Fic: "The Straw Man Fallacy" (Crossover: Sherlock/The Wicker Man), Chapter 4/7
Title: The Straw Man Fallacy
Fandoms: Sherlock/The Wicker Man (1973)
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Other Characters: Lord Summerisle, Miss Rose, Willow MacGregor, Alder MacGregor, Mr. Lennox, The Librarian, other Summerisle villagers and OCs
Rating: NC-17/explicit (eventually)
Summary:
“Mr Holmes, I'm not in the habit of approaching . . . consultants. But you are correct. I have great faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And until recently, I also had faith in the rule of law. Only the second one has wavered. Three years ago my fiancé, Sgt. Neil Howie of the West Highlands Constabulary, went to investigate an anonymous report of a missing child in a remote place called Summerisle. He never communicated with me while he was there, and he never returned.”
Summerisle is not a welcoming place to visitors, but it shows its best face at May Day. For ulterior motives.
Chapter 4, The Burning Times
Having declined one indecent proposal, Sherlock makes one of his own. And takes on two new clients.
“Rosebushes, goddammit,” John muttered as he and Sherlock struggled through them. Or rather, he struggled, his clothes torn and skin scratched by thorns.
Sherlock stood on the other side of the hedge, moonlight shimmering on his face - and John knew that look. Lost to the world at the moment, wheels upon wheels, data flickering by at a blinding pace. Sherlock's hands moved unconsciously, placing ideas into a chain, linking it, weaving it. The force of his mind buffeted him about like a high wind sometimes.
John was torn between his training - the time he’d spent learning how to speak Sherlock, an exacting discipline in itself - to get the hell out of the way of that force of nature, and his own need to know and to understand. Sherlock would explain himself when he was good and ready, and not a moment before.
Sherlock had a big smile spreading across his face now. “If I'm right, I can go anywhere I like tonight. Do anything I want.” His strange, fey glee was infectious. “No one on all Summerisle would dare to do me harm tonight. But I don't think that applies to you, John. Stay close to me.”
“You've got that face again,” John said. “That 'we both know what's going on here' face. You know that pisses me off.”
“Try to keep up,” Sherlock said.
“No, no, you don't get to pull that. I need to know what's going on. What she meant when she said she was trying to save you.” John was tense, standing his ground stubbornly, but perilously close to grabbing Sherlock’s arm to hold him still until he gave some damn explanations. Just a few facts, goddammit.
“She was testing me,” Sherlock said tersely, pulling up his coat collar.
“Oh, that clears it all up. I understand everything now,” John said, throwing up his hands.
“Really?”
“Of course not.” But Sherlock had already outpaced him up the little cobblestone street, towards the graveyard.
The moonlit way seemed to call for silence, as did Sherlock's preoccupied manner, so John held his tongue and listened to the night sounds of Summerisle. There were owls in the trees, and the roar of the sea was coming closer.
“Sherlock?” John felt compelled to whisper for some reason.
“Yes?”
“Why do you think you can do anything you want tonight?”
“Because something very important is supposed to happen to me tomorrow. No Summerislander would dare to interfere with that.” He stopped still, and froze. “Unless . . . Oh yes. Unless some would. Yes, that explains a great deal. But not everything. Come with me, I need to test a hypothesis.”
“Sherlock, I have no idea what you - ” Damn it. Sherlock’s oblique blather was coming dangerously close to losing its charm.
He turned on his heel and headed back to the town with John on right behind, striding double-time to keep up and make sure Sherlock never left his sight. It was a nice night for villagers to be out, and in twos and threes they strolled - and in twos and threes they celebrated the season. John nearly tripped over a couple that turned out to be two young men, and one of them managed to give him an appreciative leer from a very awkward position.
Sherlock grabbed John's arm and pulled him into a row of hedges behind the main street's shops, his grip tight on John's wrist, and John felt something warm and strong and very ill-timed blooming low in his belly. In the bushes with Sherlock. God.
The pale light of a streetlamp gleamed for a moment in Sherlock's eyes as he stared at John for just a beat too long. Then he was off down a little alley, pulling up short behind Lennox's shop.
“This lock is just an insult,” Sherlock said.
“Surprised they even bother to lock it at all around here. I'm sure he's got a curse on anyone who tries to break in.”
“He doesn't lock it,” Sherlock said. “This lock is new. Never used til now. And not even shut all the way.”
“Do you think it's a trap?”
“Either that or a pantomime,” Sherlock said.
He fell silent and looked up suddenly - not to the flat at the top of the shop but one two doors down where a window opened. John had to take a second to register what he was seeing, for at first it seemed like some horrible mythological creature in the window. But then he realised it was just another reveler in a mask, a hawk or an eagle of some sort. By the size and silhouette of the figure, a woman. She was watching them like, well, a hawk.
“All right, well, that blew that setup,” Sherlock said quietly and cheerfully. “Walk with me, and we'll see what follows us.” And as they got farther from the street, he bent to whisper in John's ear. “And I'll tell you what we would have found in there.”
Far behind them, they heard a window slam angrily, and the sound of running footsteps. Not in their direction.
Down the road, the village streets turned into a paved path, gradually leaving the village behind and climbing a little rise. The path wound its way by a gleaming river, lined by oak trees and hedges. The lights of the village fell away and they were left with only the moon to show their path, but it was bright enough. Pointless to even ask where we're going, John thought.
The rustles in the woods and the occasional flickers of torchlight and fire moving in dancelike patterns off in the distance were eerie, but they didn't faze John anymore. “What would we have found in there?”
“Photographs of the harvest in recent years. And photographs of the May Day rite, particularly those from three years ago.”
“The ones Lennox said he didn't have.”
“Yes. He wasn't lying. They would have been planted there very recently, for the same reason Lord Summerisle loaned me the books he did. But the photographs were not planted by Lord Summerisle.”
“You're not really telling me very much. What is in those photographs?”
“Depending on who planted them, either everything but Neil Howie's death, or everything including it. Someone besides us has been doing things without Lord Summerisle's permission.”
“Surprised anyone would be so bold,” John said. “Whatever it is. It’s bound to happen, though. They can’t all be as happy as they look.”
“You think it’s some sort of political dissent?” Sherlock asked, amused.
“You’re the one with the theories,” John said.
“I think we ought to speak with him again,” Sherlock said and turned back up the path out of the village. When they passed through the graveyard, they saw a grizzled man digging a fresh grave by lanternlight, and he let out the most inappropriate of giggles.
“Want to see?” he said to them, appropos of nothing, and showed them a severed stag’s head in a coffin. “Chop chop,” he said, still laughing.
