The Enigma Variations. Chapter Ten. Trust.

May 07, 2012 07:12

The Enigma Variations. Chapter 10/?  Trust
author: ghislainem70
rating: NC-17
word count:  5700 this chapter.
warnings: spoilers for S2, especially The Reichenbach Fall; explicit sex, graphic violence, reference in this chapter to sensory integration syndrome.
disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary:  Post-Reichenbach, John finds he still has one thing left to live for.  A dark!John fic.



I had a way then
losing it all on my own

I had a heart then
but the queen has been overthrown

And I'm not sleeping now
the dark is too hard to beat
And I'm not keeping now
the strength I need to push me

You show the lights that stop me
turn to stone
You shine me when I'm alone

And so I tell myself that I'll be strong
And dreaming when they're gone

'Cause they're calling, calling me home

Noises, I play within my head
Touch my own skin and
hope that I'm still breathing

Lyrics to Lights (Listen below), all rights reserved Ellie Goulding.

John walked with what he hoped was confidence, but not excessive bravado, to the doors of One Hyde Park.  Built to the most exacting standards of luxury, modernity and security by the reclusive superstar developers, the Candy brothers of London and Monaco, One Hyde Park was some of the most expensive real estate in one of the world's most expensive cities.  The most expensive flat in the world was here -  sold for £140 million in 2010 to the Ukrainian oligarch Rinak Akhmetov.  It featured an underground passage to the restaurant of TV celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal, a panic room, bulletproof windows and security guards trained by the SAS.   One Hyde Park remained the last word in prestige addresses in London.

As such, John had some vague awareness that one could not just waltz into the building, even with a key to one of the flats.

As he approached, John saw a highly groomed security operative disguised as an ordinary doorman keeping vigil at the front door.  He had cleaned himself up at the Yard as best he could, patching up his torn ear, swabbing away crusted blood with a first aid kit, cold water, and a fresh shirt lent by Lestrade -  kept on hand for impromptu press conferences and unwelcome meetings with the Commissioner.

"I have a meeting with Guy Ransome.  He lent me his key, I'm to wait in his flat," John bluffed outrageously.

He fully expected to have to wait while this was verified with Moran, aka Guy Ransome.  Who, he imagined, wasn't stupid enough to return to his flat while on the run from both Scotland Yard and his new nemesis, John Hamish Watson.

On the other hand, John considered, if Moran was there, that would make things rather interesting.

The doorman spoke quietly into the telephone.  "Please go up, sir," he said obsequiously.  John kept his face impassive.  His poker face had become his real face, his mercurial expressiveness vanished.  He hesitated between pushing forward, and retreating in the face of an obvious trap.

But he hadn’t come this far to retreat.

"Do you know the way?"  The security man asked.

John gave a terse nod and let the man helpfully show him on a little map.  He expected a trick: when he turned his back he would be attacked, seized.

“Sir,” the security man said, “I must ask you to leave your gun in the courtesy safe.”  John knew then that he had passed through some sort of scan, discreetly concealed in the columns on either side of the security desk.  “I’m sure you understand.”  John handed the gun over, his fingers slipping reluctantly from the cool, comforting weight of it.

This was a moment of truth.  What secrets lie hidden in Moran’s flat?  If there was anything to be learned, this was his chance.  Moran had escaped from him, and from the Yard.

John had to believe that he wouldn’t wait long before making a counter-move.

* * *

Despite his suspicions, nothing at all happened as he entered the elevator and was swiftly and smoothly borne upwards.  This made his unease greater, not less. The hackles stood on the back of his neck.  In Afghanistan,  the worst attacks always came when you thought you were safe, when things were quiet.

When you thought everything was going your way.

He strode through long corridors with floors of polished stone, light fixtures of blown glass, crystal -- each of them looking fit for a museum, each costing, probably, more than a year of his Army pay and likely more.  The place seemed deserted; but everywhere, he felt watched.  Yet he saw no one.

Now he was at the doors of Moran's flat, Number 1212.  He wondered if there was any significance to the number.  He decided not to ring but put the key in the lock and twisted it, feeling a flush of satisfaction when it turned smoothly with a soft snick and the door silently swung open.

The lights were on.  His fingers wanted to close around his gun and twitched around nothing.  He saw a man's figure, outlined against the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the Serpentine shining dully under grey morning light.

"Terribly sorry about your gun,” he said. “There are plenty on hand here, however.  Take your pick."

