Fic - The World Forgetting, by the World Forgot (1/2) - Sherlock - R
Title: The World Forgetting, by the World Forgot (1/2)
Fandom: Sherlock, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Characters/Pairing: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Jim Moriarty, Molly Hooper, Sebastian Moran. John/Sherlock, Jim/Sherlock, Molly/Sebastian.
Summary: Two strangers meet on Margate beach one February morning. John Watson takes a breath and lifts a faltering hand in greeting to the man standing staring out across the waves, ankle deep in the snow that covers the sand.
Rating: R
Contains: Drug use (not explicitly described), dysfunctional relationships, infidelity, memory loss, emotional manipulation.
Word Count: ~10,000 (this part ~5,000)
Notes: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind crossover/fusion/re-telling. I’ve borrowed a fair bit of dialogue from the film which is obviously not my creative property, and I’m not making any money from this. If you’re familiar with the film, John is Joel, Sherlock is Clementine, Jim is Patrick, Molly is a hybrid of Stan and Mary and Sebastian is Howard. Writing this completely swallowed the past couple of days so I really hope you enjoy this! Next part is written and will be up as soon as it’s been edited.
Two strangers meet on Margate beach one February morning.
John Watson takes a breath and lifts a faltering hand in greeting to the man standing staring out across the waves, ankle deep in the snow that covers the sand. John’s grip tightens on his stick and his hand drops back to his side as quickly as he had raised it, embarrassed at the impulse. He looks down and then up again.
Sherlock Holmes nods when he sees the man raise his head. He smiles despite himself and rubs three gloved fingers across his bottom lip, considering. Frowning, he turns back to the waves and the sky full of snow, unsettled for a reason he cannot explain.
***
They share a train compartment on the way back to London. Sherlock draws his coat around himself, gets up and sits closer to John, opposite him.
‘Hello,’ Sherlock says, his eyes flickering across the lines of John’s tired face, the collar of his jacket, the wrinkles of denim in his jeans.
John turns away from the whitewashed world outside and looks at Sherlock. He smiles briefly, but it curves up to meet his eyes. ‘Hello,’ he replies.
‘Afghanistan or Iraq?’ Sherlock says, his eyes brightening. He sits up straighter.
‘I’m sorry, what?’
There’s a pause and Sherlock’s lips twist into a smile. ‘Afghanistan or Iraq?’ he repeats.
***
‘We could, uh, we could share a taxi?’ John nods to the black cab he has waiting at the top of the taxi rank at Victoria station as his shout stops Sherlock from walking, his head bowed against the wind. Hands in pockets, Sherlock pivots ninety degrees and thinks about it for a moment before nodding.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, alright.’ He climbs into the back after John and they both shiver once the cab’s warmth wraps itself around them.
‘Where to?’ the driver asks. John nods for Sherlock to go first.
‘Baker Street, please,’ Sherlock says. ‘221.’
***
‘Will you come up?’ Sherlock says, half in the cab and half out of it, frowning slightly as he talks to John. ‘I’ve... I’ve drinks, or... I’d like it. If you came up.’
John thinks, staring off to one side. ‘I...’ he glances between the cabbie and Sherlock and then nods, laughing to himself at his impulsiveness. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, yeah, that’d be... uh, how much do I owe you?’
The driver presses the button above his head that controls the meter. ‘Eight quid, mate,’ he says, and John pays as Sherlock unlocks the front door.
***
Sherlock is a liar. He doesn’t have drinks. He does, however, have a foot in the bottom drawer of the freezer, a cow’s liver in the sink and an array of chemicals littering the kitchen table.
John lifts his stick and points to the skull on the mantelpiece.
‘That’s a skull,’ he says. He should be more scared than he is, having gone into a stranger’s flat and found a foot in the freezer and a liver in the sink and a skull on the mantelpiece, but he isn’t scared.
He’s fascinated.
***
‘You could move in, take the room upstairs,’ says Sherlock later that evening, caught in a rare flight of fancy after Chinese takeaway and watching a James Bond film that neither of them had ever seen. Sherlock had found it tucked between a book on anatomy and a plant pot on his bookshelf with no idea how it had ended up there.
‘We’ve only just met and you want me to move into your flat?’ John says with a disbelieving laugh. They are sitting on the floor opposite each other, cross-legged, eating out of their cartons with chopsticks. ‘You’re mad.’
Sherlock smiles slowly, his eyes wrinkling at the corners. ‘It’s been suggested,’ he says in his low, rumbling voice, watching John carefully.
They finish eating in silence, the film long over.
‘I ought to go,’ John says, and gets up.
Sherlock looks up at him from the floor. ‘Stay,’ he says.
‘I... I’ve got work in the morning, I need to get up early, I...’
Sherlock stands, pulls the sleeve of John’s jumper up, scratching his phone number onto John’s arm with a fountain pen, along with his name.
‘I’d like you to ring me. Will you?’
John laughs. ‘Yes,’ he says, nodding. ‘Yes.’
***
John is halfway across the road and about to hail a cab when Sherlock’s window flies open and thin arms and a long torso and a strange, lovely face push their way out of the frame.
‘You could wish me a happy Valentine’s day when you ring,’ he says with a wicked smirk.
John laughs out loud and waves goodbye.
***
‘You took your time.’
John grins and looks at the ceiling in the hallway of Harry’s house in Wapping. ‘I just got in.’
For a minute, there’s only the sound of the two of them breathing.
‘Do you miss me?’ Sherlock asks, quieter than before.
John frowns. Blinks. ‘I... yeah,’ he says. ‘Oddly enough. I do.’
‘You do?’ Sherlock says, his tone confident and teasing once more. ‘Alright then, John, have it your way. ‘Til death do us part, what do you say?’
John laughs out loud.
‘Tomorrow night? Honeymoon on Baker Street?’
***
The next evening, John is outside 221 and about to knock when a young man approaches.
‘Can I help you?’ the man asks, and John blinks at the question.
‘Is there anything I can help you with?’ the man asks. He is softly spoken, Irish, small.
‘Um, no?’ John replies.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m... I’m really not sure what you’re asking me,’ John says with a puzzled frown.
‘Oh,’ the man says, the syllable dragging on for longer than it should. ‘Oh. Alright.’ He frowns too and walks away. He clutches a stick and walks with a limp, just like John. John watches him go for a moment before shaking his head and knocking the door.
***
John doesn’t really know how it happens but there’s a murder and an honest-to-god stakeout at a restaurant and running through backstreets and John forgets his stick and knocks a man out and there’s blue lights at the end of the night and Sherlock says ‘why don’t you take the room upstairs?’ and, breathless from exhilaration and exhaustion, John replies with,
‘Alright. Yes, alright, I will.’
***
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.
***
‘Are you going to patch things up with Sherlock in time for Valentine’s day?’ Harry asks. She and John are sitting next to each other on the sofa that had once belonged to their parents, surrounded by boxes of John’s things, packed and labelled in Sherlock’s scrawled handwriting.
John licks his lips. ‘No,’ he says. His eyes flick to the unopened letter on the coffee table, addressed to Harry, identical to the one Lestrade had received and shown John a few days previously.