“Christ,” John muttered as they walked away.
The path rose sharply outside of the village and passed out of the gardens and onto bare, treeless hills. The towers of Lord Summerisle’s manor were visible along the horizon, getting closer and closer, and over it all was the sound of the sea. The sea cliffs came up on them almost too suddenly, and John didn’t like it one bit when Sherlock stood too close to the edge, looking down at the white foam beating itself violently against the sharp rock spires. Hills rising around them had sinister openings in them, sharp mouths of stony caves. “Wonder what’s hidden in there,” John muttered, shuddering. Everything about Summerisle by night seemed designed to excite all the dark places of the imagination, bringing out primal fears - the folk of the hollow hills, the restless dead, the hungry gods.
“It’s more what’s hidden in plain sight,” Sherlock said, leading him up a half-cliff.
“What . . . the fuck . . . is that?” John breathed, staring at the human-shaped colossus silhouetted against the sky.
“It’s a wicker man, John. A sacrificial effigy, to be burnt tomorrow. Do close your mouth before something flies into it.”
“I just . . . I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“Sure you have. Every Bonfire Night. Just not usually on such a grand scale. Anyway, there’s no credible evidence that Druids actually burned their human sacrifices inside one of those - the only sources are Roman, and they’re just a bit biased. However, whether the Druids ever really did or not, I’m now fairly sure that Summerislanders have done it at least once.”
John stood back for a moment, taking it all in, and his mind was starting to reel with horror as possibilities flooded his mind and all his instincts were telling him that the most repugnant fantasy of dread he could come up with was probably the most accurate.
“And you still want to go talk to Lord Summerisle again?” John asked. His own impulses were all about fight-or-flight now, and Sherlock still wanted to chat.
“It’s all the more important now,” Sherlock said wry. “I imagine he knows that I know. Honestly I’m surprised we haven’t already been picked up and made an offer of a ride we can’t refuse. The kidnapping service here is terrible tonight. If we have to walk, I’m not tipping.”
A cool briny breeze rose from the sea and lifted Sherlock’s hair and dripped ice down John’s spine. “I really think we should get out of here,” John said as they walked back downhill to the gentle hills that surrounded the apple orchard. The sweet scent of the blossoms seemed ominous now. Everything did. “There’s got a be a way.
“The only way out is through,” Sherlock said. “It’s not as bad as it seems. I have bargaining chips.”
John was not reassured.
The moon had won clear of the clouds by the time they reached the long lane to Summerisle Manor. Sherlock had to pound on the door twice with the wild-faced foliate-head door-knocker before a handsome middle-aged woman opened the door. “Hello, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson. I’m Ivy, the housekeeper. Mr. Burns has the night off. Lord Summerisle is expecting you.”
“Of course he is. Thank you, Ivy.”
Summerisle’s parlour was transformed by candlelight and a roaring fire in the grand hearth. Upon the white fur rug sat Miss Rose, lovely and radiant in her mature beauty, in a simple blue gown that set off her big eyes. Lord Summerisle was in what must be his customary evening wear, kilt and jacket and lace, seated at the piano and playing. Miss Rose and Lord Summerisle finished the chorus of their bawdy song (her voice rich and flirtatious, his deep and grand) before either paused to acknowledge their guests.
Then Summerisle was all courtesy, rising from the piano bench to pour drinks from a decanter on an elaborate sideboard. “Good evening and welcome. Do have some excellent Scotch,” he said to Sherlock and John, “The genuine article. You cannot get this in London. And it's making my ancestors weep to see me serving it in good fellowship to Englishmen.”
Three glasses, three fingers each. John waited to see if Sherlock would sip. He did. So he followed, and just the tiny burn of it in his mouth was glorious: it tasted like forests smell, with undertones of rich peat and sea salt.
Sherlock turned around and fixed his eyes on Summerisle with a hard stare. “Neil Howie was a very religious man, of a strict and puritanical Christian fundamentalist sect. Every single aspect of your way of life here would have horrified him. Even by believers' standards, he was naïve and demagogic, and obviously prayed his way through every single session of diversity training that even the backwater police forces make a token stab at nowadays, rather than listening. I can think of no worse person in all Britain to actually solve a mystery on your island. So I have to conclude that his competence was not the reason he received an anonymous call aimed directly at him.” He paced about in little stalking cat steps, back and forth across the window through which they’d watched naked girls dancing mere hours before. The rhythm of his speech seemed to bounce in a little, one tiny hop on his toes as he reached his own glorious conclusion. He turned and met Summerisle’s gaze, daring him to refute a word of it.
Lord Summerisle's eyes were just as capable of holding a prey pinned fast. “So I'm sure you already understand that he was summoned for other reasons. Certain criteria that he met.”
“I found the book that was so crudely laid out for me in your library, yes. I have to say, I do not represent the law in any official capacity. I'm called in when the Queen's law fails, which is all too often.”
“You are here of your own free will. You can't resist a mystery,” Summerisle said, creeping closer and using his height advantage.
“I'm not a fool,” Sherlock said. “At least not all the time.”
“Sometimes you are,” Summerisle said, and nodded his head at John. “And the last, well. Let's not speak of the last yet. I do read the papers, Mr. Holmes. I'm willing to treat you as a peer because I read between the lines of your initiation experience. You had a death and resurrection. You gave up everything: your work, your home, your possessions, your reputation, the company of your friends and family, even your name. Many who loved you believed you dead, and you let them. You spent two years in the underworld-alone, virtually naked, living by your wits, a walking fighting corpse. You risked your life again and again even after you had ‘died.’ And you survived and you rose again and came home. Many religions revere a figure who has done something similar. Including our own. Including Mr. Howie's,” Summerisle chuckled.
“I hardly did it with that intention,” Sherlock said, with a tight smile that didn’t rise to his eyes.
“All the better. You did it because Fate called you to. You are the Holly King, the winter incarnation of the God who dies and rises again,” Lord Summerisle finally concluded, with something resembling a calm benevolence, perhaps even admiration.
“I did what seemed necessary at the time,” Sherlock said, trying to avoid looking at John too long. “It came at a price and I have my regrets.”
“The Holly King dies at Beltane,” Miss Rose said. “It is time then for the young Oak King to mate with the young Goddess, and together they rule until the turn of the year.”
“Yes, that's a nicely symmetrical mythology,” Sherlock said. “Is that why I was lured here? Because I've already died and risen from the grave, you think I'd be amenable to doing it again?”
Summerisle started for just a moment, as Sherlock fixed him with a piercing gaze. “You knew I was coming. But you knew it after the fact. It was not on your orders, not originally. You have a power struggle on your hands here.”