It was Mycroft.

* * *

“All right,” John said.  “You know all about Crockford’s.  Moran’s not here, I take it?”

“You are correct.  He is being sought.  He will be found.  It is a matter of time.”

“And when you find him?”

Mycroft smiled, a thin smile that did not reach his eyes.  John thought that it seldom ever did, really.  Mycroft didn’t answer.

“Were you waiting for him? Or waiting for me?” John asked uneasily.

Mycroft frowned. “I am not ‘waiting’ for anything.  I took control . . . of the situation.  You are seeking information.  About Moriarty.  Well, on that, at least, we are together.  Lestrade may have told you that Moran was leasing this flat week to week.  The lease was up.”

“He did tell me.”

“Well, whom do you suppose is the new tenant?”  Mycroft looked somewhat smug, and for a fleeting moment he saw a rare resemblance between Mycroft and Sherlock.  This induced a confusing feeling between fondness and fury. He swallowed hard.

“Looks like it’s you.  I don’t suppose I need to know how.  But please - just don’t tell me you’re here to stop me because it’s really not on.”

Mycroft looked crestfallen.  “I’ll help you. . .  if it’s help you want.  But first, I have something that I must tell you, John.  Something that I’ve been trying to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen.”

John had been standing in the doorway, Mycroft across the vast room.  John felt rooted to the spot.  Whatever Mycroft wanted to say, he was pretty sure he didn’t want to hear.  His head was well and truly splitting now and the lump on his head from hitting the stone balcony was throbbing.

“Mycroft, please.  I just need to -“ Mycroft was coming toward him now, and gave a small gasp when he saw John’s bandage, stained a little with blood; saw John sway a little.  “John. You’re hurt.  Please sit.  I can call someone.  They even have a doctor on call. . . well, you know what I mean.  If you need -“  Mycroft took two long steps with those impossibly long legs, another resemblance to his impetuous brother, gripped him firmly by the arm and propelled him to the sofa.

“No doctor,” John muttered as he felt himself thrust rather more forcefully than he expected down onto the sofa, and suddenly he was grateful.  He wasn’t sure his knees wouldn’t have given out and cursed the limitations of his body.  He needed to be hunting, he needed to be moving.  Towards Moriarty.  Towards the end of Moriarty and his web.  Towards Sherlock.  Towards the beginning of . . .he didn’t allow himself to hope for that. For Sherlock to be able to return would be enough, he told himself.

During his reverie Mycroft had somehow produced hot tea and soup, and was forcing him with great politeness and iron firmness to take it in.  The warmth restored him.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as the nursemaid type,” John said.

Mycroft frowned and urged more soup on him.  “I personally “nursemaided” Sherlock after more overdoses, self-neglect, and injuries, than you ever imagined, or ever could,” he said coldly. “You’re surprised! You see, I know you think I didn’t care for Sherlock.  You think I betrayed my brother.  You couldn’t be more wrong.  I’ve been trying to explain this to you.  Will you let me?”

John’s head was reeling, and not just from the blow.  Just before his pretended death, Sherlock had refused to go to Mycroft for aid.

They were running in the streets, running from the Yard, running, in fact, straight into Moriarty’s trap:

“. . . A lie that’s preferable to the truth - -  All my brilliant deductions were just a sham.  No-one feels inadequate.  Sherlock Holmes is just an ordinary man,” Sherlock said, shocking John with the rare, raw hurt in his voice as John stood there at his side, handcuffed to the only man that kept him anchored in this world, and blurted only thing he could think of.

“What about Mycroft? He could help us.”

But on the run and at the end of their rope, Sherlock hadn’t wanted, or hadn’t thought he would get, help from his all-powerful brother: “A big family reconciliation? Now’s not really the moment,” Sherlock spat, as he yanked John down the alley that led to only one end.

The arrogant flippancy in his voice, John decided much later, had concealed some deep pain that Sherlock had done all he could to delete.

John knew that Mycroft felt the same.  Because just days before their flight from 221b, at a private little tete-a-tete at the Diogenes Club, Mycroft had shown him the files on four assassins, asked him to protect Sherlock: “Moriarty is obsessed. He’s sworn to destroy his only rival.”

But when John pointedly asked him why he couldn’t just talk to his brother about the web of danger encircling him, he had merely said, with every appearance of grave sincerity:  “Too much history between us, John. Old scores. . .  resentments.”