‘You’re so good together, John.’
I thought so too, John thinks.
‘You’re at Clara’s tonight, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah.’ Harry squeezes his knee. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ John manages a smile for her benefit. ‘You go. I’ll be fine.’
‘There’s six cans in the fridge if you want to deal with this in the traditional Watson way,’ Harry says. John snorts.
‘Go on,’ he says. He kisses her cheek. ‘Sod off.’
***
‘Is this the one?’
‘I don’t know, I can’t see the numbers... oh, wait, there he is, that’s him.’ Molly nods to John, who is on the other side of the road to the van Molly is driving. ‘That’s definitely him.’ She pulls up on the kerb and parks. She unbuckles her seatbelt and sits back to wait. She watches John walk into the house with a nervous glance over his shoulder.
The lights inside turn on, and ten minutes later, they’re off again, the house dark and quiet.
‘Showtime,’ Jim trills with a grin, jumping out of the van.
***
‘I don’t understand.’
John sits in the middle of Lestrade’s sofa, back straight, feet together, staring straight ahead.
‘Maybe... maybe you should just see this as a fresh start,’ Lestrade says, awkwardly grabbing the back of his neck. ‘A new life.’
‘I don’t want a fresh start,’ John says quietly. ‘I don’t understand, I didn’t think it was that bad, I know he’s been bored recently, but... but I don’t... I don’t understand. It was like he didn’t even know who I was, Greg, like he had no clue.’ John closes his eyes and swallows. ‘I was standing outside the door to the flat, to our flat, and he just looked at me like...’ John sighs and buries his face in his hands.
Lestrade toys with the ring pull on his can of beer. He looks at the floor.
***
‘Can I help you?’
John laughs shortly. ‘Sherlock, what are you playing at?’
Sherlock’s eyebrows draw together and he pulls the door of 221b closer into his body. ‘What is it you want?’ he asks.
John blinks. ‘Sherlock, come on, it’s me. Let me in.’
‘Do I know you?’
There is no hint of teasing on Sherlock’s blank, puzzled face. There is no sign of recognition.
‘Sherlock--’
A pair of arms snake their way around Sherlock’s waist from behind. Sherlock smiles and turns, presses a soft kiss to the forehead of the smaller man who embraces him. ‘Jim,’ he murmurs. ‘Go back to bed.’
‘Who’s this?’ Jim gestures with his chin to John. He is softly spoken. Irish. Small.
‘Sherlock, what the hell are you--’ John’s voice cracks. His breath comes quickly, too quickly.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Sherlock murmurs, resting his hands over Jim’s. He raises his voice to address John. ‘If you’ve a mystery you want solving then I shall have to direct you to my website, I’m afraid, I’m rather... busy at present.’ He smiles over his shoulder at Jim.
Jim laughs softly. It’s an unnerving, tinkling sound. His dark brown eyes shift to look at John.
‘You know my name; any search engine worth its salt will pull up my website for you. Good morning.’ He closes the door in John’s face.
John stands in the hallway of his own home and listens to Sherlock’s rich laugh behind the door, the unmistakable sounds of kissing, a deep moan. His leg seizes and his hand reaches to clutch at it.
He limps for the first time in nearly two years, all the way back to Harry’s, where his things sit in boxes on the front doorstep.
***
‘Look,’ Lestrade says. He picks up a brown envelope from the coffee table, half-hidden underneath the Evening Standard. He pulls out a small piece of card and hands it to John, shaking his head, looking lost. ‘It’s... It’s a place, it does a thing, I... I don’t know.’
Dear Mr. Lestrade,
Sherlock Holmes has had John Watson erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again.
Thank you.
LACUNA INC
‘Right,’ John murmurs. ‘Right.’
***
Lacuna Inc. is tucked away between a dentist’s and a plastic surgeon’s on Harley Street.
‘I have an appointment to see, uh...’
‘Dr. Moran.’ The pretty receptionist smiles and finishes John’s sentence for him. ‘Fill this out, please.’ She hands him a form.
‘I’m only here to talk to him.’
‘You still need to fill that out.’ She smiles again and answers the phone. ‘Good morning, Lacuna, how may I help?’
‘I... I don’t have a pen.’
‘There’s one just there,’ the receptionist says in a whisper, moving the mouthpiece of the phone away as she points out the biro on the counter.
***
‘You should not have seen this,’ Dr. Moran says to John, glancing down at the card John gave him. ‘I apologise.’ The receptionist stays just behind the doctor’s chair, fussing with the papers on his desk.
John stares over the desk at Dr. Moran. His face is lined and tight and sad. He leans forward. ‘This... this is some sort of joke, right? Sherlock’s just--’
‘I can assure you, it’s not a hoax,’ Dr. Moran says, and the receptionist shakes her head too. She smiles gently at John.
‘No,’ she says, and leaves the room.
‘This... this isn’t real,’ John says, shaking his head. ‘This isn’t possible.’
Dr. Moran sighs. ‘Look, Mr. Watson--’
‘Doctor,’ John corrects him.
‘Doctor Watson, sorry, our files are confidential. I’m afraid I haven’t any evidence to give you but, ah... Mr. Holmes was not... was not happy. And he wanted to move on.’
***
‘Why would he do that to me?’
John is on Lestrade’s sofa again.
‘You... you know what Sherlock’s like, John,’ Lestrade says, placing a can of beer in John’s hands. ‘Probably... got bored, and...’
‘Bored,’ John mutters. ‘Yeah.’
***
He has a shower at Harry’s and cries and slams his hands against the tiles until the water runs cold.
***
John pushes past the receptionist at Lacuna the next morning, limping down the corridor, his stick clicking with every other step. He sees Dr. Moran leaving his office.
‘I want it done,’ John shouts, the bags under his eyes more prominent than ever, stubble all over his face.
‘I’m sorry, Doctor, he just pushed right past, I told him how pre-Valentine’s day is our busiest time and--’
‘No, no, it’s alright, Molly, let him through.’
‘But there are people waiting--’
‘Doctor Watson, if you’d like to, uh, if you’d like to come inside.’
John sits down in the chair opposite Dr. Moran’s. He stares at the table.
‘What we need to do first, Doctor Watson, is create a map of Sherlock in your brain,’ Dr. Moran says, not quite meeting John’s eyes when John looks up. ‘So, uh, you need to go home and collect anything that has some sort of association to Sherlock, anything at all. Photos, clothing, books, films you may have watched together, journal entries, gifts... we want to empty your home, empty your life of Sherlock.’
John stares straight ahead. He blinks slowly.
‘After the mapping is done our technicians will come to your home and do the erasing tonight. And in the morning, you’ll wake in your own bed as if nothing had happened... a new life awaiting you.’
***
John returns to the tiny clinic that afternoon with three binbags full of things and the password to his blog written down on a piece of paper.
Dr. Moran presses a button on the tape recorder. He nods, indicating John should speak.
‘Uh. Uh, my name is John Watson and I’m here to, uh... I’m here to erase Sherlock Holmes.’
‘Tell me about Sherlock,’ Dr. Moran says, making notes in a jotter on his desk.