“You're better at this than the unfortunate Howie, that's for certain,” Summerisle said. “That is true.”
“Last year's crop failure wasn't as bad as the year of Rowan Morrison. Your own opinion was that a human sacrifice isn't needed. Is that true?”
“It is.”
“Tell me, this is the only thing I'm not certain of. If Howie hadn't come to the island, would you have sacrificed Rowan?”
“That question was rendered irrelevant.”
“It's never irrelevant,” Sherlock said. “How about this scenario: what if Howie had taken Willow MacGregor up on her generous offer the night before?” Sherlock paced the room, arms crossed, tapping his lips with a forefinger, lost in thought. “If he'd betrayed his religious principles regarding sexuality, would he have then have been unfit as an offering? It would have removed one of the criteria he met.”
“She was a test,” Miss Rose said matter-of-factly.
“Yes, of course. One which I also - was it passed? Or failed? You must know that by now, she must have called you right away.”
“She did,” Lord Summerisle said. “It's remarkable, Sherlock Holmes. You've undergone the rite of passage that men most dread, and yet you've never had the initiation that most men desire. The intimate touch of a lover, a willing body wrapped around your own, giving yourself to a sweet and life-affirming ecstasy.”
John shivered at this - god, Lord Summerisle's voice could sell coal in Newcastle. And John wouldn't need much persuasion to want what he was selling.
“And I still haven't quite deduced how you could possibly know that,” Sherlock snapped.
“I have it on good authority from someone who knew you. Not in the Biblical sense of course, and not for lack of trying,” Lord Summerisle said with a sly little grin. “Someone who knows what I like.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Oh, for God's sake! Is there anything the woman hasn't had her fingers in?”
“You, apparently,” said Summerisle, managing to make it sound dignified.
“And she's still in my business after all these years. So you do enjoy a bit of the ritual scourging, as Gardner recommended, then?”
Lord Summerisle’s eyebrows gave a little twitch, as if he were shrugging with them. “I have found it good for my constitution, yes. Now, you've as good as admitted that Miss Adler's information was at least at one time accurate. And the expression on your face now is suggesting it's still true.”
John was shaking his head. He'd suspected it, but to have it all but confirmed was still a little bit of a shock. “So you really are . . .”
“But here, now, Sherlock,” Lord Summerisle said softly, reassuringly. “It's all fine if the charms of women don't move you.” John almost jumped out of his chair as Lord Summerisle touched one fingertip to that little curl at the nape of Sherlock's neck. “We could certainly find you an acceptable alternative.” His lips were close to Sherlock's ear, and Sherlock had frozen still.
“There are several types of sacrifices,” Sherlock said, hands clenching and unclenching with nervous excitement. “The fire and the sea. The blade and the blood. The crop failure was bad that year and the sacrifice of Sergeant Howie had to be spectacular. And it was. There are those among your people who loved that spectacle, who crave it. Who desire an escalation - ever-increasing. Who will not be happy in a year when a less dreadful sacrifice is required. Once you've burnt a man alive, some won't settle for simply butchering pigs and pouring ale in the sea.” He pulled away from Lord Summerisle - with some reluctance? Oh God, John thought, oh no, that can't happen - and paced the room. He stared Miss Rose in the face, watching her responses. “You, Miss Rose. You're the High Priestess. Lord Summerisle is the figurehead but you're the real power in spiritual matters. You don't want a fatal sacrifice this year.”
She clearly wanted to keep her cards close to her chest, but her sad smile suggested that Sherlock was right.
“You need a spectacle, but you'd rather not raise the stakes any higher than they've already gone. Hmmm, a virgin sacrifice,” Sherlock said pensively. “There are two ways to take that. You'll kill me if you have to, but you'd rather not. You can't have the people expecting to witness a gruesome death every year. After all, if the crops fail disastrously again, whose sacrifice will be required? One of your village's own children? More than one? Lord Summerisle himself? Yourself?”
“Sergeant Howie made that same point,” Lord Summerisle said, droll and deadpan.
“Too late for him,” Sherlock said. “And he would never have agreed to play the game by your rules. He was easy to dupe, but he never would have bent. I just might.”
Miss Rose nodded. “He was a threat and a walking insult. He was completely convinced that we kill children. He had such contempt for us that he wanted to believe that. He would never, ever respect our ways.”
“And you think that I do?” Sherlock said. “Well, maybe respect is a strong word.”
“'At least you don't have a crucifix up your arse.”
Sherlock chuckled. “Not sure I want a maypole up there either. I can certainly imagine the unpleasantness of the small talk. I never had the pleasure of meeting him.”
“I know pleasure, Mr. Holmes, and that was not one,” Miss Rose said with a vulpine grin. “As to the symbolic maypole, it can feel rather nice.”
“So I'm told,” Sherlock said. He thought for a moment, looked at John and smiled a smile that wasn't unlike Miss Rose's, and all the hairs on the back of John's neck rose and tingled. Several other ones did too. Usual response to danger, John told himself. I know that about myself at least. “The sacrifice you wanted, Miss Rose . . . the sacrifice of the chalice and the blade, will that do? What some call the Great Rite? The seeding of the fields?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And you, Lord Summerisle? Would that be a show that your bloodthirsty serfs could enjoy?”
“Serfs, Holmes, really? Is that necessary? Besides, under the right conditions, under these conditions, it's not what my people want. It's what the gods demand.”
“Your goddess of the fields, what would she want to receive, then? How much is willingness worth to her?”
“A great deal,” Miss Rose said. “A very great deal. What you are suggesting is what my heart is telling me is right. For this year.”
Sherlock nodded. “All right then. I'll take your case, Miss Rose. Yours too, Lord Summerisle. I accept and consent.”
John really did jump out of his chair. “What?”
Sherlock held up his hand. “On two conditions--”
“You're hardly in a position to demand conditions, Mr. Holmes,” Lord Summerisle said. “We're all well aware that you and Dr. Watson have no way to escape this island without my knowledge.”
“On the contrary, I am. If I refuse to play your way, you will have to kill me, and I can't imagine John standing for that without a fight. You'll have two more murders on your hands, you'll have to do this every year, and eventually it will be you.” Sherlock laid a hand over the surface of Lord Summerisle’s piano, tapped out a nervous rhythm with his fingertips that changed to a slow ominous light beat. “And, worst of all, you will never find out who is trying to undermine you and take over. Not until it's too late. But if you play the game in the way I'm willing, you will. Those people will be flushed out. And best of all,” he said with a proud, dramatic little flourish of his hands, “Your crops will not fail.”
