Fic for elethoniel: Seeing Farther
Title: Seeing Farther
Recipient: elethoniel
Author: wind_hover
Characters/Pairings: John, Sherlock, Mrs Hudson (minor), Raz (minor)
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: John Watson doesn’t expect much from returning to London. Then he sees the bird in the park. AU.
Author’s Notes: I would like to thank my betas - I couldn’t have done this without you.
There is a bird doing the crossword.
Right, John thinks, stopping in his tracks. Back in London, and he’s still not used to such previously innocuous sights. He brushes his charm bracelet absently. It’s warm from the heat of his wrist, but not hot - there are no spells it can sense being applied on him. Not an illusion. Probably a transformation spell.
The bird looks up and spots him before he can move on. “Finally!” it exclaims, dropping the pencil. “Someone who can see me! I need your help.”
“Sorry, what?” John says, bewildered.
The bird stills. “Some form of latent Sight,” it says decisively. “Was it Iraq or Afghanistan that awakened it?”
John starts. “Afghanistan. Sorry, what do you mean about the Sight? And how did you know about Afghanistan?”
Was it a spell? John’s charm bracelet isn’t heating up, so it’s not likely to be a spell. In any case, most information-seeking spells work through touch, and the bird’s not within touching distance of John.
“No matter,” the bird says, hopping over. “You’ll do. You’ll need to break the spell for me.”
“Sorry, but I need to know more than that,” John says. “Who are you?”
“Sherlock Holmes. Next.”
Not very informative, John thinks. “What are you?”
“I’m a human trapped in a stupid threefold spell until someone breaks it for me. You’re the only one so far who can see me. It has to be you.”
“Threefold spell - that’s three spells linked together to make each spell stronger, isn’t it?” John remembers. “One’s a transformation spell? To change you into a bird. Another… an anti-notice spell? You were surprised I could see you.”
“Perfectly sound analysis. The third is a magic suppressant. More accurately, they applied the magic suppressant first, then the transformation, then the anti-notice.”
“But I can see you.”
“They were incompetent. I got away before they finished it, but now only people with the Sight who don’t know me can see me.”
“Right. Why not go to the police?”
“The Magic Crimes Department? They’ve all met me.”
“You work for them?”
“No,” says Sherlock, sounding offended. “I work with them. When they are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me.”
“Consult?” John asks.
“Yes. I was helping them go after a curse-smuggling gang. It’s been linked to two murders Magic Crimes have been investigating. They prefer using vanishing spells. I managed to uncover a definite link last night, but they caught me there. The sooner you break this spell, the faster I can contact Magic Crimes. Before another person dies.”
“Sorry, wait. Why are you so sure that I can break the spell for you? I’ve never had any magic. I don’t even have a mage mark.”
“You can see me, which means that you have some form of the Sight. You have no mage mark, so you aren’t a trained magician. Most mage marks naturally manifest themselves after you’ve had enough training. That means that either you’ve been hiding it or it’s a recent awakening. Your haircut and the way you hold yourself say military. The military scans all its recruits for magic, so you would have been discovered when you entered and trained. That means your Sight was recently awakened.”
“But not everyone in the military goes to Iraq or Afghanistan.”
“Your face is tanned but no tan above the wrists. You’ve been abroad, but not sunbathing. You use a cane when you walk, but you stand like you’ve forgotten about it, so it’s at least partly psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic. Traumatic events often awaken the Sight. Wounded in action, sun tan - either Afghanistan or Iraq.”
“It wasn’t a spell that told you?” he clarifies.
“Pure observation,” Sherlock says disdainfully.
“That was amazing,” John breathes.
“You think so?”
“Of course it was. It was extraordinary. It was quite extraordinary.”
“That’s not what people normally say.”
“What do people normally say?”
“Piss off!”
They laugh.
“Will you help me?”
“Sure,” John agrees. He doesn’t have much else to do with his day, anyway.
-
Breaking the actual spell is easy - Sherlock just needs the spell key. He can sense where it is, but it’s still within the smuggler’s hideout. Then to Barts, which has enough of the commonplace magical ingredients that John can do the actual spellbreaking.
Breaking into the smuggler’s hideout is the problem, but Sherlock has a plan. John just goes along with it.
“Mrs Hudson?” John asks the woman who opens the door. “I’m John Watson. I’m here about Sherlock’s flat?”
Mrs Hudson lights up at the mention of Sherlock’s name. “Are you here about the flat share? Sherlock’s moved right in the meantime though, but you probably know all about that.”
“Yes,” John says, following Mrs Hudson in. “He’s a bit busy now, but he said I could have a look if I wanted?”