‘I’d... I’d just been invalided out from Afghanistan.’ John glances down at his left hand. It shakes. ‘I’d gone for a walk one afternoon and I ran into an old friend of mine from university - Mike, Mike Stamford. He... he took me back to St. Barts, where we went, where he works, and I, uh... I met Sherlock.’
***
Molly apparently doubles as a receptionist and what Dr. Moran describes as ‘a technician.’
‘Alright, Mr. Watson, I want you to react to these objects if you can.’ John is in a futuristic-looking chair, hooked up to a futuristic-looking machine.
She places Sherlock’s old blue scarf on the small metal table in front of him.
‘That’s... that’s Sherlock’s scarf, he gave it--’
‘I’ll actually get a much better emotional readout if you refrain from any sort of verbal description of the items,’ she says to him with a polite smile. ‘Just focus on the memories.’
‘Right,’ John says, and nods.
A pair of mugs.
A broken violin bow.
A purple button.
Sherlock’s riding crop.
***
‘Just focus on the memories.’
Molly’s voice sounds far away.
John’s eyelids flicker in his sleep.
***
‘Jim, check that wire there, will you? I’m not quite getting everything.’ Molly frowns at the screen on her lap and taps at its keyboard. Her frown deepens. ‘I’m getting a readout of my own voice, I...’
John wakes up in the clinic in his pyjamas. Dr. Moran unstraps the blood pressure sleeve from his arm and John knows what he is about to say before he says it.
‘It’s happening, isn’t it?’ John asks. ‘I’m inside my head.’
Dr. Moran looks him up and down. ‘Yes. Yes, that would be about right.’
John looks at himself sitting down in the futuristic-looking chair.
’Jim, what are you doing? That wire, fix that wire!’
Everything’s a rush of noise and movement. John sees himself with binbags, hears Molly’s voice, Dr. Moran’s, the soft Irish lilt of Jim’s.
’Why are there so many wires?’
‘Good morning, Doctor Watson, how are you today?’
‘I don’t like this,’ John says, looking around frantically.
‘Oh, look, here’s his blog.’
John hears Molly read out the words he wrote nearly two years ago.
Everything’s a rush of noise and movement.
‘I googled him when I got back to the flat. It's mad. I think he might be mad. He was certainly arrogant and really quite rude and he's clearly a bit public school and, yes, I definitely think he might be mad but he was also strangely likeable. He was charming.
‘So tomorrow, we're off to look at a flat. Me and the madman. Me and Sherlock Holmes.’
***
John screams in his sleep and Jim falls back from his position crouched on the floor.
‘Careful!’ Molly hisses. ‘Calm down.’ She sits up and clicks away at the keyboard. ‘That’s that one gone,’ she murmurs.
Jim stands up. ‘Bit of a mess, isn’t it?’
‘It’s his sister’s house, Jim,’ Molly says with a roll of her eyes.
‘Jim,’ John breathes, his eyes still closed.
‘Can we please just finish this job? It’s going to be a very long night.’
‘Of course,’ Jim says, moving to stand behind Molly. ‘Of course.’
***
‘This is the last time I saw you,’ John whispers.
Sherlock strides into the flat, his head high, his eyes bright. A thin trail of blood drips from his nose down over his mouth, onto his chin and then his shirt. John is standing next to the fireplace, holding onto the mantelpiece, watching Sherlock in the mirror.
‘Mm, hello,’ Sherlock purrs. He moves closer and presses the length of his body against John’s back, wraps his arms around John’s waist and starts licking and biting at John’s neck, rubbing his crotch against John’s arse.
John’s exposes his neck and pushes back against Sherlock and reaches up to touch his hair because he just wants to feel... before he realises how wrong, how very wrong the whole thing is, and he pulls himself away, shoves Sherlock backwards.
‘You’re high,’ he growls.
‘And?’ Sherlock’s cat’s eyes narrow when John turns to look at him. He sniffs. A fresh trickle of blood drips from his nose.
You’ve done enough fucking coke to make your nose bleed, Jesus, Sherlock...’ John grabs his jacket from the hook and slams his keys down onto the table next to the phone. ‘I’m going to stay with Harry, don’t you dare follow me. You’re pathetic.’
‘Don’t call me pathetic.’
‘You are pathetic, Sherlock,’ John snarls. He slams the door and walks down the stairs.
***
‘John!’
‘I told you not to follow me, Sherlock!’ John shouts over his shoulder, striding down Baker Street, towards the tube station. The houses he walks past collapse into a pile of rubble. Cars twist in on themselves until they’re nothing but a twisted lump of metal.
‘Look, it’s falling apart out here, let me call you a -- fuck. John! You’ll be sorry you did this!’ Sherlock yells when John keeps walking, refusing to turn round.
‘You did it to me first!’ John roars over his shoulder. ‘I can’t believe you did this to me! I’m erasing you and I’m bloody well happy about it!
He walks down the stairs to the tube and darkness follows him, swallowing the memory.
***
He hears voices as he waits on the near-empty platform of the station.
‘I’m in love with someone.’
‘You are?
‘Remember that man we did last week? The one with the skull?
‘That’s this one’s man.’ Molly pauses. ‘Was this one’s man.’
‘I... I fell in love with him that night.’
‘Christ, Jim.’
‘What?’
‘He was unconscious.’
John stares up at the ceiling and paces back and forth.
‘I stole some of his underwear, as well.’
‘You... you did what? I... Jim, I don’t want to hear about this! Come on, we’ve got work to do.’
The voices fade and John’s train comes and he steps on and the warm air of the underground ruffles his hair as they move away.
***
John and Sherlock are eating Chinese in the living room together, surrounded by feathers. The radio is on.
‘There’s... there’s more,’ Jim says.
‘What? More?’
John gets up and looks around the room for the source of the voices, behind the curtains, under the TV, in the dark kitchen. Sherlock watches him.
‘After we did him, I... I went back to his flat and asked him out.’
Frowning, John pulls the cushions off the sofa, lifts a few of the books on the desk.
‘You did what? Christ, Jim, do you have any idea how unethical--’
‘It’s not really that bad...’
‘There’s someone here,’ John says to Sherlock, who is still on the sofa, impassively eating his noodles. ‘He... he’s stolen your underwear.’
Sherlock frowns. ‘I don’t see anyone,’ he says shortly.
The clock ticks. John goes over to the window.
He turns around, and the room is dark and Sherlock is gone.
***
John pulls his stripy jumper up over his face and rests the skull on top of his head so it looks as though the skull is wearing John’s clothes. Sherlock storms into the room, his coat flying behind him, his face twisted.
‘Bored,’ he mutters, grabbing John’s gun off the desk and shooting through one of the cushions that is next to John on the sofa. Feathers fly everywhere and John pushes his head through the neck of his jumper again, buries his face in his hands.
‘I should have left you at the Yard.’
The front door slams and the room disappears.
***
‘Sherlock, now isn’t the time or the place for--’
‘Shut up, John! They won’t listen, they never listen--’
They are at Scotland Yard in a room with about forty other people. Sherlock is right in the middle, being intimidating and loud. They’re dealing with a crime of passion and Sherlock can’t quite get his head around the motives of the murderer, who has disappeared without trace.
