Sherlock Fanfiction: In Arduis Fidelis
Title: In Arduis Fidelis
Author: saki101
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Rating: R+ (I think)
Genre: Slash
Word Count: ~2K
Disclaimer: Sherlock is not mine and no money is being made.
Summary: After Sherlock's plane lands.
A/N: Written for Come at Once: Round 4. kizzia's beautiful, evocative prompt, 'Faithful in Adversity', insisted that I think of John. From there, my brain went in an unexpected direction.
Excerpt: “You aren’t really in a position to make ultimatums, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft said.
“Apparently I am, because I’m making one."
Also posted on AO3.
In Arduis Fidelis
As one they looked up, their features so dissimilar, the intensity of their gaze identical. The noise in the corridor increased. The door began to open.
“Sir,” said the tall man leaning in at the door. “I…”
“Let me…” John pushed under the man’s arm and into Mycroft’s office. His eyes locked on Sherlock and he halted, drew a breath.
“Where’s Mary?” Mycroft asked from his seat.
“Upstairs with Anthea,” John replied.
“Ask Alistair to join them,” Mycroft said to the man at the door. “Tell him to flirt with Anthea until I call for him.” The man nodded, face impassive, waiting for further instructions or to be dismissed. “Tell him to be subtle, but persistent. Stay nearby. Don’t let Mrs Watson out of sight.” The door closed.
“What can I do for you, John?” Mycroft said, changing only the direction of his glance.
“I’m going with him,” John said, eyes shifting to Mycroft, head tilting towards where Sherlock still leaned over the desk, one hand on the back of Mycroft’s chair.
“Who said he’s going anywhere?” Mycroft enquired, settling back. Sherlock straightened.
“It doesn’t matter whether he stays or goes, I’ll be with him.”
“You aren’t really in a position to make ultimatums, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft said.
“Apparently I am, because I’m making one. He," John replied, pointing at Sherlock, “is not going anywhere without me, unless I’m dead. That’s my ultimatum.” John took another breath and gave Mycroft a curt nod.
Mycroft laughed. “I don’t want to kill you, John.”
“Good,” John said.
“What Sherlock will be doing will not be without peril,” Mycroft said. “Hardly a prudent undertaking for a man with a wife and baby.”
“I married a woman who doesn’t exist and the baby is not mine. I am a doctor, you know, I can do a paternity test all on my own,” John rapped out.
“Not an hour ago, you spoke of ‘your daughter’,” Sherlock said.
John drew himself up and turned on Sherlock. “You were going away to die for me and my bloody happiness, the least I could do was let you think there was some happiness for me to have.”
Sherlock's brows drew together.
“You had a plan and so I forgave her to forward it, but it didn’t include your being gone. I can’t live with that again.” Sherlock opened his mouth; John raised his hand. “I know you didn’t think you’d have to shoot Magnussen to end his hold over Mary…” John pointed at Mycroft, “…and over him.” John glared at Mycroft. “I don’t know what Magnussen had on you, but you, and a lot of your friends around here…” John’s hand waved towards the door and the ceiling, “…have got to be ever so glad that he’s gone.”
There was the slightest lift to Mycroft’s eyebrows as he continued watching John.
“But you were sending Sherlock away to die anyway. I don’t understand you,” John concluded.
“Not surprising,” Mycroft said. “And at the risk of stating the obvious, he is still with us.” Mycroft flicked his fingers in Sherlock’s direction. “So, to bring our little conversation to a close, Doctor Watson, would you care to summarise? I do have other things to do.”
“If Sherlock has to go anywhere, I go with him. While he’s in London, I stay with him.”
“We could continue to placate Mary, if you stayed with her,” Sherlock said.
John studied Sherlock. “You can’t tell me you want that and I can’t do it alone anymore,” John said. He turned to Mycroft. “The idea that Moriarty could be alive threw her. I’ve not seen her that unnerved by anything. She could believe it if you said we’re all in danger and that the three of us need to stay together.” John took a deep breath. “That, I think, I could endure.”