Sherlock’s rooms are pleasantly decorated, if messy. John doesn’t mean to consider flatsharing, but he compares this homely mess to his current bedsit - sterile and dull. It’s too expensive for him to stay in London in the long run, but he can’t imagine leaving. A flat share would be cheaper.
“What do you think then, Mr Watson?” Mrs Hudson says. “There’s another bedroom upstairs.”
In any case, while a flat share might be nice, in this prime location, the cost would probably be too high. And Sherlock probably wasn’t actually looking for a flatmate -
“It’s under the chair closer to the fireplace,” Sherlock adds, in his other ear. “And yes, I really am looking for a flatmate.”
He needs to come up with a way to get Mrs Hudson out of the room so he can get Sherlock’s wands. He picks a path through the mess, moving towards the fireplace, making a show of looking around.
“This could be very nice,” John says. But “must be expensive,” he adds under his breath to Sherlock.
“Mrs Hudson gave me a special deal,” Sherlock says. “She owes me a favour. A few years back, her husband got himself sentenced to death in Florida. I was able to help out.”
Aware that Mrs Hudson is in the room, John doesn’t ask for clarification. But - “that’s a skull,” he says, his gaze stopping at the fireplace mantel.
“Oh, Sherlock talks to it. Says it’s a friend.”
“Well, I say friend,” Sherlock says without further explanation. He sounds like he’s telling a joke. He flaps off John’s shoulder and pulls a bag from under the chair.
Mrs Hudson is still watching him. John doesn’t dare to bend down and help Sherlock. He wonders what Mrs Hudson sees - can she see the bag moving on its own?
Mrs Hudson’s hand twitches. Something in John screams danger, and he dodges left on instinct. There is a blue flash where he had been standing a moment earlier.
“Where’s Sherlock?” Mrs Hudson says, pointing at him, mage mark glimmering on her outstretched hand. She looks dangerous, a far cry from the genial woman who showed him in.
“Sherlock’s busy,” John says. At his feet, Sherlock lets out a shout of laughter.
“Oh, Mrs Hudson,” his tone is affectionate. “John, she knows. Tell her I’m here. I’m under an anti-notice spell, a stronger one than her husband had in Florida.”
“Liar,” Mrs Hudson says, over Sherlock. “I know he’s somewhere in the room. My wards can sense him. But I don’t see him. What have you done with him?”
John repeats Sherlock’s words hurriedly, but he’s not fast enough. She punctuates each sentence with a spell that John senses rather than sees. John tries to dodge them, but he finds his feet stuck to the floor suddenly, and his hands frozen to his sides.
Mrs Hudson lowers her hand. “Really, Sherlock.” she says, reprovingly. “The messes you get yourself into.”
“Still no worse than the Florida spiders,” Sherlock says cheerfully, which John obediently repeats.
It must be some code between the two of them, because Mrs Hudson smiles and John’s body is free to move again. “Would you like a cuppa, John? Do you need any help, Sherlock?”
“Get one of her herbal soothers,” Sherlock advises. “They’ll be good for you.”
-
Mrs Hudson’s herbal soothers make John feel like there’s something pleasantly bubbling just under his skin. The world seems sharper, somehow. More real. There are flashes of light at the edges of his vision.
“Those are the wards,” Sherlock says.
“How-“
“You keep looking around, trying to look out of the corners of your eyes. You have recently awakened your Sight. Mrs Hudson’s soothers strengthen your magic temporarily, so you must be noticing the wards for the first time.”
“I didn’t know there were wards on buildings,” John says. He looks around. Some of them glow in his vision, others merely glimmer. He figures it must show the strength of the wards.
Sherlock directs John to a heavily graffitied public basement. “You need Raz for this,” he says. “When you’ve gotten the spell key, you need to make a fast getaway. I buy tags from Raz.”
“Teleportation tags? Unauthorised teleportation tags? Should I expect to blow up in two hours?”
“Raz does the best unauthorized teleportation tags.”
He studies the boy Sherlock identifies as Raz, unimpressed. Hoody, baggy jeans. There doesn’t seem to be more to him than “street punk”, though the graffiti he’s adding to the wall is remarkably detailed.
“What do you want?” he says at John’s approach, not looking up from his work.
“Sherlock needs some tags,” John says, keeping his voice quiet. “He’ll pay later.”
Raz stiffens.
“Where’s Sherlock?”
“He’s tied up in some investigation.”
“Why’s Sherlock sending me some cripple?”
John’s grip on his cane tightens. “The first time Sherlock met you, you had just drawn a policeman with a pig face on the wall. It was the part of your urban installation.”
“‘Urbanbloodlustfrenzy’. I don’t know you, but I know Sherlock. I’ll locate the other tag here.”
