of his chair and give chase. John recognises the tension - he was the same in Afghanistan. Sherlock really is like him in this regard, John thinks, but his battlefield has more glass and concrete, less sand and heat.
“So, who was he?” John asks.
Sherlock had said it could be a long wait. Might as well at least try and get some answers.
After a moment, Sherlock’s head swivels towards him, away from Northumberland Street. “I’m sorry?”
“The man I met this evening, the one who tried to pay me off.”
Sherlock had labelled him earlier as ‘the most dangerous man you’ll ever meet’. It was hardly comforting, and it wasn’t enough of an answer to satisfy John.
Sherlock huffs in irritation, and looks back out the window. “He’s my older brother, Mycroft.”
John, who had been taking a sip of water, almost chokes at that. “He’s your brother.”
“Yes, I believe that’s what I just said.” Sherlock glares at him.
“And he wants to bribe your new flatmate either into moving out, stealing from you, or spying on you?”
Sherlock’s head whips round again. “Stealing from me? You never mentioned that. What did he want?”
Before John can answer, Sherlock is speaking again. “Oh, the journal, of course. He’s been dying to get his hands on that for years.”
“I refused,” John says. “I wouldn’t steal from you.”
“I know that. I expect you’re wondering why my brother would want you to?”
John nods. He mainly wants to know what sort of man goes around kidnapping people in the name of extracting information from them about his sibling’s movements.
“Simple jealousy,” Sherlock says with a sneer. “Growing up, he thought some of the hero-worship he was due as my older brother was displaced from him to you. He’s always seen you as something of an interloper. Since he started to actually believe you were real, that is.”
John leans forward across the table slightly, intent to find out more about his history, his future with Sherlock. “So I was like an older brother to you?”
Sherlock grimaces at the insinuation, for whatever reason. John tries not to be upset by it. He always wanted to be an older brother. He felt like one, most days, what with Harry being the way she was.
“Not exactly,” Sherlock says at length and John can tell he’s skirting around something, he just can’t tell what. “But Mycroft still views you as a threat. To him and to me. Did he give you that line about constantly worrying about me?”
“Yeah. Why am I a threat to you?”
If anything, he reckons Sherlock is a threat to him, to his mental health and physical well-being no doubt.
Sherlock blinks, his expression closes off and he looks away. “How am I to know what goes through his twisted brain? He isn’t to be trusted. There’s that saying about not trusting someone farther than you can throw them, isn’t there? It applies here, considering the job I’d have throwing Mycroft more than a nanometre at his current weight.”
John is silent for a moment, considering the depth of resentment in Sherlock’s tone. Harry is hardly his best friend, but John can’t fathom having the sort of relationship with her that Sherlock has with his own brother. The man is more like an enemy to him than anything, the way Sherlock talks.
From what he’s seen so far, Sherlock’s other relationships with people amount to: a superficial acquaintance with and tolerance for Stamford, indifference towards the infatuated girl who brought him coffee in the lab, some measure of affection for his landlady, mutual hatred for Anderson the forensic officer and DS Donovan, and some complicated symbiotic thing with DI Lestrade providing him cases and Sherlock providing solutions in return.
“Do you trust anyone?” John asks.
Sherlock looks at him evenly, focus pulled off the street and back to John. “I trust you.”
“Oh.” John tries to parse that, feeling a heavy burden settle on his shoulders. He barely knows Sherlock; he hasn’t earned the man’s trust yet. “In the past,” he begins carefully, licking his lips. “What did we do together? I doubt I helped you with your homework.”
He’s done calculations based on the years of the entries he read in the journal. The earliest was dated 1987, when Sherlock could only have been six years old. The more he sees of this prickly, brilliant adult Sherlock, the more he wants to see him in his formative years. Knobbly-kneed and permanently scowling, perhaps. John smiles at the mental image.
Sherlock is clearly thinking about his answer, the street behind him forgotten for a moment. “We talked,” he says eventually. “You answered my questions.”
“What about?”
“People,” Sherlock shrugs, and once again John gets the idea that there’s something he’s not saying. “Human interaction. You didn’t need to help me with my homework, you’re quite right, but you still taught me things about life. In some ways, you helped shape the person I am today.”
John laughs. “Oh, don’t put that on me!”
There’s a brief flicker of something like hurt in Sherlock’s eyes before he looks away again, saying nothing.
John replays his last sentence in his head, and cringes when he thinks back on one of Sherlock’s from earlier: I trust you.
He’s not doing a good job of earning it, really, is he?
