A Perfect Duality (ch. 6)
A Perfect Duality (ch. 6)
Author: Sfumatosoup
Pairing: Sherlock/John Rating: PG. There’s some seductive kissing maybe. Nothing a to make a 13 year old blush over.
Word Count: 17,00
Disclaimer: I own nil. They all belong to Sir ACD, and Misters Moffat and Gatiss among others. Not intending to make a profit from this in any way, shape or form. Warning: Spoiler-ish for ‘The Great Game’.
...
Chapter 6
“Cannibals.”
John’s head whipped up to stare at his friend, “…What?”
“But, there may just be one,” Sherlock mused, prodding at a dangling corpse, hanging from the rafters like butchered cattle.
The Harvester swatted away the surrounding flies and pointed at the grizzled, rancid tissue, “They’ve been skinned, flanks missing, limbs removed of flesh. Use your eyes, John. They’ve been cut for meat. There is no evidence of contagion, so they
would’ve been a select choice for providing sustenance to a starving family. ”
“Why…?” The Healer began incredulously, cringing with horror.
Sherlock had an odd look of wry amusement written across his face.
“Obvious. With the Plague crossing the countryside, there’s been a staggering loss of farming productivity… thus, starving will lead to desperation.”
John frowned as the Harvester continued his inspection.
“But the corpses, Sherlock, no signature Marks. No Clouds. Nothing to suggest this was the work of the Reaper, nothing pulled from the dossier of his typical modus operandi…” the Healer argued.
“Yes, keen observation, John, no Marks.”
He flushed with the praise.
“At least not from the Reaper,” Sherlock continued, “It could for all appearances be just another Aboveland Domino-style cause and effect Marking.”
“Then why do you look so self-satisfied?” John countered.
“It’s apparent that they’ve been hanging for only a little over a week according to the levels of putrefaction, proving we may yet have living perpetrators, and there’s something amiss. Something we’re not seeing. Not yet.”
“What makes you think so?”
“It’s all wrong. It goes against Aboveland method, because when they Mark, they notify Limbo beforehand, and the Yard diligently follows suit with clean-up, yet there are no traces that either have done so. Which means the Souls have been displaced and have yet to be Harvested.”
His fluid line of reasoning, as usual, was precise, but too abstruse for the Healer.
“Fine. Where are the Souls, then, where’s this Cannibal of yours?” John queried, brows furrowed.
“We shall see. Follow me.”
“Shouldn’t we notify the Yard of where we’re heading? We’re expected back down in the next Village in-“
“No time!” Sherlock snapped excitedly, “This has precedence, Lestrade will have to wait!”
…
They made their way back up to a Manor set above the jutting hillside.
It didn’t seem vacant, as there were obvious signs that occupants had been tending work about the place recently.
“Why here? There are no tell-tale disturbances.”
“It’s a blatant façade. A decoy. Too normal,” John followed his gaze up to the house, “What gives it all away is there is no livestock, no servants, no guards.”
“True,” the Healer conceded.
“I want to check inside.”
John sighed, and followed his friend.
As they entered, he noted the quiet. Too quiet. Neither a Soul nor Human in sight.
They entered into a kitchen with a basin and prep table. A fire roared in the hearth as if it’d been recently stoked, with a kettle simmering above the flames.
A basket of blood-sotted rags, and a cleaver sat in front of a narrow door. Sherlock kicked it aside, and opened the pantry where within, were a child and hound, strung up and gutted; entrails cleanly collected in a bin below.
Unlike the peasants from before, the child had obviously died of infection, a victim of Plague, grotesquely spotted with rings and boils.
“Ah, so the family became infected, anyway,” He observed, verbalizing the Healer’s thoughts.
“And he ate his dead son?”
“Didn’t matter anymore, he had already gone mad.”
“And so he ate his dead son,” John repeated, trying to impress the horror of this fact upon the Harvester.