‘Sherlock,’ John growls, grabbing Sherlock’s wrist. ‘There’s no need to be vile just because we’re not getting anywhere, we’ll figure it out.’ Sherlock shakes him away and whirls around until he is looming over John, his eyes icy.
‘Shut up,’ he hisses. ‘You ultimately have no input into the outcome of this case so either stop hanging off my coattails and slowing me down or do something useful and shut up.’
‘Oh,’ John says, his jaw tight, breathing shortly through his nose. ‘Oh right, I see.’
Sherlock sneers and turns away. John glowers at his back and folds his arms across his chest, narrowing his eyes.
***
‘I still cannot believe you stole that man’s underwear,’ Molly says, shaking her head. She smiles slightly though, as if she’s in awe of Jim’s nerve.
Jim giggles. ‘I never really seem to have much luck with men, but--’
‘Well maybe if you didn’t steal their underwear!’ Molly exclaims, though she glances at Jim and laughs too as she clicks at her computer, her eyes drifting to John lying on the bed.
‘I always wonder, you know. What happened. With things like this, I mean, I always wonder why they fell out of love or whether they were really in love in the first place and what was it like when it was good.’ She sips her water. ‘Do you wonder?’
‘Not really,’ Jim says.
***
John lies in their bed, dozing. He is curled in on himself, the cold late-Autumn night emphasising every line and scar and wrinkle on his face. Sherlock stretches out next to him, moulds their bodies together, presses warm, open-mouthed kisses to John’s throat and then his cheek.
‘You don’t tell me anything, John,’ Sherlock mumbles, sounding far off and sad. A dearth of cases has led to Sherlock being inert and introspective for weeks. In some ways it’s worse than the manic energy that boredom usually gives him.
‘I don’t need to tell you anything. You can read me in seconds.’
‘Not always.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘I like to hear it from you, John. I shouldn’t have to deduce how your day went or whether you’re happy or--’ Sherlock sighs and his grip on John’s waist tightens. He kisses John’s neck again. ‘You don’t talk to me anymore.’
‘Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end,’ John mimics with a roll of his eyes.
‘This isn’t about me, John,’ Sherlock snaps. The warm weight of him from John’s back disappears.
‘Alright, I’m sorry,’ John says, rolling over and catching Sherlock’s hip before he can get up. He kisses Sherlock’s nape. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just... not that interesting. Not like you.’
The memory fades as Sherlock’s reply echoes around them.
They disappear.
***
Dinner at Angelo’s again.
It’s been a fortnight without a case and John and Sherlock sit opposite one another, eating in silence.
John finishes a bottle of wine. Sherlock glares out of the window.
They walk home in silence and watch TV in silence and go to bed in silence and it’s all so very, very sad.
***
‘Jim, get off the phone, come on, we’ve got work to do,’ Molly says, as Jim picks up his ringing mobile and waves Molly off. She sighs and taps at the keys in front of her with more vigour. ‘Jim.’ Molly glares.
‘Hello? Sherlock, is that you?’
‘Oh Jim, you’re there. I’m... I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
‘Why, what’s the matter?’ Jim says, turning to glance at Molly.
‘I don’t know, Jim, I’m so confused, I feel... I feel like I’m disappearing and I...’
‘Maybe I should come and see you.’
‘No. No, I... I don’t know. I don’t know.’
‘I’d cheer you up,’ Jim cajoles.
‘Yes,’ Sherlock says from the other end of the phone, his voice tight. ‘Yes, alright.’ Jim puts the phone down.
‘Molly... Molly, can I leave for a bit? My boyfriend’s really upset.’
Molly sighs in exasperation. ‘Jim, we’re in the middle of erasing this poor man’s memory and you want to run over to the man that erased him and...’ she sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. ‘Fine. Fine. Go.’
***
‘What do you think?’ Sherlock says, drawing himself up and arching an eyebrow, his arms out to one side as he poses, showing off his new silk shirt. It’s a deep, deep red, and he looks splendid in it.
‘Wow,’ John says, grinning as he wriggles to sit up against the headboard.
‘Do you like it?’ Sherlock drawls, crawling onto the bed and on top of John, kissing him eagerly.
‘Mm, I love it,’ John mumbles against Sherlock’s lips, running his hands up and down Sherlock’s sides, feeling the silk. ‘I love it and I love you and--’
John sits up and frowns at the voice he hears suddenly.
‘My boyfriend’s really upset.’
‘How did he creep into your life like that?’ he asks, cupping Sherlock’s cheek.
‘Hm?’ Sherlock says, nuzzling into John’s palm. ‘Who?’
***
Jim grabs his stick and his jumper and his iPhone with the hacked, private pages of John’s blog saved to it out of the back of the van and he makes his way over to Baker Street.
Sherlock throws the door open, his hair wild, his shirt undone, his eyes red-rimmed and his face pale.
‘Hey, hey, what’s the matter?’ Jim coos, limping into 221b, following Sherlock as he stalks back into the heart of the flat.
‘I don’t know,’ Sherlock says. ‘I don’t know, I feel like I’m disappearing and my skin’s coming off and it’s like... it’s like there are people inside my head and I... I don’t know, I just don’t know.’ He sits down in the low armchair with the union jack cushion and stands up almost immediately. ‘It’s not right, it’s not right.’
‘Sherlock, it’s... it’s okay,’ Jim says, moving to wrap his arms around Sherlock. He kisses Sherlock’s nest of curls. ‘It’s okay.’
‘No, it’s not okay, nothing makes any sense, and I thought that ringing you would make it better, someone always makes it better and...’ he pushes Jim away and holds him at arm’s length.
‘Let’s get away,’ Sherlock says. ‘Let’s go, right now, do you want to come to Angelo’s with me?’
‘Angelo’s?’
‘Yes, Angelo’s-- no, Margate. Yes, let’s go to Margate.’
‘We... we could go next weekend?’
‘No, now,’ Sherlock says, buttoning his shirt up. ‘Let’s go now, I have to go now.’
***
Molly, I’m really sorry, my boyfriend’s a bit of a mess and can you manage tonight by yourself? I’ll owe you one. Jim.
Molly makes an irritated sound in the back of her throat at the text and throws her phone onto the bed next to John.
***
‘Margate,’ Jim mutters as he flips through the pages of John’s blog on his phone, biting his lip as he ctrl and fs every page. ‘Margate, Margate...’
I told Sherlock that I love him today. That he makes me feel alive.
‘Come along, Jim,’ Sherlock says from the doorway, pulling on his gloves, his movements still jerky and agitated.
Jim drops the phone back into his bag and rummages around in the bottom. ‘I, uh... I got you this,’ he says, grabbing the wrapped present with Sherlock scrawled on it in John’s handwriting. ‘Happy early Valentine’s day, uh...’ he hands it over and Sherlock unwraps it, frowning at the indigo cashmere scarf that spills out over his fingers.
‘Do you... do you like it?’
‘It’s... it’s exactly my taste,’ Sherlock murmurs. ‘I’ve... I’ve never known anyone to buy me clothes I actually like,’ he says, blinking at Jim. ‘Thank you.’