“And here I thought you weren't a believer.”
“I'm not. I don't have to be.”
Summerisle and Miss Rose stared at him and matching smiles of light crossed their faces. Feral smiles, smiles of something clicking into place.
“Very well, Sherlock,” Lord Summerisle said. “I must say, reports of your genius and the lengths to which you're willing to go have not been exaggerated. What are your conditions?”
“That allowance is made for my natural inclinations, and I don't care if it doesn't fit your symbolism. The second is that I get to choose my . . . swordsman.”
“Agreed,” Miss Rose said.
“Acceptable,” Lord Summerisle said. “We are heathens, yes, but not, we hope, unenlightened ones.”
John was still feeling the floor wobbling a bit beneath his feet and a severe sense of unreality setting in, and his brain felt even foggier than usual. “Your . . . swordsman,” he said, staring at Sherlock.
“The Great Rite is an offering of pleasure to the gods,” Miss Rose said. “There's little to fear.”
“My partner in that act, not my executioner,” Sherlock said with a shrug and a little huff of disgust. “It'll cost me nothing but something that has no real meaning. Virginity is just a conceptual construct, John. It's not a thing in itself. It's a lack of a thing - of a specific experience. It's not useful in any way, but it's also completely harmless so I've always ignored it. Well, up until now it's been harmless. Now it's proving quite a liability. It's outlived its uselessness.”
Everything in the room fell away to the sides of John's mind except Sherlock's face, as the light of understanding dawned like a flashing strobe. “But . . . okay. I understand that, I really do,” John flailed. “You snark on me for being a romantic all the time, and yeah. It's true. I guess I am,” He looked down, embarrassed but full of conviction, speaking more softly but unable to look Sherlock full in the eyes. “I think your first time should be special.”
“I'm to be ritually deflowered in a pagan ceremony, possibly by a man wearing a mask and antlers or some such, while a whole town looks on, in the belief that human sexual displays have some sort of beneficial effect on agriculture. I'm not sure how much more special I could take.”
John's eyes darted helplessly to the walls, to the windows, looking for help. Helpless he remained. There really was nothing that Sherlock wouldn't use in the pursuit of a puzzle, was there? “I just . . . I think it should be someone you trust. Someone who cares about you.”
“Believe it or not, I agree. That's why my first choice to do the honours is you.”
All right, that floor really was wavering now. Even Lord Summerisle was sympathetic. “Sit, Dr. Watson, please. Shocks are much better absorbed with the knees bent. Here, that's a good fellow.” He took John's glass and refilled it, and John chugged it in just the way excellent Scotch should not be chugged.
“Your first choice,” was all John managed to growl out.
“Yes, of course. I've always found you attractive, since the day we met, and that effect has increased over time, not diminished. You're very loyal to me, you're certainly brave enough to handle this, and I know that you do have sexual feelings towards me, and that the customs of Summerisle are inflaming your already highly active libido. I don't think I'm asking you to do anything that you don't already want to do. But of course you can refuse, and I'll find an alternative. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, I think Lord Summerisle himself has been sending signals that he's not completely averse to claiming the droit du seigneur . . .”
“Oh God. Sherlock. Just --”
“Lay off it a bit, Mr. Holmes,” Miss Rose said gently. “Give him a moment.”
“Bit not good?” Sherlock asked.
“A bit, yeah,” John whispered.
“You're correct, by the way,” said Lord Summerisle unhelpfully.
“He's mine, but I'd loan him,” Miss Rose chimed in.
“Sherlock,” John said. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”
Respectful nods from the Lord and his lady - perhaps a bit relieved - John all but frog-marched Sherlock into the hallway and shut the parlour door. “Sherlock,” he hissed. “Are you - what are you playing at? No - no -” he held up a finger “if you say 'the game' I will punch you. Are you really telling me -” he paused to catch his breath. “That I have three choices. I can - oh god - have sex with you, or I can watch someone else have sex with you, or I can watch you die again, seriously?”
“Well,” Sherlock said, tilting his head ceilingward with a little shrug. “I could possibly find a way to get out of the last one. But possibly not. It would be a lot more difficult, that's for sure. And my assumption going in is that if it comes to that, I doubt they'd let you live. Hostile witness.”
“You're not getting killed to appease some pagan gods. Not on my watch. That's unacceptable.”
“I had hoped you'd see it that way.”
John was almost laughing now, this whole situation was so completely insane.
“So I would take option two, if you're unwilling,” Sherlock said.
“Oh God,” John groaned, putting his face in his hands. “I - I can't. I - don't want that. Either.”
“John,” Sherlock said, taking John by the wrists and pulling his hands away, leaning down close. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don't want me that way, at all. Tell me the idea doesn't excite you even a little bit.”
John couldn't. He could do no such thing. He couldn't even make eye contact with Sherlock and say anything. So he closed his eyes and blindly reached out, and put his fingers through soft curly hair. He was so keenly, painfully aware of Sherlock's warmth, his breath and his pulse, and the tiny wet sound his lips made parting before he touched them to John's mouth.
It was a hesitant, uncertain kiss. Sherlock didn't really know what he was doing. But there was a movement of lips and a tiny flick of tongue, and it was terribly full of promise of better things. And now that he'd tasted Sherlock once, John knew all too well he'd spend his days craving more, and he'd want to kill anyone who took that which he wanted so badly.
“All right,” John said raggedly, without even opening his eyes. “You fucking lunatic. We'll have it your way. Always your way.”
“I think the idea is that you'll have your way with me,” Sherlock said, a smile in his voice. “I suspect only penetrative intercourse will fulfill the requirement in their eyes, so -”
“Please,” John gasped. “Just - stop talking for a minute, okay? Give me a moment.” He took a deep breath and finally opened his eyes. The look on Sherlock's face was pleased, amused, and there he found the reassurance John didn't know he'd been craving. “God, you know what? I mean, I never would have admitted this, but I had this dream. Last night. The people out on the grass - I dreamed I was out there with them. And it was me and you. I never thought--”
“Yes, well, under different circumstances I'd never have told you that I noticed. I am not completely lacking tact and discretion.”
“How do you not know about the fucking solar system, but you suddenly know all about pagan sex rituals?”
“It's not sudden, John. The occult doesn't figure into crime nearly as often as superstitious people think it does, but that doesn't mean it never happens. A working knowledge of common cult practices has proven useful in my line of work before.”
“So has the solar system,” John said.
“And that lacuna has long since been filled,” Sherlock admitted. “Now it's time to fill another.”