“Yes, which leads to believe if he’s not already dead that he’s also infected.”
As if they’d triggered some sort of violent flood, the air was suddenly rife with souls flitting about, impatient, doggedly swimming around them.
They made short work of of it, yet some seemed to be tangled due to stagnation. The Healer had to apply quite a bit of acumen determining how to best sort them out for Harvesting.
The Souls demonstrated strange reluctance to comply, as if there was something yet to be established about their fate, which Sherlock logically deduced meant there was some sort of connecting Mark, somewhere still inside the house.
There was something else, however, that nagged at the Healer, and suddenly he grasped at what it was.
“Sherlock! As you were Harvesting, did you by any chance see the Wife? I mean, we have the rest of the household, but where is the Wife?”
“The Wife, what Wife,” the Harvester responded, preoccupied.
And then it clicked.
He jumped into the air as if he’d been electrocuted, spun around pivoting on one heel, and grabbed the stunned Healer by his shoulders.
“Genius, John! I could kiss you! Where is the Wife!”
Sherlock grinned broadly at his friend with a look that bespoke of pride, “You never cease to amaze, my dear! We may have no trail, just yet, but I think, if we can find her, we’ll find our quarry!”
The Harvester sprinted down a long corridor and up a stairway with John close behind.
And there it was, clear as daylight.
The Mark inhabiting a man before them, glowing mockingly in the dim cast.
The sole survivor, deranged, blood dripping from his chin, cut into a dead woman that lay before him.
As the man savagely tore into the abdomen, John grimaced. He continued to pull the entrails out from the cavity and shoved them into his mouth, with a sort of vacant gleam.
Surrounding her corpse were unevenly scrawled and illegible markings carved into the floorboards.
The Soul of the woman-the Wife, huddled in the corner of the room gaping silently at the ghastly scene. John felt a twinge of pity.
She was going to be a difficult one to Harvest.
The butcher’s robes were soiled with the gore of his victims, and evident was his sallow skin, covered in boils, cheekbones sharp with the signs of encroaching death.
Sherlock smiled in a nearly alarming way that disturbed the Healer.
“This one is fresh,” Sherlock remarked coolly, glancing upward.
John looked up as well, but saw nothing.
The Harvester raised his Scythe and evoked the Mark, deciphering it with acuity and the Healer watched as his friend intricately wove it to reveal the dark Cloud festering above them. It read of Plague and Insanity; yet nowhere to be found was the signature of the Reaper.
The Butcher seemed to sense the changing atmosphere, and his eyes, sunken into his skull, narrowed suspiciously and darted about, attempting to locate whatever plague induced delirium his rotting brain had manufactured.
It was quite alarming when his gaze clearly settled on the two of them, as to human’s they were supposed to be invisible.
The Butcher’s mouldering skin crumpled away, flesh dropping in sickly clumps around him, revealing a spectre of Downlander origin.
The creature rose up, massive, and terrible.
It had been a trap!
Brandishing their Scythes, the Healer and the Harvester prepared themselves for battle. The giant attacked first, savagely knocking John’s weapon out of his hands. Sherlock swung out, lodging his scythe deep between the beast’s shoulders, to no effect. It whipped around and threw him across the room, where he hit the wall.
Before John could re obtain his own weapon, he too, was thrown across the room to the other side, smacking harshly against the floor.
Then, faster than lightening, the giant launched itself back toward Sherlock, who was feebly attempting to upright himself. It snagged him by the front of his robes preparing to thrash him back to the ground, when John, from behind, leapt onto its back, one arm wrapped around his neck, the other grabbing the lodged Scythe.
The beast spun around to throw him off, dropping Sherlock in the process, just as a swarm of Yard Officials invaded the room.
Before they could seize it, however, the creature vanished, as if sucked through the floor boards. Sherlock’s Scythe clamored to the ground, as the Officers teemed about.
The Harvester, still splayed across the floor where he’d been dropped, uttered a disconsolate cry of frustration.