Jim smiles and leans in. He kisses Sherlock sweetly on the mouth.
***
Part Two.
Fandom: Sherlock, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Characters/Pairing: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Jim Moriarty, Molly Hooper, Sebastian Moran. John/Sherlock, Jim/Sherlock, Molly/Sebastian.
Summary: Two strangers meet on Margate beach one February morning. John Watson takes a breath and lifts a faltering hand in greeting to the man standing staring out across the waves, ankle deep in the snow that covers the sand.
Rating: R
Contains: Drug use (not explicitly described), dysfunctional relationships, infidelity, memory loss, emotional manipulation.
Word Count: ~10,000 (this part ~5,000)
Notes: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind crossover/fusion/re-telling. I’ve borrowed a fair bit of dialogue from the film which is obviously not my creative property, and I’m not making any money from this. If you’re familiar with the film, John is Joel, Sherlock is Clementine, Jim is Patrick, Molly is a hybrid of Stan and Mary and Sebastian is Howard. Writing this completely swallowed the past couple of days so I really hope you enjoy this! Next part is written and will be up as soon as it’s been edited.
Two strangers meet on Margate beach one February morning.
John Watson takes a breath and lifts a faltering hand in greeting to the man standing staring out across the waves, ankle deep in the snow that covers the sand. John’s grip tightens on his stick and his hand drops back to his side as quickly as he had raised it, embarrassed at the impulse. He looks down and then up again.
Sherlock Holmes nods when he sees the man raise his head. He smiles despite himself and rubs three gloved fingers across his bottom lip, considering. Frowning, he turns back to the waves and the sky full of snow, unsettled for a reason he cannot explain.
***
They share a train compartment on the way back to London. Sherlock draws his coat around himself, gets up and sits closer to John, opposite him.
‘Hello,’ Sherlock says, his eyes flickering across the lines of John’s tired face, the collar of his jacket, the wrinkles of denim in his jeans.
John turns away from the whitewashed world outside and looks at Sherlock. He smiles briefly, but it curves up to meet his eyes. ‘Hello,’ he replies.
‘Afghanistan or Iraq?’ Sherlock says, his eyes brightening. He sits up straighter.
‘I’m sorry, what?’
There’s a pause and Sherlock’s lips twist into a smile. ‘Afghanistan or Iraq?’ he repeats.
***
‘We could, uh, we could share a taxi?’ John nods to the black cab he has waiting at the top of the taxi rank at Victoria station as his shout stops Sherlock from walking, his head bowed against the wind. Hands in pockets, Sherlock pivots ninety degrees and thinks about it for a moment before nodding.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, alright.’ He climbs into the back after John and they both shiver once the cab’s warmth wraps itself around them.
‘Where to?’ the driver asks. John nods for Sherlock to go first.
‘Baker Street, please,’ Sherlock says. ‘221.’
***
‘Will you come up?’ Sherlock says, half in the cab and half out of it, frowning slightly as he talks to John. ‘I’ve... I’ve drinks, or... I’d like it. If you came up.’
John thinks, staring off to one side. ‘I...’ he glances between the cabbie and Sherlock and then nods, laughing to himself at his impulsiveness. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, yeah, that’d be... uh, how much do I owe you?’
The driver presses the button above his head that controls the meter. ‘Eight quid, mate,’ he says, and John pays as Sherlock unlocks the front door.
***
Sherlock is a liar. He doesn’t have drinks. He does, however, have a foot in the bottom drawer of the freezer, a cow’s liver in the sink and an array of chemicals littering the kitchen table.
John lifts his stick and points to the skull on the mantelpiece.
‘That’s a skull,’ he says. He should be more scared than he is, having gone into a stranger’s flat and found a foot in the freezer and a liver in the sink and a skull on the mantelpiece, but he isn’t scared.
He’s fascinated.
***
‘You could move in, take the room upstairs,’ says Sherlock later that evening, caught in a rare flight of fancy after Chinese takeaway and watching a James Bond film that neither of them had ever seen. Sherlock had found it tucked between a book on anatomy and a plant pot on his bookshelf with no idea how it had ended up there.
‘We’ve only just met and you want me to move into your flat?’ John says with a disbelieving laugh. They are sitting on the floor opposite each other, cross-legged, eating out of their cartons with chopsticks. ‘You’re mad.’
Sherlock smiles slowly, his eyes wrinkling at the corners. ‘It’s been suggested,’ he says in his low, rumbling voice, watching John carefully.
They finish eating in silence, the film long over.
‘I ought to go,’ John says, and gets up.
Sherlock looks up at him from the floor. ‘Stay,’ he says.
‘I... I’ve got work in the morning, I need to get up early, I...’
Sherlock stands, pulls the sleeve of John’s jumper up, scratching his phone number onto John’s arm with a fountain pen, along with his name.
‘I’d like you to ring me. Will you?’
John laughs. ‘Yes,’ he says, nodding. ‘Yes.’
***
John is halfway across the road and about to hail a cab when Sherlock’s window flies open and thin arms and a long torso and a strange, lovely face push their way out of the frame.
‘You could wish me a happy Valentine’s day when you ring,’ he says with a wicked smirk.
John laughs out loud and waves goodbye.
***
‘You took your time.’
John grins and looks at the ceiling in the hallway of Harry’s house in Wapping. ‘I just got in.’
For a minute, there’s only the sound of the two of them breathing.
‘Do you miss me?’ Sherlock asks, quieter than before.
John frowns. Blinks. ‘I... yeah,’ he says. ‘Oddly enough. I do.’
‘You do?’ Sherlock says, his tone confident and teasing once more. ‘Alright then, John, have it your way. ‘Til death do us part, what do you say?’
John laughs out loud.
‘Tomorrow night? Honeymoon on Baker Street?’
***
The next evening, John is outside 221 and about to knock when a young man approaches.
‘Can I help you?’ the man asks, and John blinks at the question.
‘Is there anything I can help you with?’ the man asks. He is softly spoken, Irish, small.
‘Um, no?’ John replies.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m... I’m really not sure what you’re asking me,’ John says with a puzzled frown.
‘Oh,’ the man says, the syllable dragging on for longer than it should. ‘Oh. Alright.’ He frowns too and walks away. He clutches a stick and walks with a limp, just like John. John watches him go for a moment before shaking his head and knocking the door.
***
John doesn’t really know how it happens but there’s a murder and an honest-to-god stakeout at a restaurant and running through backstreets and John forgets his stick and knocks a man out and there’s blue lights at the end of the night and Sherlock says ‘why don’t you take the room upstairs?’ and, breathless from exhilaration and exhaustion, John replies with,
‘Alright. Yes, alright, I will.’
***
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.
***
‘Are you going to patch things up with Sherlock in time for Valentine’s day?’ Harry asks. She and John are sitting next to each other on the sofa that had once belonged to their parents, surrounded by boxes of John’s things, packed and labelled in Sherlock’s scrawled handwriting.
John licks his lips. ‘No,’ he says. His eyes flick to the unopened letter on the coffee table, addressed to Harry, identical to the one Lestrade had received and shown John a few days previously.
‘You’re so good together, John.’
I thought so too, John thinks.