“Sorry,” he says. “There’s- there’s nothing wrong with the person you are today, I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did,” Sherlock says, bland and toneless. “It’s all right, most people feel the same.”
“No, they don’t, I’m sure there’s someone, a friend, or a girlfriend maybe-”
“Girlfriend?” Sherlock cuts him off dismissively, looking at him with a sort of terrible intensity in his gaze that makes John want to squirm in his seat. “No, not really my area.”
John feels his face begin to turn red as he realises the implication, as he realises his mistake. “Or- or a boyfriend?”
Sherlock’s sharp stare doesn’t change as he gives a small shake of his head. “No.”
“Right,” John gives a short, awkward laugh, trying to dispel some of the charged atmosphere that’s built up. “Okay. So you’re unattached, like me. Fine. Good.”
Silence falls, thick and uncomfortable as the seconds tick by.
Sherlock opens his mouth to speak: “John, um… I don’t know how to say this…” just as John also begins to talk too: “You said at Bart’s that the girl, Molly, she wasn’t…”
They both stop, just looking at each other across the table.
Sherlock is the one to continue, visibly steeling himself before he does. “John, I don’t know what you think, and I don’t know how much Mycroft has said to you this evening, but I hope you don’t think that I-”
Oh God, Sherlock must be under the impression he’s being propositioned. And he’s trying to reject him by the sounds of it.
“No,” John says quickly, clearing his throat and then speaking over Sherlock. “No, I’m not asking. No.”
“Of course,” Sherlock says at once, turning his attention back to Northumberland Street. “My misapprehension. Won’t happen again.”
After a further moment of uncomfortable silence, Sherlock nods at something outside the window.
“Look across the street. Taxi.”
John turns in his seat to look, easily spotting the taxi idling by the side of the road. He can just about read the number plate from his current position and memorises it.
“Stopped,” Sherlock says. “Nobody getting in, nobody getting out.”
They both watch as the silhouette of the passenger in the back - male, by the look of it - turns his head to look out of both the left and right windows.
“Why a taxi?” Sherlock continues, talking more to himself now than to John. “Oh, that’s clever. Is it clever? Why is it clever?”
“That’s him?”
“Don’t stare,” Sherlock orders.
“You’re staring.”
“We can’t both stare.”
Sherlock gets to his feet, taking his coat and scarf with him as he strides out the door. This was what he was poised for. He’s no longer coiled; it’s his time to strike. Without another thought, John grabs his own jacket and follows.
His cane is left, forgotten in the restaurant.
There’s a mad genius to chase after.
----
30th January 2010 (Sherlock is 29, John is 32)
It would be the perfect time, Sherlock thinks. Adrenaline coursing through their veins, hearts beating in tandem, both breathing hard to get oxygen back into lungs that burn from the cold London air.
They’re drunk on the moment, giggling with their backs against the wall, leaning towards each other.
It would be the perfect, perfect time to lean further, to press his body against John’s, to press his lips against John’s. They could kiss, right there in the hallway of number 221 where Mrs Hudson could find them at any minute, exasperated but affectionate as she reminded them they had two perfectly good bedrooms upstairs for this sort of thing.
It would be the perfect time, if John had any of the memories and feelings Sherlock wanted him to have. If John hadn’t soundly rejected him at Angelo’s.
He’d been preparing for it, but that didn’t make it any better. When John mentioned Molly, Sherlock thought back to what he had said about her not being the one he wanted and he was so sure that John must be figuring out Sherlock’s feelings and some of the things that happened in the past that he had to go and say it: I hope you don’t think that I-
It was a good thing John did interrupt him then, because he’s not sure how he would have finished that sentence.
I hope you don’t think that I was in love with you.
I hope you don’t think that I coerced you into moving in with me because I was in love with you.
I hope you don’t think that I’m in love with you.
Sherlock shakes his head. Present tense. Wrong. That expression in general: in love with. Wrong.
It wasn’t that. Surely. He’d know if it were that, wouldn’t he?
He must have known how that sentence would end at the time, or he wouldn’t have begun it. It must have been something sensible, something logical. Not something sentimental, something so banal and obvious.
Eight years is a long time. It’s long enough to grow up and accept that his adolescent infatuation was just that. John had once called it that himself. ‘Infatuation from closeness’ he had called it, speaking of himself like he was a safe adult figure for Sherlock to be attracted to as a teenager. It had infuriated Sherlock at the time, reminding him of insipid girls with crushes on their unattainable teachers. He hated to be likened to them by someone he held in such high regard.