Mycroft looked up at Sherlock.
“We might achieve more by waiting to see who comes after her than pursuing any of the other avenues that we’ve identified,” Sherlock said.
“She’s not going to be happy waiting,” Mycroft said.
“You’ll have to convince her that your precautions are the best possible,” John said.
“And give her scope to improve on them, keep her occupied,” Sherlock said.
“While making sure she isn’t dismantling them?” Mycroft asked, smiling his thin-lipped smile at Sherlock.
“I’m not suggesting that it would be easy,” Sherlock said. “But it would make it less tedious for her.”
“John, you want to be caged up for some undefined amount of time with two restless panthers?” Mycroft asked.
The tension was starting to leave John’s shoulders. “It’s better than the alternative.”
“In arduis fidelis, indeed,” Mycroft remarked. “Go join Mary and rescue Anthea. She can accompany you to gather the things you want to bring to Baker Street for the duration.”
John narrowed his eyes at Mycroft.
“I’ll have Sherlock brought around when you’ve returned there, dragging his heels and protesting all the way,” Mycroft replied. He smiled faintly. “For verisimilitude.”
“Mary can tell when Sherlock’s lying,” John said.
“Then, you’d best keep her distracted,” Mycroft concluded and pushed a button on his desk phone. Someone even taller and broader than the previous employee opened the door.
***
“This is what the British Security Services considers a secure facility?” Mary said once Anthea and the driver who had carried her cases up the stairs had departed.
“Looks can be deceiving,” John replied and immediately regretted his phrasing. Almost everything in his life had an unwanted second meaning. “Tea?”
“Sure. Why not?” Mary replied, settling on the sofa with her feet up.
The front door banged. The sound of shuffling feet and muffled voices came from the hallway. John and Mary exchanged looks. “It’s only seventeen steps,” they heard Sherlock say. “You don’t have to bring it all the way to the top.”
John took another mug from the cupboard.
The door to the sitting room hit the wall. “Near the desk, there,” Sherlock said, pointing. The two men accompanying him set the plastic crate down by the window with a thump. Sherlock whacked a stack of files directly onto the table and took his gloves and coat and scarf off. “That should do for now,” he said as the men passed him on their way to the hall.
“Ta,” John called after them from the kitchen doorway, a mug in each hand.
The front door banged again.
Sherlock looked from Mary to John, rubbing his hands. “Reading material,” he said, although no one had asked.
John handed him a mug, set the other near Mary and went back to the kitchen for his cup. “All right, what are we reading?”
“Files of known Moriarty associates,” Sherlock said.
John glanced at the crate. “Doesn’t seem enough.”
“1980s,” Sherlock said. “More tomorrow.”
John scowled.
“No minimum age requirements in the world of crime, John.”
“And those?” John nodded towards the desk.
“For Mary,” Sherlock replied, taking a folder off the top and moving the rest of the stack to the coffee table. Mary looked up from her tea. “Unattributed assassinations. Thought you might have insight into some of them,” Sherlock explained.
***
The fire was low in the grate. Papers, mugs and take-out cartons littered the room. “I can’t read another word,” Mary said, closing the file on her lap. She shut her eyes for a moment before swinging her legs off the sofa. “One more trip to the loo before I tackle the stairs.”
“You can have my room,” Sherlock said, without looking away from the paper in his hand. “Door straight into the loo.”
“You staying up, I suppose,” Mary asked.
“For a while,” Sherlock replied. “I won’t play the violin. Tonight.”
“I’ll not say no to that, then.”
***
John looked across the desk. Sherlock’s head was bent over a diagram, presenting a crown of dishevelled curls. Outside the dark was quiet, winter dawn still hours away. “Sherlock,” John whispered. The silence seemed to call for it.
Sherlock murmured, without looking up.
“I can barely hold my head up,” John said.
“Sleep,” Sherlock replied.
“I don’t want to go in there.”
Sherlock raised his head.