‘You’re at Clara’s tonight, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah.’ Harry squeezes his knee. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ John manages a smile for her benefit. ‘You go. I’ll be fine.’
‘There’s six cans in the fridge if you want to deal with this in the traditional Watson way,’ Harry says. John snorts.
‘Go on,’ he says. He kisses her cheek. ‘Sod off.’
***
‘Is this the one?’
‘I don’t know, I can’t see the numbers... oh, wait, there he is, that’s him.’ Molly nods to John, who is on the other side of the road to the van Molly is driving. ‘That’s definitely him.’ She pulls up on the kerb and parks. She unbuckles her seatbelt and sits back to wait. She watches John walk into the house with a nervous glance over his shoulder.
The lights inside turn on, and ten minutes later, they’re off again, the house dark and quiet.
‘Showtime,’ Jim trills with a grin, jumping out of the van.
***
‘I don’t understand.’
John sits in the middle of Lestrade’s sofa, back straight, feet together, staring straight ahead.
‘Maybe... maybe you should just see this as a fresh start,’ Lestrade says, awkwardly grabbing the back of his neck. ‘A new life.’
‘I don’t want a fresh start,’ John says quietly. ‘I don’t understand, I didn’t think it was that bad, I know he’s been bored recently, but... but I don’t... I don’t understand. It was like he didn’t even know who I was, Greg, like he had no clue.’ John closes his eyes and swallows. ‘I was standing outside the door to the flat, to our flat, and he just looked at me like...’ John sighs and buries his face in his hands.
Lestrade toys with the ring pull on his can of beer. He looks at the floor.
***
‘Can I help you?’
John laughs shortly. ‘Sherlock, what are you playing at?’
Sherlock’s eyebrows draw together and he pulls the door of 221b closer into his body. ‘What is it you want?’ he asks.
John blinks. ‘Sherlock, come on, it’s me. Let me in.’
‘Do I know you?’
There is no hint of teasing on Sherlock’s blank, puzzled face. There is no sign of recognition.
‘Sherlock--’
A pair of arms snake their way around Sherlock’s waist from behind. Sherlock smiles and turns, presses a soft kiss to the forehead of the smaller man who embraces him. ‘Jim,’ he murmurs. ‘Go back to bed.’
‘Who’s this?’ Jim gestures with his chin to John. He is softly spoken. Irish. Small.
‘Sherlock, what the hell are you--’ John’s voice cracks. His breath comes quickly, too quickly.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Sherlock murmurs, resting his hands over Jim’s. He raises his voice to address John. ‘If you’ve a mystery you want solving then I shall have to direct you to my website, I’m afraid, I’m rather... busy at present.’ He smiles over his shoulder at Jim.
Jim laughs softly. It’s an unnerving, tinkling sound. His dark brown eyes shift to look at John.
‘You know my name; any search engine worth its salt will pull up my website for you. Good morning.’ He closes the door in John’s face.
John stands in the hallway of his own home and listens to Sherlock’s rich laugh behind the door, the unmistakable sounds of kissing, a deep moan. His leg seizes and his hand reaches to clutch at it.
He limps for the first time in nearly two years, all the way back to Harry’s, where his things sit in boxes on the front doorstep.
***
‘Look,’ Lestrade says. He picks up a brown envelope from the coffee table, half-hidden underneath the Evening Standard. He pulls out a small piece of card and hands it to John, shaking his head, looking lost. ‘It’s... It’s a place, it does a thing, I... I don’t know.’
Dear Mr. Lestrade,
Sherlock Holmes has had John Watson erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again.
Thank you.
LACUNA INC
‘Right,’ John murmurs. ‘Right.’
***
Lacuna Inc. is tucked away between a dentist’s and a plastic surgeon’s on Harley Street.
‘I have an appointment to see, uh...’
‘Dr. Moran.’ The pretty receptionist smiles and finishes John’s sentence for him. ‘Fill this out, please.’ She hands him a form.
‘I’m only here to talk to him.’
‘You still need to fill that out.’ She smiles again and answers the phone. ‘Good morning, Lacuna, how may I help?’
‘I... I don’t have a pen.’
‘There’s one just there,’ the receptionist says in a whisper, moving the mouthpiece of the phone away as she points out the biro on the counter.
***
‘You should not have seen this,’ Dr. Moran says to John, glancing down at the card John gave him. ‘I apologise.’ The receptionist stays just behind the doctor’s chair, fussing with the papers on his desk.
John stares over the desk at Dr. Moran. His face is lined and tight and sad. He leans forward. ‘This... this is some sort of joke, right? Sherlock’s just--’
‘I can assure you, it’s not a hoax,’ Dr. Moran says, and the receptionist shakes her head too. She smiles gently at John.
‘No,’ she says, and leaves the room.
‘This... this isn’t real,’ John says, shaking his head. ‘This isn’t possible.’
Dr. Moran sighs. ‘Look, Mr. Watson--’
‘Doctor,’ John corrects him.
‘Doctor Watson, sorry, our files are confidential. I’m afraid I haven’t any evidence to give you but, ah... Mr. Holmes was not... was not happy. And he wanted to move on.’
***
‘Why would he do that to me?’
John is on Lestrade’s sofa again.
‘You... you know what Sherlock’s like, John,’ Lestrade says, placing a can of beer in John’s hands. ‘Probably... got bored, and...’
‘Bored,’ John mutters. ‘Yeah.’
***
He has a shower at Harry’s and cries and slams his hands against the tiles until the water runs cold.
***
John pushes past the receptionist at Lacuna the next morning, limping down the corridor, his stick clicking with every other step. He sees Dr. Moran leaving his office.
‘I want it done,’ John shouts, the bags under his eyes more prominent than ever, stubble all over his face.
‘I’m sorry, Doctor, he just pushed right past, I told him how pre-Valentine’s day is our busiest time and--’
‘No, no, it’s alright, Molly, let him through.’
‘But there are people waiting--’
‘Doctor Watson, if you’d like to, uh, if you’d like to come inside.’
John sits down in the chair opposite Dr. Moran’s. He stares at the table.
‘What we need to do first, Doctor Watson, is create a map of Sherlock in your brain,’ Dr. Moran says, not quite meeting John’s eyes when John looks up. ‘So, uh, you need to go home and collect anything that has some sort of association to Sherlock, anything at all. Photos, clothing, books, films you may have watched together, journal entries, gifts... we want to empty your home, empty your life of Sherlock.’
John stares straight ahead. He blinks slowly.
‘After the mapping is done our technicians will come to your home and do the erasing tonight. And in the morning, you’ll wake in your own bed as if nothing had happened... a new life awaiting you.’
***
John returns to the tiny clinic that afternoon with three binbags full of things and the password to his blog written down on a piece of paper.
Dr. Moran presses a button on the tape recorder. He nods, indicating John should speak.
‘Uh. Uh, my name is John Watson and I’m here to, uh... I’m here to erase Sherlock Holmes.’
‘Tell me about Sherlock,’ Dr. Moran says, making notes in a jotter on his desk.