John clambered up, stunned and a bit sore, and grabbed his friend’s hand, tugging him up beside him.
The Harvester gawked in horror at the empty space where the Butcher had been not a second before.
With unbridled rage, he whipped around and stalked over to Lestrade.
“You blundering idiot! We lost him!” Sherlock snarled furiously, glaring at the man.
“We tracked the runes drawn for a Downlander back to the West of here, and we followed it,” The Yard Harvester defended, “He could’ve summoned a Drainer! Would you have rather been eaten? You should have informed us of your position in the first place, Sherlock, we’re recall we’re working together, you arrogant swat!”
Sherlock backed down, irate and defeated.
After being debriefed, they stood back and watched silently as the GA flooded into the Manor to clean-up the lassoed souls, navigating through the carnage left in the wake of the Downland Butcher.
“If we only could’ve taken him down, we could’ve revealed identity of the Summoner which would’ve undoubtedly led us to our rogue GA,” Sherlock exhaled with great frustration.
“I’m actually sort of grateful not to have come out the other end of this maimed more than I already am, thank you.”
John walked over and knelt beside the frightened Wife. The Soul shivered less so with his proximity, and seemed to visibly relax.
A glow began to emanate from her, as he Healed.
John leaned back, curiously examining it as it took shape. It looked to the Healer, like some kind of unyielding rope that twisted from between her breasts, disappearing through the floor beneath.
“Erm… Sherlock, I think you should come over here and take a look at this.”
As he turned, the Harvester’s eyes widened incredulously.
“Clumsy of him,” He muttered wonderingly.
“What was?”
“Of course the floor!” Sherlock expostulated, “Runes! They’re bound! The Signature! He’s gone-- but it’s fine!”
The Healer raised his eyebrows and frowned, taken aback by the sudden incoherent outburst.
“Um-“
“The Downlander! The Butcher! He was summoning a Drainer,” He explained frantically, “And it was supposed to possess through the Wife’s Soul! I should’ve seen it! Yet again, John! You are stunningly brilliant!”
Lestrade glanced over at John with a bemused expression, and the Healer shrugged.
“He wasn’t done, it was only half of the way! She’s half bound here and halfway bound Downland still attached to the Butcher- and he’s written with the Signature! It’s all here!” H1 cried exultantly, “Traceable because it’s incomplete- Look! You can see the identity of the Original Summoner! You can see his Trail!” He jumped up, hands in the air with triumph, “This is Perfect! Just perfect!”
“Come, John!” Sherlock clutched his friend by his shoulders, trembling with excitement, “The Game is On!”
He dashed out of the Manor, with the Healer in hot pursuit.
…
It was fairly simple after that to follow the trail and apprehend the perpetrator, as Sherlock had a keen sense for these things, even if they were transparent to all others.
There he was: the AWOL GA, the missing brother of the L15 Agent’s fiancé. The two cornered him behind an abandoned tavern in the coastal village.
Panicked, he sprang out at them, brandishing a cutlass, just managing to catch John before he could step back, grazing his chin.
Reflexively, the Healer lunged forward bringing his Scythe down into the man’s shoulder. Momentarily stunned with pain, Sherlock took advantage and wrestled him to the ground, pinning him. Rendering the him effectively useless, John lowered his Scythe to the Agent’s throat, warningly.
The Harvester climbed off, to rejoin his companion, thinking the GA properly retained. Yet, once more, with desperation, the Agent attempted to grab for his cutlass. Sherlock spun back around and ceased this by stomping his sharp heel into his wounded shoulder, restraining him.
Yelping his surrender, the Agent dropped back his head moaning, “Stop, please! Stop!”
“You set up a trap for us,” John accused, keeping his Scythe leveled beneath the man’s jaw.
“Look, I’ve been struggling, alright? Management drastically cut our funding and funneled it to sponsor USE. I…I haven’t received a proper paycheque in ages!’ he grit out, “I needed the money!”