Entire Story on AO3
Chapter 4 on AO3
Chapter 1 on LJ
Chapter 2 on LJ
Chapter 3 on LJ
Fandoms: Sherlock/The Wicker Man (1973)
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Other Characters: Lord Summerisle, Miss Rose, Willow MacGregor, Alder MacGregor, Mr. Lennox, The Librarian, other Summerisle villagers and OCs
Rating: NC-17/explicit (eventually)
Summary:
“Mr Holmes, I'm not in the habit of approaching . . . consultants. But you are correct. I have great faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And until recently, I also had faith in the rule of law. Only the second one has wavered. Three years ago my fiancé, Sgt. Neil Howie of the West Highlands Constabulary, went to investigate an anonymous report of a missing child in a remote place called Summerisle. He never communicated with me while he was there, and he never returned.”
Summerisle is not a welcoming place to visitors, but it shows its best face at May Day. For ulterior motives.
Chapter 4, The Burning Times
Having declined one indecent proposal, Sherlock makes one of his own. And takes on two new clients.
“Rosebushes, goddammit,” John muttered as he and Sherlock struggled through them. Or rather, he struggled, his clothes torn and skin scratched by thorns.
Sherlock stood on the other side of the hedge, moonlight shimmering on his face - and John knew that look. Lost to the world at the moment, wheels upon wheels, data flickering by at a blinding pace. Sherlock's hands moved unconsciously, placing ideas into a chain, linking it, weaving it. The force of his mind buffeted him about like a high wind sometimes.
John was torn between his training - the time he’d spent learning how to speak Sherlock, an exacting discipline in itself - to get the hell out of the way of that force of nature, and his own need to know and to understand. Sherlock would explain himself when he was good and ready, and not a moment before.
Sherlock had a big smile spreading across his face now. “If I'm right, I can go anywhere I like tonight. Do anything I want.” His strange, fey glee was infectious. “No one on all Summerisle would dare to do me harm tonight. But I don't think that applies to you, John. Stay close to me.”
“You've got that face again,” John said. “That 'we both know what's going on here' face. You know that pisses me off.”
“Try to keep up,” Sherlock said.
“No, no, you don't get to pull that. I need to know what's going on. What she meant when she said she was trying to save you.” John was tense, standing his ground stubbornly, but perilously close to grabbing Sherlock’s arm to hold him still until he gave some damn explanations. Just a few facts, goddammit.
“She was testing me,” Sherlock said tersely, pulling up his coat collar.
“Oh, that clears it all up. I understand everything now,” John said, throwing up his hands.
“Really?”
“Of course not.” But Sherlock had already outpaced him up the little cobblestone street, towards the graveyard.
The moonlit way seemed to call for silence, as did Sherlock's preoccupied manner, so John held his tongue and listened to the night sounds of Summerisle. There were owls in the trees, and the roar of the sea was coming closer.
“Sherlock?” John felt compelled to whisper for some reason.
“Yes?”
“Why do you think you can do anything you want tonight?”
“Because something very important is supposed to happen to me tomorrow. No Summerislander would dare to interfere with that.” He stopped still, and froze. “Unless . . . Oh yes. Unless some would. Yes, that explains a great deal. But not everything. Come with me, I need to test a hypothesis.”
“Sherlock, I have no idea what you - ” Damn it. Sherlock’s oblique blather was coming dangerously close to losing its charm.
He turned on his heel and headed back to the town with John on right behind, striding double-time to keep up and make sure Sherlock never left his sight. It was a nice night for villagers to be out, and in twos and threes they strolled - and in twos and threes they celebrated the season. John nearly tripped over a couple that turned out to be two young men, and one of them managed to give him an appreciative leer from a very awkward position.
Sherlock grabbed John's arm and pulled him into a row of hedges behind the main street's shops, his grip tight on John's wrist, and John felt something warm and strong and very ill-timed blooming low in his belly. In the bushes with Sherlock. God.
The pale light of a streetlamp gleamed for a moment in Sherlock's eyes as he stared at John for just a beat too long. Then he was off down a little alley, pulling up short behind Lennox's shop.
“This lock is just an insult,” Sherlock said.
“Surprised they even bother to lock it at all around here. I'm sure he's got a curse on anyone who tries to break in.”
“He doesn't lock it,” Sherlock said. “This lock is new. Never used til now. And not even shut all the way.”
“Do you think it's a trap?”
“Either that or a pantomime,” Sherlock said.
He fell silent and looked up suddenly - not to the flat at the top of the shop but one two doors down where a window opened. John had to take a second to register what he was seeing, for at first it seemed like some horrible mythological creature in the window. But then he realised it was just another reveler in a mask, a hawk or an eagle of some sort. By the size and silhouette of the figure, a woman. She was watching them like, well, a hawk.
“All right, well, that blew that setup,” Sherlock said quietly and cheerfully. “Walk with me, and we'll see what follows us.” And as they got farther from the street, he bent to whisper in John's ear. “And I'll tell you what we would have found in there.”
Far behind them, they heard a window slam angrily, and the sound of running footsteps. Not in their direction.
Down the road, the village streets turned into a paved path, gradually leaving the village behind and climbing a little rise. The path wound its way by a gleaming river, lined by oak trees and hedges. The lights of the village fell away and they were left with only the moon to show their path, but it was bright enough. Pointless to even ask where we're going, John thought.
The rustles in the woods and the occasional flickers of torchlight and fire moving in dancelike patterns off in the distance were eerie, but they didn't faze John anymore. “What would we have found in there?”
“Photographs of the harvest in recent years. And photographs of the May Day rite, particularly those from three years ago.”
“The ones Lennox said he didn't have.”
“Yes. He wasn't lying. They would have been planted there very recently, for the same reason Lord Summerisle loaned me the books he did. But the photographs were not planted by Lord Summerisle.”
“You're not really telling me very much. What is in those photographs?”
“Depending on who planted them, either everything but Neil Howie's death, or everything including it. Someone besides us has been doing things without Lord Summerisle's permission.”
“Surprised anyone would be so bold,” John said. “Whatever it is. It’s bound to happen, though. They can’t all be as happy as they look.”
“You think it’s some sort of political dissent?” Sherlock asked, amused.
“You’re the one with the theories,” John said.
“I think we ought to speak with him again,” Sherlock said and turned back up the path out of the village. When they passed through the graveyard, they saw a grizzled man digging a fresh grave by lanternlight, and he let out the most inappropriate of giggles.
“Want to see?” he said to them, appropos of nothing, and showed them a severed stag’s head in a coffin. “Chop chop,” he said, still laughing.
“Christ,” John muttered as they walked away.