‘I’d... I’d just been invalided out from Afghanistan.’ John glances down at his left hand. It shakes. ‘I’d gone for a walk one afternoon and I ran into an old friend of mine from university - Mike, Mike Stamford. He... he took me back to St. Barts, where we went, where he works, and I, uh... I met Sherlock.’
***
Molly apparently doubles as a receptionist and what Dr. Moran describes as ‘a technician.’
‘Alright, Mr. Watson, I want you to react to these objects if you can.’ John is in a futuristic-looking chair, hooked up to a futuristic-looking machine.
She places Sherlock’s old blue scarf on the small metal table in front of him.
‘That’s... that’s Sherlock’s scarf, he gave it--’
‘I’ll actually get a much better emotional readout if you refrain from any sort of verbal description of the items,’ she says to him with a polite smile. ‘Just focus on the memories.’
‘Right,’ John says, and nods.
A pair of mugs.
A broken violin bow.
A purple button.
Sherlock’s riding crop.
***
‘Just focus on the memories.’
Molly’s voice sounds far away.
John’s eyelids flicker in his sleep.
***
‘Jim, check that wire there, will you? I’m not quite getting everything.’ Molly frowns at the screen on her lap and taps at its keyboard. Her frown deepens. ‘I’m getting a readout of my own voice, I...’
John wakes up in the clinic in his pyjamas. Dr. Moran unstraps the blood pressure sleeve from his arm and John knows what he is about to say before he says it.
‘It’s happening, isn’t it?’ John asks. ‘I’m inside my head.’
Dr. Moran looks him up and down. ‘Yes. Yes, that would be about right.’
John looks at himself sitting down in the futuristic-looking chair.
’Jim, what are you doing? That wire, fix that wire!’
Everything’s a rush of noise and movement. John sees himself with binbags, hears Molly’s voice, Dr. Moran’s, the soft Irish lilt of Jim’s.
’Why are there so many wires?’
‘Good morning, Doctor Watson, how are you today?’
‘I don’t like this,’ John says, looking around frantically.
‘Oh, look, here’s his blog.’
John hears Molly read out the words he wrote nearly two years ago.
Everything’s a rush of noise and movement.
‘I googled him when I got back to the flat. It's mad. I think he might be mad. He was certainly arrogant and really quite rude and he's clearly a bit public school and, yes, I definitely think he might be mad but he was also strangely likeable. He was charming.
‘So tomorrow, we're off to look at a flat. Me and the madman. Me and Sherlock Holmes.’
***
John screams in his sleep and Jim falls back from his position crouched on the floor.
‘Careful!’ Molly hisses. ‘Calm down.’ She sits up and clicks away at the keyboard. ‘That’s that one gone,’ she murmurs.
Jim stands up. ‘Bit of a mess, isn’t it?’
‘It’s his sister’s house, Jim,’ Molly says with a roll of her eyes.
‘Jim,’ John breathes, his eyes still closed.
‘Can we please just finish this job? It’s going to be a very long night.’
‘Of course,’ Jim says, moving to stand behind Molly. ‘Of course.’
***
‘This is the last time I saw you,’ John whispers.
Sherlock strides into the flat, his head high, his eyes bright. A thin trail of blood drips from his nose down over his mouth, onto his chin and then his shirt. John is standing next to the fireplace, holding onto the mantelpiece, watching Sherlock in the mirror.
‘Mm, hello,’ Sherlock purrs. He moves closer and presses the length of his body against John’s back, wraps his arms around John’s waist and starts licking and biting at John’s neck, rubbing his crotch against John’s arse.
John’s exposes his neck and pushes back against Sherlock and reaches up to touch his hair because he just wants to feel... before he realises how wrong, how very wrong the whole thing is, and he pulls himself away, shoves Sherlock backwards.
‘You’re high,’ he growls.
‘And?’ Sherlock’s cat’s eyes narrow when John turns to look at him. He sniffs. A fresh trickle of blood drips from his nose.
You’ve done enough fucking coke to make your nose bleed, Jesus, Sherlock...’ John grabs his jacket from the hook and slams his keys down onto the table next to the phone. ‘I’m going to stay with Harry, don’t you dare follow me. You’re pathetic.’
‘Don’t call me pathetic.’
‘You are pathetic, Sherlock,’ John snarls. He slams the door and walks down the stairs.
***
‘John!’
‘I told you not to follow me, Sherlock!’ John shouts over his shoulder, striding down Baker Street, towards the tube station. The houses he walks past collapse into a pile of rubble. Cars twist in on themselves until they’re nothing but a twisted lump of metal.
‘Look, it’s falling apart out here, let me call you a -- fuck. John! You’ll be sorry you did this!’ Sherlock yells when John keeps walking, refusing to turn round.
‘You did it to me first!’ John roars over his shoulder. ‘I can’t believe you did this to me! I’m erasing you and I’m bloody well happy about it!
He walks down the stairs to the tube and darkness follows him, swallowing the memory.
***
He hears voices as he waits on the near-empty platform of the station.
‘I’m in love with someone.’
‘You are?
‘Remember that man we did last week? The one with the skull?
‘That’s this one’s man.’ Molly pauses. ‘Was this one’s man.’
‘I... I fell in love with him that night.’
‘Christ, Jim.’
‘What?’
‘He was unconscious.’
John stares up at the ceiling and paces back and forth.
‘I stole some of his underwear, as well.’
‘You... you did what? I... Jim, I don’t want to hear about this! Come on, we’ve got work to do.’
The voices fade and John’s train comes and he steps on and the warm air of the underground ruffles his hair as they move away.
***
John and Sherlock are eating Chinese in the living room together, surrounded by feathers. The radio is on.
‘There’s... there’s more,’ Jim says.
‘What? More?’
John gets up and looks around the room for the source of the voices, behind the curtains, under the TV, in the dark kitchen. Sherlock watches him.
‘After we did him, I... I went back to his flat and asked him out.’
Frowning, John pulls the cushions off the sofa, lifts a few of the books on the desk.
‘You did what? Christ, Jim, do you have any idea how unethical--’
‘It’s not really that bad...’
‘There’s someone here,’ John says to Sherlock, who is still on the sofa, impassively eating his noodles. ‘He... he’s stolen your underwear.’
Sherlock frowns. ‘I don’t see anyone,’ he says shortly.
The clock ticks. John goes over to the window.
He turns around, and the room is dark and Sherlock is gone.
***
John pulls his stripy jumper up over his face and rests the skull on top of his head so it looks as though the skull is wearing John’s clothes. Sherlock storms into the room, his coat flying behind him, his face twisted.
‘Bored,’ he mutters, grabbing John’s gun off the desk and shooting through one of the cushions that is next to John on the sofa. Feathers fly everywhere and John pushes his head through the neck of his jumper again, buries his face in his hands.
‘I should have left you at the Yard.’
The front door slams and the room disappears.
***
‘Sherlock, now isn’t the time or the place for--’
‘Shut up, John! They won’t listen, they never listen--’
They are at Scotland Yard in a room with about forty other people. Sherlock is right in the middle, being intimidating and loud. They’re dealing with a crime of passion and Sherlock can’t quite get his head around the motives of the murderer, who has disappeared without trace.