“So the Reaper bribed you.”
“Yes, yes!” The Agent confessed, as Sherlock ruthlessly dug his heel further into him.
“You knew your future brother-in-law was working for L15 and had access to AIS. So you sent a Drainer after him.”
“Yes, yes. But I didn’t mean to kill him, I thought he would just hand the Plans over to the Drainer. But he wouldn’t--the fool! And I couldn’t stop it- if I had, he would have known I was behind it all and reported me!”
“The Yard found the body, and you heard we were on the case, so you sent it after us! Then, when you learned we took care of the first Drainer, you set about designing a more intricate trap.”
“Yes!” the Gatherer whined, twisting in agony, “You were hunting me! I didn’t have a choice! If I’m caught I’ll be sentenced with treason.”
The Healer glanced over at his companion, and Sherlock pressed down relentlessly once more. The Agent cried out.
“I don’t want to be eaten!” He sobbed pitifully, “Please, I still have the Plans! He never set a time to collect!”
“He knew we were tracking you, thus he couldn’t commit to a rendezvous lest you get captured. He gave you up,” H1 grinned with a glint of malice.
“Please, please!” The Agent begged, “Take the plans then, I don’t want them! Please don’t turn me in.”
Sherlock leaned down and snatched the scroll out of the Agent’s hands. Then suddenly, he leaned forward and paused, narrowing his eyes.
“Well,” the Harvester smirked, “looks like you won’t have to be worrying about us doing so. Did you know he inscribed you with Summoning Runes?”
…
The Agent’s shriek pierced the cold night, as he was consumed by the Drainer. The two companions watched from a safe distance as the spectre finished its feast and vanished back inward.
…
Behind the weathered old tannery where they hid, the Harvester turned from the scene, leveling the Healer with a grim expression.
“Are you alright, John?” Sherlock asked, gently gripping the Healer’s chin to examine the cut.
“Its superficial, doesn’t hurt much. Probably will vanish completely in an hour or less, I’d imagine.”
The Harvester fretted, “Are you sure?”
Irritated, John fanned away his friend’s fingers from his face, “Stop fussing. I already told you, I’m fine.”
A dark, wrathful look crossed the Harvester’s face.
“If he’d seriously hurt you, John, there would have been little left of him for the Drainer.”
Hovering over the slighter man, he leaned in close, his eyes alit with an undecipherable, vacillating emotion.
With the utter proximity, John couldn’t catch himself in time before his eyes briefly flickered down to the man’s full, sensual lips.
A electric intensity sparked between the two and Sherlock, infinitesimally tilted his head, seeming to draw subtly closer, his heavy lidded gaze glittering darkly, dangerously.
If John hadn’t known better, the look could have been one of invitation and it was utterly tempting. A heat jettisoned through his body, and it responded, against his will, with arousal.
He wanted so much to lean into the man before him, swell within the permeating heat, just surrender.
No.
Don’t mess this is up.
It’s not worth it.
Not an entire friendship forsaken for one short moment of sheer bliss where their lips would connect, and it would be magic and all crackling fire and the perfect duality. But it’d only be a fraction of a moment and he’d pull away.
And he’d know.
And he’d leave.
The Healer tensed and shrank back, unable to trust his ability to refrain, in this singular moment, from revealing that one and only thing he most desperately sought to hide.
And Sherlock was infinitely more observant than most, which meant he had to cease now, before it was too obvious to conceal.
That was, if it wasn’t already too late.
John tore away his gaze, and it was agony. He watched from his periphery, as the Harvester’s expression tempered and slipped back into a reserved, steely mask.
As the man looked away, he also stepped away.
“We should head back,” he stated, and did so, all but fleeing.
John pinched his eyes shut and sank back against the steadying wall behind him, catching his breath.
It’d been far, far too close.
...