The path rose sharply outside of the village and passed out of the gardens and onto bare, treeless hills. The towers of Lord Summerisle’s manor were visible along the horizon, getting closer and closer, and over it all was the sound of the sea. The sea cliffs came up on them almost too suddenly, and John didn’t like it one bit when Sherlock stood too close to the edge, looking down at the white foam beating itself violently against the sharp rock spires. Hills rising around them had sinister openings in them, sharp mouths of stony caves. “Wonder what’s hidden in there,” John muttered, shuddering. Everything about Summerisle by night seemed designed to excite all the dark places of the imagination, bringing out primal fears - the folk of the hollow hills, the restless dead, the hungry gods.
“It’s more what’s hidden in plain sight,” Sherlock said, leading him up a half-cliff.
“What . . . the fuck . . . is that?” John breathed, staring at the human-shaped colossus silhouetted against the sky.
“It’s a wicker man, John. A sacrificial effigy, to be burnt tomorrow. Do close your mouth before something flies into it.”
“I just . . . I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“Sure you have. Every Bonfire Night. Just not usually on such a grand scale. Anyway, there’s no credible evidence that Druids actually burned their human sacrifices inside one of those - the only sources are Roman, and they’re just a bit biased. However, whether the Druids ever really did or not, I’m now fairly sure that Summerislanders have done it at least once.”
John stood back for a moment, taking it all in, and his mind was starting to reel with horror as possibilities flooded his mind and all his instincts were telling him that the most repugnant fantasy of dread he could come up with was probably the most accurate.
“And you still want to go talk to Lord Summerisle again?” John asked. His own impulses were all about fight-or-flight now, and Sherlock still wanted to chat.
“It’s all the more important now,” Sherlock said wry. “I imagine he knows that I know. Honestly I’m surprised we haven’t already been picked up and made an offer of a ride we can’t refuse. The kidnapping service here is terrible tonight. If we have to walk, I’m not tipping.”
A cool briny breeze rose from the sea and lifted Sherlock’s hair and dripped ice down John’s spine. “I really think we should get out of here,” John said as they walked back downhill to the gentle hills that surrounded the apple orchard. The sweet scent of the blossoms seemed ominous now. Everything did. “There’s got a be a way.
“The only way out is through,” Sherlock said. “It’s not as bad as it seems. I have bargaining chips.”
John was not reassured.
The moon had won clear of the clouds by the time they reached the long lane to Summerisle Manor. Sherlock had to pound on the door twice with the wild-faced foliate-head door-knocker before a handsome middle-aged woman opened the door. “Hello, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson. I’m Ivy, the housekeeper. Mr. Burns has the night off. Lord Summerisle is expecting you.”
“Of course he is. Thank you, Ivy.”
Summerisle’s parlour was transformed by candlelight and a roaring fire in the grand hearth. Upon the white fur rug sat Miss Rose, lovely and radiant in her mature beauty, in a simple blue gown that set off her big eyes. Lord Summerisle was in what must be his customary evening wear, kilt and jacket and lace, seated at the piano and playing. Miss Rose and Lord Summerisle finished the chorus of their bawdy song (her voice rich and flirtatious, his deep and grand) before either paused to acknowledge their guests.
Then Summerisle was all courtesy, rising from the piano bench to pour drinks from a decanter on an elaborate sideboard. “Good evening and welcome. Do have some excellent Scotch,” he said to Sherlock and John, “The genuine article. You cannot get this in London. And it's making my ancestors weep to see me serving it in good fellowship to Englishmen.”
Three glasses, three fingers each. John waited to see if Sherlock would sip. He did. So he followed, and just the tiny burn of it in his mouth was glorious: it tasted like forests smell, with undertones of rich peat and sea salt.
Sherlock turned around and fixed his eyes on Summerisle with a hard stare. “Neil Howie was a very religious man, of a strict and puritanical Christian fundamentalist sect. Every single aspect of your way of life here would have horrified him. Even by believers' standards, he was naïve and demagogic, and obviously prayed his way through every single session of diversity training that even the backwater police forces make a token stab at nowadays, rather than listening. I can think of no worse person in all Britain to actually solve a mystery on your island. So I have to conclude that his competence was not the reason he received an anonymous call aimed directly at him.” He paced about in little stalking cat steps, back and forth across the window through which they’d watched naked girls dancing mere hours before. The rhythm of his speech seemed to bounce in a little, one tiny hop on his toes as he reached his own glorious conclusion. He turned and met Summerisle’s gaze, daring him to refute a word of it.
Lord Summerisle's eyes were just as capable of holding a prey pinned fast. “So I'm sure you already understand that he was summoned for other reasons. Certain criteria that he met.”
“I found the book that was so crudely laid out for me in your library, yes. I have to say, I do not represent the law in any official capacity. I'm called in when the Queen's law fails, which is all too often.”
“You are here of your own free will. You can't resist a mystery,” Summerisle said, creeping closer and using his height advantage.
“I'm not a fool,” Sherlock said. “At least not all the time.”
“Sometimes you are,” Summerisle said, and nodded his head at John. “And the last, well. Let's not speak of the last yet. I do read the papers, Mr. Holmes. I'm willing to treat you as a peer because I read between the lines of your initiation experience. You had a death and resurrection. You gave up everything: your work, your home, your possessions, your reputation, the company of your friends and family, even your name. Many who loved you believed you dead, and you let them. You spent two years in the underworld-alone, virtually naked, living by your wits, a walking fighting corpse. You risked your life again and again even after you had ‘died.’ And you survived and you rose again and came home. Many religions revere a figure who has done something similar. Including our own. Including Mr. Howie's,” Summerisle chuckled.
“I hardly did it with that intention,” Sherlock said, with a tight smile that didn’t rise to his eyes.
“All the better. You did it because Fate called you to. You are the Holly King, the winter incarnation of the God who dies and rises again,” Lord Summerisle finally concluded, with something resembling a calm benevolence, perhaps even admiration.
“I did what seemed necessary at the time,” Sherlock said, trying to avoid looking at John too long. “It came at a price and I have my regrets.”
“The Holly King dies at Beltane,” Miss Rose said. “It is time then for the young Oak King to mate with the young Goddess, and together they rule until the turn of the year.”
“Yes, that's a nicely symmetrical mythology,” Sherlock said. “Is that why I was lured here? Because I've already died and risen from the grave, you think I'd be amenable to doing it again?”
Summerisle started for just a moment, as Sherlock fixed him with a piercing gaze. “You knew I was coming. But you knew it after the fact. It was not on your orders, not originally. You have a power struggle on your hands here.”