John met Mycroft’s eyes, and he knew Mycroft was remembering, too:

“Your own brother.  And you blabbed about his entire life. To this maniac.”

“ I never intended -“ Mycroft stammered. “I never dreamt - ”

“You don’t trust me, John.”  Mycroft said firmly.  “Don’t trouble to deny it.”

* * * * *

“You’re not to give it to him,” Irene said to Sherlock in a controlled fury.  “Did you see the picture? The one that brought him to us?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said remotely.  “But he’s no threat to us.  Not now.  He may never recover.  He likely won’t be the man he was, let alone the killer that he was. His mind had been entirely. . .  compromised.  ‘Post traumatic stress disorder’ doesn’t nearly cover the aftereffects.”

Adler showed him a picture on her mobile. It was a very young, slim, dark-haired girl, aged perhaps twelve.  Perhaps younger.

“That is what he was after.”

“You’re suggesting we murder him for it.”

“I never suggest.  It’s not my style.  But that picture . . . it’s me.”

Sherlock had the hypodermic ready, containing the precious antidote. Golem was too far gone into his world of terror to notice anything at all.  Soon it would be too late.   He processed what Irene was saying, what she was likely trying to say.

“His mind is utterly susceptible in this state.  He can be conditioned . . . in any way that you like,” He said.  “I can leave you with him.  I can give you two minutes. No more.  And then I’m giving him the antidote.”

“Aren’t you going to watch?”

Sherlock shook his head.  “This is your affair.”

“How do you know I won’t kill him anyway?”

Sherlock looked into her eyes, wide, green, clear, and far from innocent.  “I suppose I’ll just have to trust you.”

“Do you?  Trust me?” Irene asked, all arch pretense falling away.  “I wish you would.”

Sherlock said nothing for a moment, then: “One and a half minutes.  Make the most of them,” he said, and went into the next room.

After precisely one and a half minutes elapsed, he strode to Golem’s side and looked at him dispassionately.  Adler was not entirely wrong.  Golem had killed many, possibly harmed even more.  And now he was back at the swimming pool.  This happened more and more often, he found.

The swimming pool.  Where Carl Powers died.

The last place he would ever have expected to be taught the surprising but apparently inescapable fact that he, Sherlock Holmes, had a heart.  And the last person on earth he would ever have expected to teach him this curious fact was shrieking, raving like the madman he was:

“People have died.”

“That’s what people DO!”

* * *

John took a deep breath.  “You’re right.  I don’t. Trust you.” He said.  “You’ve given me good reason not to.  We don’t have to go over it all again.  Do we?”

Mycroft looked down.  John thought he was possibly ashamed; and if he was, he had every reason in the world.

John waited.

“The first day I met you, John, we spoke about. . .  trust.  Do you remember?”

“I couldn’t bloody well forget.  Pay me to spy on your own brother.  I should have realized.”

“John, you’re wrong. I’m sorry.  Sherlock and I - “

John stood up.  “Don’t speak of him,” he whispered.  “Whatever you’re thinking you need to tell me, I don’t want to hear.  Don’t you see?  You’ve done -  what you’ve done.  I hope you can live with it.  And about the other night - 221b - there isn’t anything I can say but I’m sorry, I’d do anything if I hadn’t - it was ugly, and it was wrong.  I must have been out of my mind.  Maybe I still am.  But when you talk about trust -  I don’t want to hear about your vendetta with your brother.  ‘Archenemy.’  Sherlock wasn’t far wrong.  And it’s too late.  Far too late.”

Mycroft looked up then, and John stepped back from the raw sorrow and pity etched there, his habitual mask of cool reserve entirely stripped away.

John decided Mycroft’s game, whatever it was, was not one he had the time or desire to play, even as he realized that after what had happened that strange night in 221b, he likely deserved whatever Mycroft had planned for him.

“John.  It doesn’t matter now. Sherlock’s . . . gone.  You deserve to know the truth.”

John froze.   For a moment he wondered, as he had with Mrs. Hudson,  if Mycroft really did know the truth.  But whatever ‘truth’ Mycroft was about to impart, it couldn’t be that.   “The truth?”  He actually laughed, holding his precious secret deep inside, letting himself feel it for a few moments, the warmth of the truth.

Sherlock was alive.

“Mycroft, no one needs to tell me the truth.  I know ‘the truth.’  I know everything I need to know about Sherlock Holmes.   Leave it alone and let me do what I have to do.”