Chapter 7: http://sfumatosoup.livejournal.com/7913.html
Author: Sfumatosoup
Pairing: Sherlock/John Rating: PG. There’s some seductive kissing maybe. Nothing a to make a 13 year old blush over.
Word Count: 17,00
Disclaimer: I own nil. They all belong to Sir ACD, and Misters Moffat and Gatiss among others. Not intending to make a profit from this in any way, shape or form. Warning: Spoiler-ish for ‘The Great Game’.
...
Chapter 6
“Cannibals.”
John’s head whipped up to stare at his friend, “…What?”
“But, there may just be one,” Sherlock mused, prodding at a dangling corpse, hanging from the rafters like butchered cattle.
The Harvester swatted away the surrounding flies and pointed at the grizzled, rancid tissue, “They’ve been skinned, flanks missing, limbs removed of flesh. Use your eyes, John. They’ve been cut for meat. There is no evidence of contagion, so they
would’ve been a select choice for providing sustenance to a starving family. ”
“Why…?” The Healer began incredulously, cringing with horror.
Sherlock had an odd look of wry amusement written across his face.
“Obvious. With the Plague crossing the countryside, there’s been a staggering loss of farming productivity… thus, starving will lead to desperation.”
John frowned as the Harvester continued his inspection.
“But the corpses, Sherlock, no signature Marks. No Clouds. Nothing to suggest this was the work of the Reaper, nothing pulled from the dossier of his typical modus operandi…” the Healer argued.
“Yes, keen observation, John, no Marks.”
He flushed with the praise.
“At least not from the Reaper,” Sherlock continued, “It could for all appearances be just another Aboveland Domino-style cause and effect Marking.”
“Then why do you look so self-satisfied?” John countered.
“It’s apparent that they’ve been hanging for only a little over a week according to the levels of putrefaction, proving we may yet have living perpetrators, and there’s something amiss. Something we’re not seeing. Not yet.”
“What makes you think so?”
“It’s all wrong. It goes against Aboveland method, because when they Mark, they notify Limbo beforehand, and the Yard diligently follows suit with clean-up, yet there are no traces that either have done so. Which means the Souls have been displaced and have yet to be Harvested.”
His fluid line of reasoning, as usual, was precise, but too abstruse for the Healer.
“Fine. Where are the Souls, then, where’s this Cannibal of yours?” John queried, brows furrowed.
“We shall see. Follow me.”
“Shouldn’t we notify the Yard of where we’re heading? We’re expected back down in the next Village in-“
“No time!” Sherlock snapped excitedly, “This has precedence, Lestrade will have to wait!”
…
They made their way back up to a Manor set above the jutting hillside.
It didn’t seem vacant, as there were obvious signs that occupants had been tending work about the place recently.
“Why here? There are no tell-tale disturbances.”
“It’s a blatant façade. A decoy. Too normal,” John followed his gaze up to the house, “What gives it all away is there is no livestock, no servants, no guards.”
“True,” the Healer conceded.
“I want to check inside.”
John sighed, and followed his friend.
As they entered, he noted the quiet. Too quiet. Neither a Soul nor Human in sight.
They entered into a kitchen with a basin and prep table. A fire roared in the hearth as if it’d been recently stoked, with a kettle simmering above the flames.
A basket of blood-sotted rags, and a cleaver sat in front of a narrow door. Sherlock kicked it aside, and opened the pantry where within, were a child and hound, strung up and gutted; entrails cleanly collected in a bin below.
Unlike the peasants from before, the child had obviously died of infection, a victim of Plague, grotesquely spotted with rings and boils.
“Ah, so the family became infected, anyway,” He observed, verbalizing the Healer’s thoughts.
“And he ate his dead son?”
“Didn’t matter anymore, he had already gone mad.”
“And so he ate his dead son,” John repeated, trying to impress the horror of this fact upon the Harvester.
“Yes, which leads to believe if he’s not already dead that he’s also infected.”