“I don’t want to leave the room you’re in.”
Sherlock’s eyes narrowed.
“We’ve been apart too much,” John continued and he reached out to brush a scrap of paper out of Sherlock’s hair. It fluttered to the table. “I don’t think I can add another minute to it.”
Eyes still on John, Sherlock nodded, rose from his chair. He held out his hand. “I have something to show you.”
***
The air was cooler in the hallway outside 221C. Sherlock opened the circuit box next to the door and punched a code into something John couldn’t see. The door unlatched. Its glass panels were lined with solid metal on the inside.
“What’s this?”
“A safe haven,” Sherlock replied, switching on the lights and shutting the door behind them. Multiple tumblers fell. “I agreed to Mycroft installing it when I got out of the hospital the second time.”
“I thought they were fixing the boiler,” John said.
One side of Sherlock’s mouth curled upwards. “Well, you were preoccupied.” He pushed open a door to a small bedroom. “I even consented to gas hearths,” he said, striking a match and kneeling to turn on the valve. “They can be sealed,” he added, standing again.
John recognised the babbling details. “You’ll stay here with me?” he asked. “You won’t creep back upstairs?”
Sherlock shook his head. “I’ll sleep with you.”
John drew in a breath, put his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “And if I wanted to do more than sleep with my miraculous friend?”
“Yes.”
John’s hand tightened. “You can’t give me this and take it away again. You wouldn’t be saving me, because I wouldn’t survive.”
“Nor would I.”
***
Consciousness came back before his body was ready to receive it. John felt the warmth along his side, beneath a leg, an arm and decided consciousness was worth the effort. He had begun to doubt it. His fingers splayed slightly. Smooth skin. He had dreamt of it many times, that pale, smooth skin. He kneaded it with his fingertips, released a shuddering breath and pushed the sleepiness further aside. He turned his head. His lips found a shoulder; he tested it with his teeth. There was a murmur beside him. He rolled. Firm buttocks pressed against his belly. He slid upwards and gave in to the urge to bite at the base of the neck, soft curls against his temple, cleft cradling his cock.
“I thought you were exhausted.”
“Some things take precedence over sleep,” John replied. He slid down, lips skimming over vertebrae, cock falling between parted thighs. “You’ve always been one of them.”
The buttocks pushed up against his chest. He slipped further down and bit one.
There was a deep rumble. John grasped the hips and bit again, fingers digging in. He kissed and bit, legs tightening around the legs between his. The rumble deepened. He let go of one hip, stroked over the muscle, teased the beginning of the cleft. A bite, a kiss, a stroke with the tongue. His finger found the moist opening. His breath came more rapidly, dried the saliva from the kisses. His finger pressed its advantage. There was a moan. The finger crooked. A sharp intake of breath. He was awake now, more awake than he had ever been, John thought. He reared up and buried himself where his finger had been. A long exhalation. Soft buttocks against his pelvis. Inside, slippery still, warm, tight. He worked his hands under the chest. Against his palms, Sherlock’s heart thumped, his lungs expanded. Cheek against Sherlock’s neck, arms tight, back arching, flattening, arching again. Faster, smooth, slippery and hot, heart hammering now, breath rough. Sherlock groaned. John felt it. Faster. Tight. Tighter. It drew him like a bow. Head back, he shouted with his release, collapsed, face against the damp curls. Let sleep take him back.
***
Mary woke up in the afternoon. She checked the sitting room, the upstairs bedroom. Mrs Hudson called to ask if she needed anything from the shops.
“Do you know where John and Sherlock are?” Mary asked.
“I saw one of those black cars pull away a little while ago,” Mrs Hudson replied. “There’s a note on the mantle down here says there’ll be another delivery this afternoon. Doesn’t say of what though.”
“I think we might need milk,” Mary replied.
“Same as ever,” Mrs Hudson said. There was a draught of cold air. The door shut behind her.
Mary made herself another cup of tea and checked her mobile.