Mycroft sank down into a chair and rubbed his face with his hands.  “You don’t know this.  Not unless Sherlock told you himself.  I know that he didn’t -  because of everything that’s happened between you and I, up until this very moment.

“You see, Sherlock told me to give that-- information - to Moriarty.  Every bit of it.  He wrote the script.  I was just the messenger.  Moriarty didn’t learn anything from me that Sherlock didn’t intend to give him.”

* * *

After a long pause where John felt that this building must be swaying, he felt so dizzy and ill from shock, he blurted the first thing that came to his lips:

“You’re lying.  Sherlock would have told me.”

“No, he most certainly would not.  Sherlock . . . after Moriarty kidnaped you, John, Sherlock was determined never to put you in that kind of danger - he wanted Moriarty to believe you were - I’m sorry John - harmless - he was convinced that the only way to protect you was to keep these plans secret.  That the less you knew, the better.”

“Are you - are you telling me, Mycroft, that all of that - that confession, at the Diogenes Club - you were playacting?  That Sherlock was deceiving me, too?  He wanted Moriarty to come after him like this?  It was part of some - game, a bloody great game, with me -  kept in the dark?”  John sat ramrod straight in his chair, and gripped the arms to prevent any shameful trembling of his hand.  Inside he was reeling, against the ropes.

Mycroft nodded grimly.  “That is precisely what it was.  A very great game.  The Chinese general, Sun Tzu, said: “Pretend inferiority, and encourage your enemy’s arrogance.”  That was the plan, you see.  Our plan.

“Sherlock knew Moriarty was obsessed with him.  Sherlock decided to give Moriarty what he most craved - and see where it led.  Sherlock believed he was certain to make a fatal mistake, something that we could turn against him.  We planned . . . to let Moriarty believe that we both of us were weak.  He had already, he thought, come close to defeating Sherlock through the - may I say, ‘charms,’ without offending you? - the redoubtable Miss Adler.  Well, we know how that turned out.  It was important to convince Moriarty that I, too, could be manipulated to his own ends.

“And so - you had him detained, but it was Sherlock’s plan all along? To feed him his private life, his secrets - is that what you’re telling me, Mycroft?”

“I’m afraid so.  I had him detained.  I had him . . . interrogated . . . you know the rest.  But John, what I said to you at the Diogenes Club - I was telling you the truth.  I never dreamt it would lead - where it did lead.  And when I said I was sorry, that was also true - I am sorry, terribly sorry.  I wished then, and I wish now, I had never agreed to go along with it.”

* * *

The hypodermic now empty, Sherlock carefully secured it in an envelope and sequestered it in his coat pocket.  He felt Irene’s eyes on him.

“There’s been enough dying,” he said.

Golem could neither hear nor understand what he said, but in a few hours he would be able to move, to help himself.  By then, they would be long gone.

Golem, he was certain, would never again be the cruelly effective assassin, the silent strangler.

Sherlock removed his gag and restraints, ignoring his pitiful moans that were getting somewhat stronger.

An hour later, Sherlock and Irene were on a high-speed train for Paris.

* * *

“So this is your coup de grace.”  John weighed the story, every word of it, against his faith. His belief in Sherlock Holmes.  “You expect me to believe this.”

“Of course I expect you to believe it. It’s the truth.”

“Forgive me if I don’t exactly consider you to be a paragon of truth.  What I don’t understand is why you would want to try and - take away my trust in Sherlock - now, after he’s  - he’s gone.   You’re just like Moriarty, do you know that?  Web upon web, lie upon lie.  Do you even know you’re doing it?  I’m going to pretend none of this ever happened.  Now let me do what I need to do here.”

Mycroft looked stricken.  “John, you have to believe me - I would never lie about this. I don’t want to hurt you.  It’s the very last thing I want.  I’m trying to protect you.  I’m trying - don’t you see -  I don’t want you to do this.  I lost my brother.  Even we were outmaneuvered by Moriarty.  If you keep on, John, he’ll take you, too.  And I - I can’t lose you too, John.  That’s why I had to tell you the truth.   Now do you see what I’m trying to tell you?”

They stared at each other.  The grey clouds parted and painfully bright sunlight burst through the windows.  In the dazzling light, John could finally see what was etched on Mycroft’s face.