“We’ll need to put it next to Barts,” Sherlock says. “Once you’ve got the spell key, you’ve got to lift the spell. Bart’s is the best place to go to. It’ll be easier to come out there then travel through London. They might catch up with you.”
“Sherlock’s going to owe me big time,” Raz remarks when John repeats this. “Two moveable tags? Who’s he after that it’s such a rush?”
“An illegal smuggling ring. Sherlock’s been compromised,” John says, on Sherlock’s instructions. “Can you put the other tag on Barts? We don’t have time to drop by there.”
“For Sherlock? Sure. Come back in half an hour.”
“He likes to be left alone,” Sherlock says from John’s shoulder. “Go wander off somewhere.”
John moves off. Sherlock hops from his shoulder. “What about you?” he whispers.
“I’ve never had a chance to watch him before. Meet back here.”
John hesitates. “You’re sure the place will be empty?”
Sherlock ignores him, flying away. He makes for a rather ungainly bird. John sighs. The spell wands fit snugly into the back of his jeans. John flips his jacket over them, and takes a deep breath. He feels like he’s going to war again.
He supposes he shouldn’t like the thought as much as he does.
-
Night falls.
There’s nothing unusual about the underground warehouse where Sherlock says his spell key is kept in. The place seems as empty as Sherlock said it would be. John keeps his eyes and ears peeled. He should be relieved at how easy this is going, and John is, but it’s also something of a letdown after all the preparation.
A glint of magic sparks at the edge of John’s vision, and John reaches for the spell wands. A man rounds a corner. The rims of his spectacles gleam in John’s vision. He lets out a shout, even as John fires a spell off the offensive wand. The man throws out his arm before him; his mage mark glows, and the spell bounces off. John ducks under it, breaking into a run. Sherlock separates from him, flapping into flight.
John sees the spell coming towards him and activates a shield from the defensive wand. They clash; both shield and spell dissolve. Another spell; he ducks under it in a classic rugby move - shoulder first, knocking the breath out of the man, then grabbing the legs in a dump tackle. Sherlock claws the spectacles off the man’s face, leaving streaks of blood.
A quick tap on the guard with the spell wand, and he’s unconscious. Sherlock passes him the spectacles. John puts them on, breaking into another run. The alarm has been sounded, and they don’t have much time. He can hear footsteps coming.
“Staircase,” Sherlock hisses. John turns left, running up a staircase. Pounding feet above his head - one man descending the stairs. He hasn’t noticed him. John fires the second spell from the offensive wand, hitting his feet. He stumbles and falls. Out for the count, broken arm.
“Behind you,” Sherlock says, and John activates the second shield spell without looking around. The stairs are not a good place to turn; he makes it to the halfway landing, turns, and fires the third spell, counting in his head. The other person dodges. John runs up the stairs. He’s only got one offensive spell left before he has to use the gun.
“Two doors down,” Sherlock says. John thunders down the hallway to the door. It glows to John’s bespectacled eyes. John isn’t surprised that it’s locked. “The black wand,” Sherlock says. “Press the red button.”
John switches the wands in his hands. Holding the defensive wand in his left, he reaches for the last wand, switching the offensive wand for it. Another moment and he’s activated the spell, holding it against the lock. The wand heats up in his hand, glowing. He can hear his pursuers coming up the stairs, and his left hand tightens, a hair trigger from activating the shield spell. He quiets his breathing. His hands are absolutely steady. His mind is filled with a strange sense of calm.
The door unlocks as the pursuer comes up the stairs. A spell flash - John activates the final shield spell, dropping both wands to get the door open and tumbling in, his right hand reaching for the other offensive wand. A quick sweep of the foot, and the spent wands are in the room with him. He shuts the door. It closes with another glow, wards reasserting themselves.
There are two other men in the room. John sizes them up in an instant - one tall, huge, heavily muscled. A bodyguard? One with a mage mark, probably average size, but slender beside the other.
The bodyguard hurtles for him; John dodges, but he’s not fast enough - or the man is faster and changes the angle of the blow with John’s movement. John’s breath is driven out of him by the force of the punch, but he reflexively rolls with it, and taps the man with the last knockout spell. The man glows with the force of the spell, but a bracelet on his wrist glows in response, and nothing happens.
Sherlock dives at the bodyguard. The man bats Sherlock away, and John takes advantage of the distraction to punch him. Brute force can disrupt spells, and John can see where the weak spots of this protection charm are. The man staggers back with a cry of pain, and John steps in swiftly and punches him out.