“You're better at this than the unfortunate Howie, that's for certain,” Summerisle said. “That is true.”
“Last year's crop failure wasn't as bad as the year of Rowan Morrison. Your own opinion was that a human sacrifice isn't needed. Is that true?”
“It is.”
“Tell me, this is the only thing I'm not certain of. If Howie hadn't come to the island, would you have sacrificed Rowan?”
“That question was rendered irrelevant.”
“It's never irrelevant,” Sherlock said. “How about this scenario: what if Howie had taken Willow MacGregor up on her generous offer the night before?” Sherlock paced the room, arms crossed, tapping his lips with a forefinger, lost in thought. “If he'd betrayed his religious principles regarding sexuality, would he have then have been unfit as an offering? It would have removed one of the criteria he met.”
“She was a test,” Miss Rose said matter-of-factly.
“Yes, of course. One which I also - was it passed? Or failed? You must know that by now, she must have called you right away.”
“She did,” Lord Summerisle said. “It's remarkable, Sherlock Holmes. You've undergone the rite of passage that men most dread, and yet you've never had the initiation that most men desire. The intimate touch of a lover, a willing body wrapped around your own, giving yourself to a sweet and life-affirming ecstasy.”
John shivered at this - god, Lord Summerisle's voice could sell coal in Newcastle. And John wouldn't need much persuasion to want what he was selling.
“And I still haven't quite deduced how you could possibly know that,” Sherlock snapped.
“I have it on good authority from someone who knew you. Not in the Biblical sense of course, and not for lack of trying,” Lord Summerisle said with a sly little grin. “Someone who knows what I like.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Oh, for God's sake! Is there anything the woman hasn't had her fingers in?”
“You, apparently,” said Summerisle, managing to make it sound dignified.
“And she's still in my business after all these years. So you do enjoy a bit of the ritual scourging, as Gardner recommended, then?”
Lord Summerisle’s eyebrows gave a little twitch, as if he were shrugging with them. “I have found it good for my constitution, yes. Now, you've as good as admitted that Miss Adler's information was at least at one time accurate. And the expression on your face now is suggesting it's still true.”
John was shaking his head. He'd suspected it, but to have it all but confirmed was still a little bit of a shock. “So you really are . . .”
“But here, now, Sherlock,” Lord Summerisle said softly, reassuringly. “It's all fine if the charms of women don't move you.” John almost jumped out of his chair as Lord Summerisle touched one fingertip to that little curl at the nape of Sherlock's neck. “We could certainly find you an acceptable alternative.” His lips were close to Sherlock's ear, and Sherlock had frozen still.
“There are several types of sacrifices,” Sherlock said, hands clenching and unclenching with nervous excitement. “The fire and the sea. The blade and the blood. The crop failure was bad that year and the sacrifice of Sergeant Howie had to be spectacular. And it was. There are those among your people who loved that spectacle, who crave it. Who desire an escalation - ever-increasing. Who will not be happy in a year when a less dreadful sacrifice is required. Once you've burnt a man alive, some won't settle for simply butchering pigs and pouring ale in the sea.” He pulled away from Lord Summerisle - with some reluctance? Oh God, John thought, oh no, that can't happen - and paced the room. He stared Miss Rose in the face, watching her responses. “You, Miss Rose. You're the High Priestess. Lord Summerisle is the figurehead but you're the real power in spiritual matters. You don't want a fatal sacrifice this year.”
She clearly wanted to keep her cards close to her chest, but her sad smile suggested that Sherlock was right.
“You need a spectacle, but you'd rather not raise the stakes any higher than they've already gone. Hmmm, a virgin sacrifice,” Sherlock said pensively. “There are two ways to take that. You'll kill me if you have to, but you'd rather not. You can't have the people expecting to witness a gruesome death every year. After all, if the crops fail disastrously again, whose sacrifice will be required? One of your village's own children? More than one? Lord Summerisle himself? Yourself?”
“Sergeant Howie made that same point,” Lord Summerisle said, droll and deadpan.
“Too late for him,” Sherlock said. “And he would never have agreed to play the game by your rules. He was easy to dupe, but he never would have bent. I just might.”
Miss Rose nodded. “He was a threat and a walking insult. He was completely convinced that we kill children. He had such contempt for us that he wanted to believe that. He would never, ever respect our ways.”
“And you think that I do?” Sherlock said. “Well, maybe respect is a strong word.”
“'At least you don't have a crucifix up your arse.”
Sherlock chuckled. “Not sure I want a maypole up there either. I can certainly imagine the unpleasantness of the small talk. I never had the pleasure of meeting him.”
“I know pleasure, Mr. Holmes, and that was not one,” Miss Rose said with a vulpine grin. “As to the symbolic maypole, it can feel rather nice.”
“So I'm told,” Sherlock said. He thought for a moment, looked at John and smiled a smile that wasn't unlike Miss Rose's, and all the hairs on the back of John's neck rose and tingled. Several other ones did too. Usual response to danger, John told himself. I know that about myself at least. “The sacrifice you wanted, Miss Rose . . . the sacrifice of the chalice and the blade, will that do? What some call the Great Rite? The seeding of the fields?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And you, Lord Summerisle? Would that be a show that your bloodthirsty serfs could enjoy?”
“Serfs, Holmes, really? Is that necessary? Besides, under the right conditions, under these conditions, it's not what my people want. It's what the gods demand.”
“Your goddess of the fields, what would she want to receive, then? How much is willingness worth to her?”
“A great deal,” Miss Rose said. “A very great deal. What you are suggesting is what my heart is telling me is right. For this year.”
Sherlock nodded. “All right then. I'll take your case, Miss Rose. Yours too, Lord Summerisle. I accept and consent.”
John really did jump out of his chair. “What?”
Sherlock held up his hand. “On two conditions--”
“You're hardly in a position to demand conditions, Mr. Holmes,” Lord Summerisle said. “We're all well aware that you and Dr. Watson have no way to escape this island without my knowledge.”
“On the contrary, I am. If I refuse to play your way, you will have to kill me, and I can't imagine John standing for that without a fight. You'll have two more murders on your hands, you'll have to do this every year, and eventually it will be you.” Sherlock laid a hand over the surface of Lord Summerisle’s piano, tapped out a nervous rhythm with his fingertips that changed to a slow ominous light beat. “And, worst of all, you will never find out who is trying to undermine you and take over. Not until it's too late. But if you play the game in the way I'm willing, you will. Those people will be flushed out. And best of all,” he said with a proud, dramatic little flourish of his hands, “Your crops will not fail.”
“And here I thought you weren't a believer.”