***
A light blinked on Mycroft’s desk. He picked up his phone and listened.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author: saki101
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Rating: R+ (I think)
Genre: Slash
Word Count: ~2K
Disclaimer: Sherlock is not mine and no money is being made.
Summary: After Sherlock's plane lands.
A/N: Written for Come at Once: Round 4. kizzia's beautiful, evocative prompt, 'Faithful in Adversity', insisted that I think of John. From there, my brain went in an unexpected direction.
Excerpt: “You aren’t really in a position to make ultimatums, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft said.
“Apparently I am, because I’m making one."
Also posted on AO3.
In Arduis Fidelis
As one they looked up, their features so dissimilar, the intensity of their gaze identical. The noise in the corridor increased. The door began to open.
“Sir,” said the tall man leaning in at the door. “I…”
“Let me…” John pushed under the man’s arm and into Mycroft’s office. His eyes locked on Sherlock and he halted, drew a breath.
“Where’s Mary?” Mycroft asked from his seat.
“Upstairs with Anthea,” John replied.
“Ask Alistair to join them,” Mycroft said to the man at the door. “Tell him to flirt with Anthea until I call for him.” The man nodded, face impassive, waiting for further instructions or to be dismissed. “Tell him to be subtle, but persistent. Stay nearby. Don’t let Mrs Watson out of sight.” The door closed.
“What can I do for you, John?” Mycroft said, changing only the direction of his glance.
“I’m going with him,” John said, eyes shifting to Mycroft, head tilting towards where Sherlock still leaned over the desk, one hand on the back of Mycroft’s chair.
“Who said he’s going anywhere?” Mycroft enquired, settling back. Sherlock straightened.
“It doesn’t matter whether he stays or goes, I’ll be with him.”
“You aren’t really in a position to make ultimatums, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft said.
“Apparently I am, because I’m making one. He," John replied, pointing at Sherlock, “is not going anywhere without me, unless I’m dead. That’s my ultimatum.” John took another breath and gave Mycroft a curt nod.
Mycroft laughed. “I don’t want to kill you, John.”
“Good,” John said.
“What Sherlock will be doing will not be without peril,” Mycroft said. “Hardly a prudent undertaking for a man with a wife and baby.”
“I married a woman who doesn’t exist and the baby is not mine. I am a doctor, you know, I can do a paternity test all on my own,” John rapped out.
“Not an hour ago, you spoke of ‘your daughter’,” Sherlock said.
John drew himself up and turned on Sherlock. “You were going away to die for me and my bloody happiness, the least I could do was let you think there was some happiness for me to have.”
Sherlock's brows drew together.
“You had a plan and so I forgave her to forward it, but it didn’t include your being gone. I can’t live with that again.” Sherlock opened his mouth; John raised his hand. “I know you didn’t think you’d have to shoot Magnussen to end his hold over Mary…” John pointed at Mycroft, “…and over him.” John glared at Mycroft. “I don’t know what Magnussen had on you, but you, and a lot of your friends around here…” John’s hand waved towards the door and the ceiling, “…have got to be ever so glad that he’s gone.”
There was the slightest lift to Mycroft’s eyebrows as he continued watching John.
“But you were sending Sherlock away to die anyway. I don’t understand you,” John concluded.
“Not surprising,” Mycroft said. “And at the risk of stating the obvious, he is still with us.” Mycroft flicked his fingers in Sherlock’s direction. “So, to bring our little conversation to a close, Doctor Watson, would you care to summarise? I do have other things to do.”
“If Sherlock has to go anywhere, I go with him. While he’s in London, I stay with him.”
“We could continue to placate Mary, if you stayed with her,” Sherlock said.
John studied Sherlock. “You can’t tell me you want that and I can’t do it alone anymore,” John said. He turned to Mycroft. “The idea that Moriarty could be alive threw her. I’ve not seen her that unnerved by anything. She could believe it if you said we’re all in danger and that the three of us need to stay together.” John took a deep breath. “That, I think, I could endure.”