As if they’d triggered some sort of violent flood, the air was suddenly rife with souls flitting about, impatient, doggedly swimming around them.
They made short work of of it, yet some seemed to be tangled due to stagnation. The Healer had to apply quite a bit of acumen determining how to best sort them out for Harvesting.
The Souls demonstrated strange reluctance to comply, as if there was something yet to be established about their fate, which Sherlock logically deduced meant there was some sort of connecting Mark, somewhere still inside the house.
There was something else, however, that nagged at the Healer, and suddenly he grasped at what it was.
“Sherlock! As you were Harvesting, did you by any chance see the Wife? I mean, we have the rest of the household, but where is the Wife?”
“The Wife, what Wife,” the Harvester responded, preoccupied.
And then it clicked.
He jumped into the air as if he’d been electrocuted, spun around pivoting on one heel, and grabbed the stunned Healer by his shoulders.
“Genius, John! I could kiss you! Where is the Wife!”
Sherlock grinned broadly at his friend with a look that bespoke of pride, “You never cease to amaze, my dear! We may have no trail, just yet, but I think, if we can find her, we’ll find our quarry!”
The Harvester sprinted down a long corridor and up a stairway with John close behind.
And there it was, clear as daylight.
The Mark inhabiting a man before them, glowing mockingly in the dim cast.
The sole survivor, deranged, blood dripping from his chin, cut into a dead woman that lay before him.
As the man savagely tore into the abdomen, John grimaced. He continued to pull the entrails out from the cavity and shoved them into his mouth, with a sort of vacant gleam.
Surrounding her corpse were unevenly scrawled and illegible markings carved into the floorboards.
The Soul of the woman-the Wife, huddled in the corner of the room gaping silently at the ghastly scene. John felt a twinge of pity.
She was going to be a difficult one to Harvest.
The butcher’s robes were soiled with the gore of his victims, and evident was his sallow skin, covered in boils, cheekbones sharp with the signs of encroaching death.
Sherlock smiled in a nearly alarming way that disturbed the Healer.
“This one is fresh,” Sherlock remarked coolly, glancing upward.
John looked up as well, but saw nothing.
The Harvester raised his Scythe and evoked the Mark, deciphering it with acuity and the Healer watched as his friend intricately wove it to reveal the dark Cloud festering above them. It read of Plague and Insanity; yet nowhere to be found was the signature of the Reaper.
The Butcher seemed to sense the changing atmosphere, and his eyes, sunken into his skull, narrowed suspiciously and darted about, attempting to locate whatever plague induced delirium his rotting brain had manufactured.
It was quite alarming when his gaze clearly settled on the two of them, as to human’s they were supposed to be invisible.
The Butcher’s mouldering skin crumpled away, flesh dropping in sickly clumps around him, revealing a spectre of Downlander origin.
The creature rose up, massive, and terrible.
It had been a trap!
Brandishing their Scythes, the Healer and the Harvester prepared themselves for battle. The giant attacked first, savagely knocking John’s weapon out of his hands. Sherlock swung out, lodging his scythe deep between the beast’s shoulders, to no effect. It whipped around and threw him across the room, where he hit the wall.
Before John could re obtain his own weapon, he too, was thrown across the room to the other side, smacking harshly against the floor.
Then, faster than lightening, the giant launched itself back toward Sherlock, who was feebly attempting to upright himself. It snagged him by the front of his robes preparing to thrash him back to the ground, when John, from behind, leapt onto its back, one arm wrapped around his neck, the other grabbing the lodged Scythe.
The beast spun around to throw him off, dropping Sherlock in the process, just as a swarm of Yard Officials invaded the room.
Before they could seize it, however, the creature vanished, as if sucked through the floor boards. Sherlock’s Scythe clamored to the ground, as the Officers teemed about.
The Harvester, still splayed across the floor where he’d been dropped, uttered a disconsolate cry of frustration.