‘Sherlock,’ John growls, grabbing Sherlock’s wrist. ‘There’s no need to be vile just because we’re not getting anywhere, we’ll figure it out.’ Sherlock shakes him away and whirls around until he is looming over John, his eyes icy.
‘Shut up,’ he hisses. ‘You ultimately have no input into the outcome of this case so either stop hanging off my coattails and slowing me down or do something useful and shut up.’
‘Oh,’ John says, his jaw tight, breathing shortly through his nose. ‘Oh right, I see.’
Sherlock sneers and turns away. John glowers at his back and folds his arms across his chest, narrowing his eyes.
***
‘I still cannot believe you stole that man’s underwear,’ Molly says, shaking her head. She smiles slightly though, as if she’s in awe of Jim’s nerve.
Jim giggles. ‘I never really seem to have much luck with men, but--’
‘Well maybe if you didn’t steal their underwear!’ Molly exclaims, though she glances at Jim and laughs too as she clicks at her computer, her eyes drifting to John lying on the bed.
‘I always wonder, you know. What happened. With things like this, I mean, I always wonder why they fell out of love or whether they were really in love in the first place and what was it like when it was good.’ She sips her water. ‘Do you wonder?’
‘Not really,’ Jim says.
***
John lies in their bed, dozing. He is curled in on himself, the cold late-Autumn night emphasising every line and scar and wrinkle on his face. Sherlock stretches out next to him, moulds their bodies together, presses warm, open-mouthed kisses to John’s throat and then his cheek.
‘You don’t tell me anything, John,’ Sherlock mumbles, sounding far off and sad. A dearth of cases has led to Sherlock being inert and introspective for weeks. In some ways it’s worse than the manic energy that boredom usually gives him.
‘I don’t need to tell you anything. You can read me in seconds.’
‘Not always.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘I like to hear it from you, John. I shouldn’t have to deduce how your day went or whether you’re happy or--’ Sherlock sighs and his grip on John’s waist tightens. He kisses John’s neck again. ‘You don’t talk to me anymore.’
‘Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end,’ John mimics with a roll of his eyes.
‘This isn’t about me, John,’ Sherlock snaps. The warm weight of him from John’s back disappears.
‘Alright, I’m sorry,’ John says, rolling over and catching Sherlock’s hip before he can get up. He kisses Sherlock’s nape. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just... not that interesting. Not like you.’
The memory fades as Sherlock’s reply echoes around them.
They disappear.
***
Dinner at Angelo’s again.
It’s been a fortnight without a case and John and Sherlock sit opposite one another, eating in silence.
John finishes a bottle of wine. Sherlock glares out of the window.
They walk home in silence and watch TV in silence and go to bed in silence and it’s all so very, very sad.
***
‘Jim, get off the phone, come on, we’ve got work to do,’ Molly says, as Jim picks up his ringing mobile and waves Molly off. She sighs and taps at the keys in front of her with more vigour. ‘Jim.’ Molly glares.
‘Hello? Sherlock, is that you?’
‘Oh Jim, you’re there. I’m... I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
‘Why, what’s the matter?’ Jim says, turning to glance at Molly.
‘I don’t know, Jim, I’m so confused, I feel... I feel like I’m disappearing and I...’
‘Maybe I should come and see you.’
‘No. No, I... I don’t know. I don’t know.’
‘I’d cheer you up,’ Jim cajoles.
‘Yes,’ Sherlock says from the other end of the phone, his voice tight. ‘Yes, alright.’ Jim puts the phone down.
‘Molly... Molly, can I leave for a bit? My boyfriend’s really upset.’
Molly sighs in exasperation. ‘Jim, we’re in the middle of erasing this poor man’s memory and you want to run over to the man that erased him and...’ she sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. ‘Fine. Fine. Go.’
***
‘What do you think?’ Sherlock says, drawing himself up and arching an eyebrow, his arms out to one side as he poses, showing off his new silk shirt. It’s a deep, deep red, and he looks splendid in it.
‘Wow,’ John says, grinning as he wriggles to sit up against the headboard.
‘Do you like it?’ Sherlock drawls, crawling onto the bed and on top of John, kissing him eagerly.
‘Mm, I love it,’ John mumbles against Sherlock’s lips, running his hands up and down Sherlock’s sides, feeling the silk. ‘I love it and I love you and--’
John sits up and frowns at the voice he hears suddenly.
‘My boyfriend’s really upset.’
‘How did he creep into your life like that?’ he asks, cupping Sherlock’s cheek.
‘Hm?’ Sherlock says, nuzzling into John’s palm. ‘Who?’
***
Jim grabs his stick and his jumper and his iPhone with the hacked, private pages of John’s blog saved to it out of the back of the van and he makes his way over to Baker Street.
Sherlock throws the door open, his hair wild, his shirt undone, his eyes red-rimmed and his face pale.
‘Hey, hey, what’s the matter?’ Jim coos, limping into 221b, following Sherlock as he stalks back into the heart of the flat.
‘I don’t know,’ Sherlock says. ‘I don’t know, I feel like I’m disappearing and my skin’s coming off and it’s like... it’s like there are people inside my head and I... I don’t know, I just don’t know.’ He sits down in the low armchair with the union jack cushion and stands up almost immediately. ‘It’s not right, it’s not right.’
‘Sherlock, it’s... it’s okay,’ Jim says, moving to wrap his arms around Sherlock. He kisses Sherlock’s nest of curls. ‘It’s okay.’
‘No, it’s not okay, nothing makes any sense, and I thought that ringing you would make it better, someone always makes it better and...’ he pushes Jim away and holds him at arm’s length.
‘Let’s get away,’ Sherlock says. ‘Let’s go, right now, do you want to come to Angelo’s with me?’
‘Angelo’s?’
‘Yes, Angelo’s-- no, Margate. Yes, let’s go to Margate.’
‘We... we could go next weekend?’
‘No, now,’ Sherlock says, buttoning his shirt up. ‘Let’s go now, I have to go now.’
***
Molly, I’m really sorry, my boyfriend’s a bit of a mess and can you manage tonight by yourself? I’ll owe you one. Jim.
Molly makes an irritated sound in the back of her throat at the text and throws her phone onto the bed next to John.
***
‘Margate,’ Jim mutters as he flips through the pages of John’s blog on his phone, biting his lip as he ctrl and fs every page. ‘Margate, Margate...’
I told Sherlock that I love him today. That he makes me feel alive.
‘Come along, Jim,’ Sherlock says from the doorway, pulling on his gloves, his movements still jerky and agitated.
Jim drops the phone back into his bag and rummages around in the bottom. ‘I, uh... I got you this,’ he says, grabbing the wrapped present with Sherlock scrawled on it in John’s handwriting. ‘Happy early Valentine’s day, uh...’ he hands it over and Sherlock unwraps it, frowning at the indigo cashmere scarf that spills out over his fingers.
‘Do you... do you like it?’
‘It’s... it’s exactly my taste,’ Sherlock murmurs. ‘I’ve... I’ve never known anyone to buy me clothes I actually like,’ he says, blinking at Jim. ‘Thank you.’
Jim smiles and leans in. He kisses Sherlock sweetly on the mouth.
***
Part Two.