Mycroft looked up at Sherlock.
“We might achieve more by waiting to see who comes after her than pursuing any of the other avenues that we’ve identified,” Sherlock said.
“She’s not going to be happy waiting,” Mycroft said.
“You’ll have to convince her that your precautions are the best possible,” John said.
“And give her scope to improve on them, keep her occupied,” Sherlock said.
“While making sure she isn’t dismantling them?” Mycroft asked, smiling his thin-lipped smile at Sherlock.
“I’m not suggesting that it would be easy,” Sherlock said. “But it would make it less tedious for her.”
“John, you want to be caged up for some undefined amount of time with two restless panthers?” Mycroft asked.
The tension was starting to leave John’s shoulders. “It’s better than the alternative.”
“In arduis fidelis, indeed,” Mycroft remarked. “Go join Mary and rescue Anthea. She can accompany you to gather the things you want to bring to Baker Street for the duration.”
John narrowed his eyes at Mycroft.
“I’ll have Sherlock brought around when you’ve returned there, dragging his heels and protesting all the way,” Mycroft replied. He smiled faintly. “For verisimilitude.”
“Mary can tell when Sherlock’s lying,” John said.
“Then, you’d best keep her distracted,” Mycroft concluded and pushed a button on his desk phone. Someone even taller and broader than the previous employee opened the door.
***
“This is what the British Security Services considers a secure facility?” Mary said once Anthea and the driver who had carried her cases up the stairs had departed.
“Looks can be deceiving,” John replied and immediately regretted his phrasing. Almost everything in his life had an unwanted second meaning. “Tea?”
“Sure. Why not?” Mary replied, settling on the sofa with her feet up.
The front door banged. The sound of shuffling feet and muffled voices came from the hallway. John and Mary exchanged looks. “It’s only seventeen steps,” they heard Sherlock say. “You don’t have to bring it all the way to the top.”
John took another mug from the cupboard.
The door to the sitting room hit the wall. “Near the desk, there,” Sherlock said, pointing. The two men accompanying him set the plastic crate down by the window with a thump. Sherlock whacked a stack of files directly onto the table and took his gloves and coat and scarf off. “That should do for now,” he said as the men passed him on their way to the hall.
“Ta,” John called after them from the kitchen doorway, a mug in each hand.
The front door banged again.
Sherlock looked from Mary to John, rubbing his hands. “Reading material,” he said, although no one had asked.
John handed him a mug, set the other near Mary and went back to the kitchen for his cup. “All right, what are we reading?”
“Files of known Moriarty associates,” Sherlock said.
John glanced at the crate. “Doesn’t seem enough.”
“1980s,” Sherlock said. “More tomorrow.”
John scowled.
“No minimum age requirements in the world of crime, John.”
“And those?” John nodded towards the desk.
“For Mary,” Sherlock replied, taking a folder off the top and moving the rest of the stack to the coffee table. Mary looked up from her tea. “Unattributed assassinations. Thought you might have insight into some of them,” Sherlock explained.
***
The fire was low in the grate. Papers, mugs and take-out cartons littered the room. “I can’t read another word,” Mary said, closing the file on her lap. She shut her eyes for a moment before swinging her legs off the sofa. “One more trip to the loo before I tackle the stairs.”
“You can have my room,” Sherlock said, without looking away from the paper in his hand. “Door straight into the loo.”
“You staying up, I suppose,” Mary asked.
“For a while,” Sherlock replied. “I won’t play the violin. Tonight.”
“I’ll not say no to that, then.”
***
John looked across the desk. Sherlock’s head was bent over a diagram, presenting a crown of dishevelled curls. Outside the dark was quiet, winter dawn still hours away. “Sherlock,” John whispered. The silence seemed to call for it.
Sherlock murmured, without looking up.
“I can barely hold my head up,” John said.
“Sleep,” Sherlock replied.
“I don’t want to go in there.”
Sherlock raised his head.
“I don’t want to leave the room you’re in.”