Then “duck!” Sherlock shouts. John ducks immediately, spellfire whizzing over the top of his head. John turns, and takes in his new foe; clearly not trained in combat, used to standing still and concentrating before firing spells. It’s this hesitation that costs him. John easily dodges the spells and knocks him out with another punch.
There’s no one else. John takes that moment of respite to take a breath.
“The key’s in his pocket,” Sherlock says, hopping down to the mage. “I’ll get it. Activate the teleportation tag.”
The door to the corridor is dimming - John guesses that the wards will not last. John darts to get the spent wands, careful of leaving too much information that could lead to him. He tucks them in his pocket and pulls out the tag.
It’s smoking.
“Spell backwash,” Sherlock says. “They’re sensitive. It’ll only support one person through now.”
“You go,” John says immediately.
“And you?”
“I can fight my way out. You’re the civilian. You’re the one they’re after.”
“You can’t make it out there alone.” Sherlock hesitates. “Touch my head, and send your magic into me.”
John complies. Sherlock hums something, and suddenly John’s looking at himself. He pulls his hand back. The double vision fades, but there’s something more, a sort of greater awareness of something more than himself.
“We’re surprisingly compatible,” Sherlock says. There’s something different about his voice - it’s deeper, somehow. Like it’s bypassing John’s ears, and going straight to his brain.
What? he thinks, but the answer is immediately obvious - Sherlock’s made a mind-to-mind connection and John’s hearing his mental voice. It’s dizzying to realise how fast Sherlock’s mind works - but that’s because of their unexpected compatibility; most people only get the briefest information that Sherlock wants them to give. How much longer than the average connection will this last? It’s normally weak, but at this strength, it might last a day? No more than a week.
Several spells flash through John’s mind, both offensive and defensive spells, and John suddenly knows how to perform them, and also knows that Sherlock has a layout of the building in his mind, showing John the fastest way out, and the fastest way from that to Barts.
The connection - lightens, Sherlock reasserting control. “Go out by this route,” Sherlock tells John. “You can pick up your cane on the way out. It’s by the first guy you knocked out.”
Oh. John hadn’t noticed that he didn’t have his cane. He hadn’t needed it. He doesn’t think he will need any more. There’s a kind of smug satisfaction coming off Sherlock’s side of the connection.
“Did you know that would happen?”
“I was proving a point. There’s nothing actually wrong with your limp. It was irritating me.”
He teleports out. John stretches, standing firmly on both feet. There’s no pain from either. He goes through the spells in his head, picks one. He grins to himself.
He opens the door.
-
The taxi pulls up outside Barts, and John limps out. He looks around for Sherlock, who swoops down onto his shoulder, settling there as John makes his way in. There is the faintest thread of worry from Sherlock, amplified by the contact.
The heat of battle has wound down, and he feels relaxed and relieved. This is one of the most brilliant things he’s done since he’s returned from Afghanistan. He’s missed this - the fighting, the adrenaline rush. He wonders what it says about him.
He wonders idly what Sherlock looks like in person. He wonders what will happen after this. He feels hungry. Chinese, he decides. He wonders if there are any good places around. He’s tired enough to sleep, but the thought of food is highly appealing.
The actual spell breaking is extremely easy. He knows what to do from Sherlock’s mind - mixing the right ingredients together, binding the mixture with his magic. The most difficult part is chanting a spell of release in concert with Sherlock, a back and forth that goes off without a hitch, aided again by the connection.
And then there is a man where the bird was, tall and thin and handsome in a way that makes John’s mind stutter for a moment before he masks it, hoping that Sherlock hasn’t noticed. Sherlock’s too busy looking over his restored body.
“Good,” says Sherlock. “There’s no need to go to Mycroft after all.” His physical voice is every bit as deep as his mental voice.
“Who?”
“My archenemy.”
“Your archenemy?”
“In most cases, this spell needs some degree of connection between the parties to work. It appears we had enough, or I might have had to go to Mycroft.”
“Er, thanks,” John says. “Most people don’t have archenemies, you know.”
“Dull,” Sherlock dismisses. “About the flatshare. It’ll be easier to teach you more magic if we live together.” Unspoken, his thoughts are throwing up more ideas and their associated images - someone with the Sight to help him when solving crimes, a second point of view worth listening to, experiments...
John grins. There is something uncurling in his stomach - a kind of excitement for the future. He doesn’t know what it’ll bring, but for the first time since he’s returned to London, it looks like it might be fun.
“Of course,” he agrees.
Recipient: elethoniel
Author: wind_hover
Characters/Pairings: John, Sherlock, Mrs Hudson (minor), Raz (minor)
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: John Watson doesn’t expect much from returning to London. Then he sees the bird in the park. AU.