“I'm not. I don't have to be.”
Summerisle and Miss Rose stared at him and matching smiles of light crossed their faces. Feral smiles, smiles of something clicking into place.
“Very well, Sherlock,” Lord Summerisle said. “I must say, reports of your genius and the lengths to which you're willing to go have not been exaggerated. What are your conditions?”
“That allowance is made for my natural inclinations, and I don't care if it doesn't fit your symbolism. The second is that I get to choose my . . . swordsman.”
“Agreed,” Miss Rose said.
“Acceptable,” Lord Summerisle said. “We are heathens, yes, but not, we hope, unenlightened ones.”
John was still feeling the floor wobbling a bit beneath his feet and a severe sense of unreality setting in, and his brain felt even foggier than usual. “Your . . . swordsman,” he said, staring at Sherlock.
“The Great Rite is an offering of pleasure to the gods,” Miss Rose said. “There's little to fear.”
“My partner in that act, not my executioner,” Sherlock said with a shrug and a little huff of disgust. “It'll cost me nothing but something that has no real meaning. Virginity is just a conceptual construct, John. It's not a thing in itself. It's a lack of a thing - of a specific experience. It's not useful in any way, but it's also completely harmless so I've always ignored it. Well, up until now it's been harmless. Now it's proving quite a liability. It's outlived its uselessness.”
Everything in the room fell away to the sides of John's mind except Sherlock's face, as the light of understanding dawned like a flashing strobe. “But . . . okay. I understand that, I really do,” John flailed. “You snark on me for being a romantic all the time, and yeah. It's true. I guess I am,” He looked down, embarrassed but full of conviction, speaking more softly but unable to look Sherlock full in the eyes. “I think your first time should be special.”
“I'm to be ritually deflowered in a pagan ceremony, possibly by a man wearing a mask and antlers or some such, while a whole town looks on, in the belief that human sexual displays have some sort of beneficial effect on agriculture. I'm not sure how much more special I could take.”
John's eyes darted helplessly to the walls, to the windows, looking for help. Helpless he remained. There really was nothing that Sherlock wouldn't use in the pursuit of a puzzle, was there? “I just . . . I think it should be someone you trust. Someone who cares about you.”
“Believe it or not, I agree. That's why my first choice to do the honours is you.”
All right, that floor really was wavering now. Even Lord Summerisle was sympathetic. “Sit, Dr. Watson, please. Shocks are much better absorbed with the knees bent. Here, that's a good fellow.” He took John's glass and refilled it, and John chugged it in just the way excellent Scotch should not be chugged.
“Your first choice,” was all John managed to growl out.
“Yes, of course. I've always found you attractive, since the day we met, and that effect has increased over time, not diminished. You're very loyal to me, you're certainly brave enough to handle this, and I know that you do have sexual feelings towards me, and that the customs of Summerisle are inflaming your already highly active libido. I don't think I'm asking you to do anything that you don't already want to do. But of course you can refuse, and I'll find an alternative. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, I think Lord Summerisle himself has been sending signals that he's not completely averse to claiming the droit du seigneur . . .”
“Oh God. Sherlock. Just --”
“Lay off it a bit, Mr. Holmes,” Miss Rose said gently. “Give him a moment.”
“Bit not good?” Sherlock asked.
“A bit, yeah,” John whispered.
“You're correct, by the way,” said Lord Summerisle unhelpfully.
“He's mine, but I'd loan him,” Miss Rose chimed in.
“Sherlock,” John said. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”
Respectful nods from the Lord and his lady - perhaps a bit relieved - John all but frog-marched Sherlock into the hallway and shut the parlour door. “Sherlock,” he hissed. “Are you - what are you playing at? No - no -” he held up a finger “if you say 'the game' I will punch you. Are you really telling me -” he paused to catch his breath. “That I have three choices. I can - oh god - have sex with you, or I can watch someone else have sex with you, or I can watch you die again, seriously?”
“Well,” Sherlock said, tilting his head ceilingward with a little shrug. “I could possibly find a way to get out of the last one. But possibly not. It would be a lot more difficult, that's for sure. And my assumption going in is that if it comes to that, I doubt they'd let you live. Hostile witness.”
“You're not getting killed to appease some pagan gods. Not on my watch. That's unacceptable.”
“I had hoped you'd see it that way.”
John was almost laughing now, this whole situation was so completely insane.
“So I would take option two, if you're unwilling,” Sherlock said.
“Oh God,” John groaned, putting his face in his hands. “I - I can't. I - don't want that. Either.”
“John,” Sherlock said, taking John by the wrists and pulling his hands away, leaning down close. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don't want me that way, at all. Tell me the idea doesn't excite you even a little bit.”
John couldn't. He could do no such thing. He couldn't even make eye contact with Sherlock and say anything. So he closed his eyes and blindly reached out, and put his fingers through soft curly hair. He was so keenly, painfully aware of Sherlock's warmth, his breath and his pulse, and the tiny wet sound his lips made parting before he touched them to John's mouth.
It was a hesitant, uncertain kiss. Sherlock didn't really know what he was doing. But there was a movement of lips and a tiny flick of tongue, and it was terribly full of promise of better things. And now that he'd tasted Sherlock once, John knew all too well he'd spend his days craving more, and he'd want to kill anyone who took that which he wanted so badly.
“All right,” John said raggedly, without even opening his eyes. “You fucking lunatic. We'll have it your way. Always your way.”
“I think the idea is that you'll have your way with me,” Sherlock said, a smile in his voice. “I suspect only penetrative intercourse will fulfill the requirement in their eyes, so -”
“Please,” John gasped. “Just - stop talking for a minute, okay? Give me a moment.” He took a deep breath and finally opened his eyes. The look on Sherlock's face was pleased, amused, and there he found the reassurance John didn't know he'd been craving. “God, you know what? I mean, I never would have admitted this, but I had this dream. Last night. The people out on the grass - I dreamed I was out there with them. And it was me and you. I never thought--”
“Yes, well, under different circumstances I'd never have told you that I noticed. I am not completely lacking tact and discretion.”
“How do you not know about the fucking solar system, but you suddenly know all about pagan sex rituals?”
“It's not sudden, John. The occult doesn't figure into crime nearly as often as superstitious people think it does, but that doesn't mean it never happens. A working knowledge of common cult practices has proven useful in my line of work before.”
“So has the solar system,” John said.
“And that lacuna has long since been filled,” Sherlock admitted. “Now it's time to fill another.”
Entire Story on AO3
Chapter 4 on AO3
Chapter 1 on LJ
Chapter 2 on LJ
Chapter 3 on LJ