John clambered up, stunned and a bit sore, and grabbed his friend’s hand, tugging him up beside him.
The Harvester gawked in horror at the empty space where the Butcher had been not a second before.
With unbridled rage, he whipped around and stalked over to Lestrade.
“You blundering idiot! We lost him!” Sherlock snarled furiously, glaring at the man.
“We tracked the runes drawn for a Downlander back to the West of here, and we followed it,” The Yard Harvester defended, “He could’ve summoned a Drainer! Would you have rather been eaten? You should have informed us of your position in the first place, Sherlock, we’re recall we’re working together, you arrogant swat!”
Sherlock backed down, irate and defeated.
After being debriefed, they stood back and watched silently as the GA flooded into the Manor to clean-up the lassoed souls, navigating through the carnage left in the wake of the Downland Butcher.
“If we only could’ve taken him down, we could’ve revealed identity of the Summoner which would’ve undoubtedly led us to our rogue GA,” Sherlock exhaled with great frustration.
“I’m actually sort of grateful not to have come out the other end of this maimed more than I already am, thank you.”
John walked over and knelt beside the frightened Wife. The Soul shivered less so with his proximity, and seemed to visibly relax.
A glow began to emanate from her, as he Healed.
John leaned back, curiously examining it as it took shape. It looked to the Healer, like some kind of unyielding rope that twisted from between her breasts, disappearing through the floor beneath.
“Erm… Sherlock, I think you should come over here and take a look at this.”
As he turned, the Harvester’s eyes widened incredulously.
“Clumsy of him,” He muttered wonderingly.
“What was?”
“Of course the floor!” Sherlock expostulated, “Runes! They’re bound! The Signature! He’s gone-- but it’s fine!”
The Healer raised his eyebrows and frowned, taken aback by the sudden incoherent outburst.
“Um-“
“The Downlander! The Butcher! He was summoning a Drainer,” He explained frantically, “And it was supposed to possess through the Wife’s Soul! I should’ve seen it! Yet again, John! You are stunningly brilliant!”
Lestrade glanced over at John with a bemused expression, and the Healer shrugged.
“He wasn’t done, it was only half of the way! She’s half bound here and halfway bound Downland still attached to the Butcher- and he’s written with the Signature! It’s all here!” H1 cried exultantly, “Traceable because it’s incomplete- Look! You can see the identity of the Original Summoner! You can see his Trail!” He jumped up, hands in the air with triumph, “This is Perfect! Just perfect!”
“Come, John!” Sherlock clutched his friend by his shoulders, trembling with excitement, “The Game is On!”
He dashed out of the Manor, with the Healer in hot pursuit.
…
It was fairly simple after that to follow the trail and apprehend the perpetrator, as Sherlock had a keen sense for these things, even if they were transparent to all others.
There he was: the AWOL GA, the missing brother of the L15 Agent’s fiancé. The two cornered him behind an abandoned tavern in the coastal village.
Panicked, he sprang out at them, brandishing a cutlass, just managing to catch John before he could step back, grazing his chin.
Reflexively, the Healer lunged forward bringing his Scythe down into the man’s shoulder. Momentarily stunned with pain, Sherlock took advantage and wrestled him to the ground, pinning him. Rendering the him effectively useless, John lowered his Scythe to the Agent’s throat, warningly.
The Harvester climbed off, to rejoin his companion, thinking the GA properly retained. Yet, once more, with desperation, the Agent attempted to grab for his cutlass. Sherlock spun back around and ceased this by stomping his sharp heel into his wounded shoulder, restraining him.
Yelping his surrender, the Agent dropped back his head moaning, “Stop, please! Stop!”
“You set up a trap for us,” John accused, keeping his Scythe leveled beneath the man’s jaw.
“Look, I’ve been struggling, alright? Management drastically cut our funding and funneled it to sponsor USE. I…I haven’t received a proper paycheque in ages!’ he grit out, “I needed the money!”