“Oh my God,” he whispered.  “Mycroft, no - you can’t.  I can never - “ he was if possible more dismayed, more shocked than before. “Mycroft, I’m sorry. I didn’t know, I swear.  But I can’t.”

Mycroft nodded bitterly.  “Say it.  I already know.  But say it anyway. I suppose I need to hear it.”

John looked into the bright light, the sun climbing over London.

Somewhere out there, perhaps, the same sun was rising for Sherlock.

Was he thinking of him, too?

* * *

“The City of Love,” Irene said as they settled into their private cabin.

“You’ve paid your debt, Irene,” Sherlock said seriously.  “I’m leaving you in Paris.  What’s left to do . . .I need to do alone.”

“You’re making a mistake,” she said.  “No one really knows Moriarty. But I may know him better than most.  He won’t suspect me.  He thinks we are . . . kindred spirits.”

“Moriarty told me - he thought I was like him. He thought I was him.  I can’t let that happen.  I can’t let him win, Irene.  Do you understand?”

Sherlock stared out the window at the passing city, a blur.  That was what his life felt like since leaving London.   Since leaving John, he amended to himself carefully.    Now it felt necessary, even critical, that he try to identify and clarify feelings.   In his world now, everything was a blur, nothing was distinct, sharp.  There had been at time when everything seemed to him so sharp, so clear, so worthy of observation, of classification, of deduction, that his head had been filled with nothing else: detail upon detail, fact upon fact, filling a vast and intricate Mind Palace.  In the past, he could have hidden there just about forever.  Now, he almost never visited that place.  There was another place, a different region: smaller, simpler.  But safe.  That was where what he had left of John was.  He held the feeling of John, the memory of John, close.  It had to be enough.

Because no matter what happened, there was one thing he was certain of.  Well, fairly certain.  John Watson did not, despite his deductive brilliance and keen powers of observation, always react to his own actions as he would logically expect.  And so Sherlock was certain, as certain as he could be, that John Watson would never, ever forgive him.

He had seen John at his own grave.

Sherlock had now drunk deeply from the cup of loss and pain.  But he knew - recognizing that before John, he could not have - that John’s pain was far deeper.  Irreparable.  No, John would never forgive him.

In this game, Moriarty had thought to make him pay the ultimate price to save his friends.  And he had.  He had lost John.

But he was alive, Sherlock told himself fiercely.

As long as he stayed far, far away from him- stayed ‘dead’ -   Moriarty would likely never give John Watson another thought.

Soon, if he was fortunate, he would not longer have to be concerned about Moriarty’s thoughts about John Watson, or anything else.

Cities blurred by.

* * *

“Mycroft,” John said steadily, “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying - all I can tell you is, I’m-- I love Sherlock.  Even now.  Maybe now more than ever.  I didn’t really understand it, until he was gone.”

“What a waste,” Mycroft said.  He looked at John, and under the dyed hair, strange dark eyes, he  could see the real John, a brave and nearly broken soldier, indomitable, solitary, whose path was guided by a single brilliant star whose light he was compelled to follow, no matter how faint it had become, no matter how far.

“John - do you realize how mad you sound?  You must know he never -“ At John’s burning look, he shut his mouth, swallowed whatever he would have said.

Instead, he said, “Sherlock’s dead, John.  He’s gone forever.  I don’t know why you can’t accept that.  But - I can wait.  If I thought there was any hope -“

“Mycroft - just - stop.  I can’t talk about this.  Not with you.  Not with anyone.  Please, just - if you care about me, which I guess you’re telling me you do - forget about me.”

* * *

An hour later, with Mycroft’s silent assistance, John had recovered certain vague details of an apparent connection between Moran, Moriarty, and a Dublin-based computer chip company.

“Lestrade says Moran had some kind of device.  To cheat at roulette,” John said tersely.  The silence between them was painful, every bit as painful in its own way, John imagined, as the glass shards that had pierced Moran.  He had to stop this bleeding.  Time to go.

He pocketed the flash drive that Mycroft had loaded with data.  The rest of the flat was clean.  Moran had already been prepared for his departure.

“I’m off.”

“To Dublin?”

John nodded.  It was a move that made sense.  Lestrade had confirmed, and it had come out in connection with the trial, that Moriarty was almost certainly from Ireland, despite his murky ‘Richard Brook’ persona.  John had an idea, now, how this might all fit, remembering the receipt Lestrade had taken from Kitty Reilly’s empty flat.