Sherlock forgave him quite soon after he said it though. John redeemed himself well on that day.
The knock at the door comes right on time and it puts an end to Sherlock’s reminiscing.
Sherlock watches, grinning widely as John takes his cane from Angelo and looks back at him with an awestruck expression. At least that’s one thing he’s managed to fix between them tonight.
The front door closes and Sherlock is thinking of what to say next when Mrs Hudson comes out of her flat. Her face is a sight - a mask of unhappiness and anxiety. “Sherlock, what have you done?”
“Mrs Hudson?”
“Upstairs,” she says. It sounds like she’s been crying.
Sherlock runs up the steps, pleased to hear following John behind him, and throws open the door to find Lestrade lounging in his armchair and other police officers milling about the flat, turning it upside down. One of them is just lifting the journal out of one of the boxes.
“What are you doing?” Sherlock demands, stalking across the room and snatching the book from the startled young man who gives it up without a fight. Sherlock rolls his eyes. Amateurs.
Trying not to hug the book protectively against his chest, he tucks it under one arm and turns to Lestrade.
“Something you don’t want us to see?” Lestrade asks, raising an eyebrow and nodding at the journal.
“Something you have no business looking at. Not that it stopped you the first time.”
“Calm down,” Lestrade shrugs, angling his head towards the officer whose hands are still frozen in the same position they were in when Sherlock tore the book from them, “he was the first to touch that. Besides, that’s not what we’re interested in. I knew you’d find the case. I’m not stupid.”
“You can’t just break into my flat,” Sherlock seethes.
Without realising, he clutches the journal a bit tighter. Lestrade’s raised eyebrow makes a reappearance and Sherlock loosens his grip with a scowl.
“And you can’t just withhold evidence! And I didn’t break into your flat.”
“Well what do you call this then?” Sherlock throws up his free hand.
Lestrade looks around, his expression conveying pure innocence. Sherlock knows better. “It’s a drugs bust.”
A small weight makes itself known as it drops through Sherlock’s stomach. He blinks at the feeling, recognising it as being linked with fear. Panic. The cold sensation that’s spreading through him fits too.
John is going to know now. He’s going to find out.
“Seriously?” comes John’s voice from behind him, “this guy? A junkie? Have you met him?”
Sherlock closes his eyes. So loyal, so trusting. The certainty in John’s voice only makes it worse.
It isn’t the same, he tells himself, John doesn’t know him well enough yet for it to matter. The John from the future, the John he cares about is this John anyway, so he must have already known about the drugs when he was visiting Sherlock.
He already knew, but he never said anything. Why? It would explain a few things, like all the sad, disapproving looks at his arms when John thought he wasn’t watching.
“Haven’t you met him?” Lestrade asks John, amusement in his tone.
Not this again. Sherlock is going to have to kill the man before he gives the whole game away. At this point, he almost wishes Lestrade had just left him for dead when he was high rather than taken care of him for long enough to hear the sort of pathetic, desperate things that must have come out of his mouth regarding John.
“I don’t know what you mean, but I know he isn’t an addict!”
Sherlock turns to look at John, worrying his lower lip between his teeth, stopping when he catches himself doing it. He closes in, moving his body in front of John’s as if to shield him, to stop him talking to Lestrade. “John-”
But John is still going: “I’m pretty sure you could search this flat all day and you wouldn’t find anything you could call recreational!”
Maybe. Maybe, if they don’t pull up the floorboards, John.
“John, you probably want to shut up now.”
John’s eyes flick from Lestrade to Sherlock. “Yeah, but come on…”
Sherlock gives him a meaningful look. Yes, there are illegal substances in this flat, he tries to communicate through his eyes alone. He can’t say it aloud in front of the police, despite how obvious it must be from his behaviour. Despite Lestrade knowing already.
“No,” John says after what feels like an hour holding his stare.
“What?”
“You.”
“Shut up,” Sherlock snaps at his disbelieving tone. It was all partly John’s fault anyway, so he shouldn’t take that tone with him, even if he is oblivious to the fact.
This was why Mycroft would pay John to move out and be gone from Sherlock’s life for good. This was why Mycroft saw John as a threat - not because he would ever intentionally hurt Sherlock, but because of what his absence could make Sherlock do to himself.
Sherlock didn’t do well when left completely alone with his own mind for eight years, adrift without the anchor he’d had since childhood.
He turns back to Lestrade to avoid saying any of this. “I’m not your sniffer dog.”
And that’s when Anderson comes into the picture, just when Sherlock thought it really couldn’t get any worse.