“So the Reaper bribed you.”
“Yes, yes!” The Agent confessed, as Sherlock ruthlessly dug his heel further into him.
“You knew your future brother-in-law was working for L15 and had access to AIS. So you sent a Drainer after him.”
“Yes, yes. But I didn’t mean to kill him, I thought he would just hand the Plans over to the Drainer. But he wouldn’t--the fool! And I couldn’t stop it- if I had, he would have known I was behind it all and reported me!”
“The Yard found the body, and you heard we were on the case, so you sent it after us! Then, when you learned we took care of the first Drainer, you set about designing a more intricate trap.”
“Yes!” the Gatherer whined, twisting in agony, “You were hunting me! I didn’t have a choice! If I’m caught I’ll be sentenced with treason.”
The Healer glanced over at his companion, and Sherlock pressed down relentlessly once more. The Agent cried out.
“I don’t want to be eaten!” He sobbed pitifully, “Please, I still have the Plans! He never set a time to collect!”
“He knew we were tracking you, thus he couldn’t commit to a rendezvous lest you get captured. He gave you up,” H1 grinned with a glint of malice.
“Please, please!” The Agent begged, “Take the plans then, I don’t want them! Please don’t turn me in.”
Sherlock leaned down and snatched the scroll out of the Agent’s hands. Then suddenly, he leaned forward and paused, narrowing his eyes.
“Well,” the Harvester smirked, “looks like you won’t have to be worrying about us doing so. Did you know he inscribed you with Summoning Runes?”
…
The Agent’s shriek pierced the cold night, as he was consumed by the Drainer. The two companions watched from a safe distance as the spectre finished its feast and vanished back inward.
…
Behind the weathered old tannery where they hid, the Harvester turned from the scene, leveling the Healer with a grim expression.
“Are you alright, John?” Sherlock asked, gently gripping the Healer’s chin to examine the cut.
“Its superficial, doesn’t hurt much. Probably will vanish completely in an hour or less, I’d imagine.”
The Harvester fretted, “Are you sure?”
Irritated, John fanned away his friend’s fingers from his face, “Stop fussing. I already told you, I’m fine.”
A dark, wrathful look crossed the Harvester’s face.
“If he’d seriously hurt you, John, there would have been little left of him for the Drainer.”
Hovering over the slighter man, he leaned in close, his eyes alit with an undecipherable, vacillating emotion.
With the utter proximity, John couldn’t catch himself in time before his eyes briefly flickered down to the man’s full, sensual lips.
A electric intensity sparked between the two and Sherlock, infinitesimally tilted his head, seeming to draw subtly closer, his heavy lidded gaze glittering darkly, dangerously.
If John hadn’t known better, the look could have been one of invitation and it was utterly tempting. A heat jettisoned through his body, and it responded, against his will, with arousal.
He wanted so much to lean into the man before him, swell within the permeating heat, just surrender.
No.
Don’t mess this is up.
It’s not worth it.
Not an entire friendship forsaken for one short moment of sheer bliss where their lips would connect, and it would be magic and all crackling fire and the perfect duality. But it’d only be a fraction of a moment and he’d pull away.
And he’d know.
And he’d leave.
The Healer tensed and shrank back, unable to trust his ability to refrain, in this singular moment, from revealing that one and only thing he most desperately sought to hide.
And Sherlock was infinitely more observant than most, which meant he had to cease now, before it was too obvious to conceal.
That was, if it wasn’t already too late.
John tore away his gaze, and it was agony. He watched from his periphery, as the Harvester’s expression tempered and slipped back into a reserved, steely mask.
As the man looked away, he also stepped away.
“We should head back,” he stated, and did so, all but fleeing.
John pinched his eyes shut and sank back against the steadying wall behind him, catching his breath.
It’d been far, far too close.
...
Chapter 7: http://sfumatosoup.livejournal.com/7913.html