“You can’t keep using your ‘Michael Reynolds’ identity,” Mycroft said stiffly, attempting to return to formality to hide his devastation.  “Not after Crockford’s.”  John pocketed the proffered passport and ID.

“Goodbye, Mycroft,” he said, the superbly concealed pain under Mycroft’s urbane mask unbearable to look at, now that he knew he was the cause.

Mycroft simply said, “I wish you’d reconsider.  He’ll kill you, you know.  That’s what he does.”

* * *

Irene was watching Sherlock somewhat furtively.  Her time with Sherlock had been very instructive.  Her training in the Science of Deduction, begin during their heady battle over the secrets held in her precious mobile, had continued after Sherlock had rescued her in Karachi.

Now, she thought she could deduce from his posture, his expression, the quality of his silence, what Sherlock was thinking.  She sighed quietly.  Their partnership was not going according to her carefully laid plans.  She scolded herself for uncharacteristic timidity.  When had she ever failed to accomplish something when she truly set her mind to it?

Sherlock showed no signs of wanting to sleep.  In this, as in so many other things, Irene was just the same.  Sleep was a waste of time, to be kept at bay.  There was so much one could accomplish, if one could master something as fundamental as the need to sleep.  She had disciplined herself over years; now, she could easily perform alertly and with precision on as little as two or three hours’ sleep every 48 hours.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Irene admonished herself.   She stretched out her hand and placed it gently on Sherlock’s own as he stared out the window.  And was unsurprised when his hand literally flinched under her own.  He pulled his hand away from hers.

“Irene,” he said, his deep, velvety voice even now having the power to do strange things to her heart rate.  “Must you?”

“Sherlock.  I’ve been watch - observing you.  You don’t like it when people touch you.  You particularly don’t like it when I touch you -  like this.”  She put her hand back on his, cool and smooth.  She felt the flinch again, but she refused to remove it.  Their eyes locked.  After a moment, Sherlock firmly picked up her hand and replaced it in her lap.

“Please stop,” he said, calmly enough, but she was perceptive enough to hear the tiny quaver in his voice.  He rubbed at his hand where she had touched his bare skin.

“It . . . troubles you.  When I - when someone - touches you, it  - tingles? Stings? Itches,” she guessed.  Sherlock looked back at her coolly, giving nothing away.

“It is of no consequence,” he said quietly.  “Please leave it, Irene.  Go to sleep.”

“I’ve no more need for sleep than you.  I want to help you, Sherlock. I owe you a debt. It’s more than just a debt of gratitude.  I owe you my life.”

“There is no need to keep reminding me.  You have helped me.  Consider the debt paid, if you must.”

Irene put her hand back, and this time she pressed harder.  Sherlock closed his eyes.  She felt a tremor under her hand.  He was, she decided, trying to see how long he could endure it.  After a moment, though, he snatched his hand away again. This time, he put it in his pocket.  He looked away.

“Sherlock.  I think I understand.  I’ve . . .I’ve vast experience, you know.  With many sorts of . . . ways of feeling, you might say.  Not everyone in the world feels things in exactly the same way.  Did you know that?”

“Of course I know it. I should think it rather obvious that I, of all people, know it,” he said, and for the first time she heard him allow a measure of pain to enter his voice.

He must trust her, after all.

“You have a sensory. . . condition.  One that doctors no doubt would call a defect.  It is cruel to call it that.  Your nerves are exquisitely sensitive, Sherlock.   When I touch you, you feel a peculiar sensation.  Can you describe it?”

Sherlock looked down, and although the light in the little cabin was poor she could swear he was flushing.  He swallowed and whispered, “It is a parasthesia -“

“Yes; when I touch your skin . . .?”

“It is like . . . it feels dangerous.  As if . . .one is being attacked.  Simple fight or flight response.  I have researched it, of course.”

“Has it always been this way?”

Sherlock nodded. “Always.  It is difficult for me . . . to endure touching.”

Irene nodded.  “Then I have to ask you something, and I don’t want you to shut me out. I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t want help,” Sherlock said, but he didn’t snap at her or storm out of the cabin, either.

“But if you could feel differently, if it could be . . .easier to be touched, would you want that?”

Sherlock was quiet.  “I am the way I am.  I’ve read the studies, there are therapies, medications, of course: they don’t work, they’re boring, I hate them, no recreational value at all - anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore.“

“Sherlock - I had a -“ She bit back the word, ‘client,’ “- friend once, who was like you.  I was able to help him.  But you have to trust me.”