Sherlock’s eyes narrowed.
“We’ve been apart too much,” John continued and he reached out to brush a scrap of paper out of Sherlock’s hair. It fluttered to the table. “I don’t think I can add another minute to it.”
Eyes still on John, Sherlock nodded, rose from his chair. He held out his hand. “I have something to show you.”
***
The air was cooler in the hallway outside 221C. Sherlock opened the circuit box next to the door and punched a code into something John couldn’t see. The door unlatched. Its glass panels were lined with solid metal on the inside.
“What’s this?”
“A safe haven,” Sherlock replied, switching on the lights and shutting the door behind them. Multiple tumblers fell. “I agreed to Mycroft installing it when I got out of the hospital the second time.”
“I thought they were fixing the boiler,” John said.
One side of Sherlock’s mouth curled upwards. “Well, you were preoccupied.” He pushed open a door to a small bedroom. “I even consented to gas hearths,” he said, striking a match and kneeling to turn on the valve. “They can be sealed,” he added, standing again.
John recognised the babbling details. “You’ll stay here with me?” he asked. “You won’t creep back upstairs?”
Sherlock shook his head. “I’ll sleep with you.”
John drew in a breath, put his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “And if I wanted to do more than sleep with my miraculous friend?”
“Yes.”
John’s hand tightened. “You can’t give me this and take it away again. You wouldn’t be saving me, because I wouldn’t survive.”
“Nor would I.”
***
Consciousness came back before his body was ready to receive it. John felt the warmth along his side, beneath a leg, an arm and decided consciousness was worth the effort. He had begun to doubt it. His fingers splayed slightly. Smooth skin. He had dreamt of it many times, that pale, smooth skin. He kneaded it with his fingertips, released a shuddering breath and pushed the sleepiness further aside. He turned his head. His lips found a shoulder; he tested it with his teeth. There was a murmur beside him. He rolled. Firm buttocks pressed against his belly. He slid upwards and gave in to the urge to bite at the base of the neck, soft curls against his temple, cleft cradling his cock.
“I thought you were exhausted.”
“Some things take precedence over sleep,” John replied. He slid down, lips skimming over vertebrae, cock falling between parted thighs. “You’ve always been one of them.”
The buttocks pushed up against his chest. He slipped further down and bit one.
There was a deep rumble. John grasped the hips and bit again, fingers digging in. He kissed and bit, legs tightening around the legs between his. The rumble deepened. He let go of one hip, stroked over the muscle, teased the beginning of the cleft. A bite, a kiss, a stroke with the tongue. His finger found the moist opening. His breath came more rapidly, dried the saliva from the kisses. His finger pressed its advantage. There was a moan. The finger crooked. A sharp intake of breath. He was awake now, more awake than he had ever been, John thought. He reared up and buried himself where his finger had been. A long exhalation. Soft buttocks against his pelvis. Inside, slippery still, warm, tight. He worked his hands under the chest. Against his palms, Sherlock’s heart thumped, his lungs expanded. Cheek against Sherlock’s neck, arms tight, back arching, flattening, arching again. Faster, smooth, slippery and hot, heart hammering now, breath rough. Sherlock groaned. John felt it. Faster. Tight. Tighter. It drew him like a bow. Head back, he shouted with his release, collapsed, face against the damp curls. Let sleep take him back.
***
Mary woke up in the afternoon. She checked the sitting room, the upstairs bedroom. Mrs Hudson called to ask if she needed anything from the shops.
“Do you know where John and Sherlock are?” Mary asked.
“I saw one of those black cars pull away a little while ago,” Mrs Hudson replied. “There’s a note on the mantle down here says there’ll be another delivery this afternoon. Doesn’t say of what though.”
“I think we might need milk,” Mary replied.
“Same as ever,” Mrs Hudson said. There was a draught of cold air. The door shut behind her.
Mary made herself another cup of tea and checked her mobile.
***
A light blinked on Mycroft’s desk. He picked up his phone and listened.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~