Sherlock looked at her, and for a moment she thought she could see the child he had been, brilliant, confused, phenomenally curious, but unable to process something as simple and essential as touch.  “What do you want to . . . do to me?”

Irene smiled.  What she really wanted to do to Sherlock, she now understood, was the very last thing he would ever want or need.

But she really was a woman who paid her debts. To a large extent, or rather, to the extent that she had one, Sherlock had captured her heart, as he had so humiliatingly revealed when he unlocked (SHERLOCKED) her precious mobile.  She had recovered herself well enough, and she believed now that she could survive it.  She tried hard to think of him like a brother.   She was an only child, but still.  She had a gift to give this man, a gift she thought was fitting. This brilliant, infuriating, peculiar man had saved her life.

If she was correct, his life, the part of life he had always held himself apart from, could really begin.

* * *

“Take off your coat, just your coat -  and put the chair all the way back,” she said, repressing any tendency to bark orders and shaping her voice into what she hoped was a soothing tone.  This was not her strongest area, she had to admit.   But now Sherlock was lying against the deeply reclined chair.  He was already breathing harder, anticipating.  And not in a good way, she realized with regret.  But now that she understood, she felt nothing but pity.

“We are starting,” she said, “with just your forearm.  Not your hands, they’re far too sensitive.  But first, take a deep breath, and try to relax.  I know it’s difficult.   I want you to try to imagine, if you can, that touching is pleasurable, even though it is not.  I won’t do anything that you can’t bear, but I want you to try and endure it a little longer than you think you can.”

She pressed the cool flesh of his bare forearm and kept pressing through the flinch.

* * *

They spent several days in Paris, which proved only marginally helpful to their hunt.  Sherlock had forgotten, apparently, that he had asked her to leave him, had intended to continue his pursuit of Moriarty alone.

He finally decided to classify their touching sessions as “an experiment,” he after that, he became impatient for the challenge, the distraction.  Her experience informed her that it was nothing more than that.

“Not so fast, Sherlock,” she chided.  “You defeat the purpose.   Done properly, this could take months.  Years, even.   It’s been a lifetime, you know.  It can’t be undone just like that.”

Sherlock was rolling his eyes at Irene’s obvious stupidity in imagining he could not do this, like he did everything else, with lightning rapidity, sheer force of will, flawlessly.

They had graduated to Sherlock’s torso.  Irene was very, very careful not to permit any of the touching to become sexual.  This, she knew, could set them far back.  This experiment was turning out, she discovered, to be a challenge for her too.  She could not remember the last time she had touched a man without sexual intent.  (Well, Golem didn’t count).

But Sherlock was restless today and despite her self-restraint, she was far too experienced not to see certain signs.   The man was unbelievably tempting, too gorgeous for his own good.  Certainly far to gorgeous for her own good.  That had already been established.  She closed her eyes.  She wanted to stroke his golden hair, touch his face. She didn’t.

“Don’t stop,” he whispered, his voice husky.  But it also didn’t sound personal - her exquisitely tuned senses perceived unerringly that although Sherlock felt desire, it was not directed towards her.

Was she brave enough even for this?  Did her debt extend this far?

She took a deep breath but did not open her eyes.  Even she could only endure so much.

“I won’t stop, on one condition,” She whispered.  “You have to tell me . . .what you are thinking.  Let me be clear. You have to tell me . . .who you are thinking of when I touch you. . . here.”

Her hand ventured lower.

“You know,” he said.

“Say it anyway.  You need to.”

Her hand stroked, firmly.  He flinched, she paused, and tried again. He quivered and steadied, sighing.

“John,” he said, his deep velvet voice choked with emotion.  He sat up abruptly and pushed her hand away.

“I don’t believe,” he snapped coldly, “I will be requiring any further lessons.”

Sherlock swept out, leaving her alone in their room.  It had an unparalleled view of the City of Love. She turned her back on it and closed the curtains.

* * *
LISTEN TO LIGHTS, HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoVjSeb4aYA

back: Chapter Nine: Nemesis, ( Read more... )  next:  Chapter Eleven: Angels Fall: Read more . . .

angst, rating: nc-17, mycroft holmes, sherlock tv, sherlock bbc, slash, dark!john, post-reichenbach, dark!fic, sherlock (bbc), character: john watson, sherlock, reichenbach, pre-slash, pairing: sherlock/john

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