Author’s Notes: I would like to thank my betas - I couldn’t have done this without you.
There is a bird doing the crossword.
Right, John thinks, stopping in his tracks. Back in London, and he’s still not used to such previously innocuous sights. He brushes his charm bracelet absently. It’s warm from the heat of his wrist, but not hot - there are no spells it can sense being applied on him. Not an illusion. Probably a transformation spell.
The bird looks up and spots him before he can move on. “Finally!” it exclaims, dropping the pencil. “Someone who can see me! I need your help.”
“Sorry, what?” John says, bewildered.
The bird stills. “Some form of latent Sight,” it says decisively. “Was it Iraq or Afghanistan that awakened it?”
John starts. “Afghanistan. Sorry, what do you mean about the Sight? And how did you know about Afghanistan?”
Was it a spell? John’s charm bracelet isn’t heating up, so it’s not likely to be a spell. In any case, most information-seeking spells work through touch, and the bird’s not within touching distance of John.
“No matter,” the bird says, hopping over. “You’ll do. You’ll need to break the spell for me.”
“Sorry, but I need to know more than that,” John says. “Who are you?”
“Sherlock Holmes. Next.”
Not very informative, John thinks. “What are you?”
“I’m a human trapped in a stupid threefold spell until someone breaks it for me. You’re the only one so far who can see me. It has to be you.”
“Threefold spell - that’s three spells linked together to make each spell stronger, isn’t it?” John remembers. “One’s a transformation spell? To change you into a bird. Another… an anti-notice spell? You were surprised I could see you.”
“Perfectly sound analysis. The third is a magic suppressant. More accurately, they applied the magic suppressant first, then the transformation, then the anti-notice.”
“But I can see you.”
“They were incompetent. I got away before they finished it, but now only people with the Sight who don’t know me can see me.”
“Right. Why not go to the police?”
“The Magic Crimes Department? They’ve all met me.”
“You work for them?”
“No,” says Sherlock, sounding offended. “I work with them. When they are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me.”
“Consult?” John asks.
“Yes. I was helping them go after a curse-smuggling gang. It’s been linked to two murders Magic Crimes have been investigating. They prefer using vanishing spells. I managed to uncover a definite link last night, but they caught me there. The sooner you break this spell, the faster I can contact Magic Crimes. Before another person dies.”
“Sorry, wait. Why are you so sure that I can break the spell for you? I’ve never had any magic. I don’t even have a mage mark.”
“You can see me, which means that you have some form of the Sight. You have no mage mark, so you aren’t a trained magician. Most mage marks naturally manifest themselves after you’ve had enough training. That means that either you’ve been hiding it or it’s a recent awakening. Your haircut and the way you hold yourself say military. The military scans all its recruits for magic, so you would have been discovered when you entered and trained. That means your Sight was recently awakened.”
“But not everyone in the military goes to Iraq or Afghanistan.”
“Your face is tanned but no tan above the wrists. You’ve been abroad, but not sunbathing. You use a cane when you walk, but you stand like you’ve forgotten about it, so it’s at least partly psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic. Traumatic events often awaken the Sight. Wounded in action, sun tan - either Afghanistan or Iraq.”
“It wasn’t a spell that told you?” he clarifies.
“Pure observation,” Sherlock says disdainfully.
“That was amazing,” John breathes.
“You think so?”
“Of course it was. It was extraordinary. It was quite extraordinary.”
“That’s not what people normally say.”
“What do people normally say?”
“Piss off!”
They laugh.
“Will you help me?”
“Sure,” John agrees. He doesn’t have much else to do with his day, anyway.
-
Breaking the actual spell is easy - Sherlock just needs the spell key. He can sense where it is, but it’s still within the smuggler’s hideout. Then to Barts, which has enough of the commonplace magical ingredients that John can do the actual spellbreaking.
Breaking into the smuggler’s hideout is the problem, but Sherlock has a plan. John just goes along with it.
“Mrs Hudson?” John asks the woman who opens the door. “I’m John Watson. I’m here about Sherlock’s flat?”
Mrs Hudson lights up at the mention of Sherlock’s name. “Are you here about the flat share? Sherlock’s moved right in the meantime though, but you probably know all about that.”
“Yes,” John says, following Mrs Hudson in. “He’s a bit busy now, but he said I could have a look if I wanted?”
Sherlock’s rooms are pleasantly decorated, if messy. John doesn’t mean to consider flatsharing, but he compares this homely mess to his current bedsit - sterile and dull. It’s too expensive for him to stay in London in the long run, but he can’t imagine leaving. A flat share would be cheaper.
“What do you think then, Mr Watson?” Mrs Hudson says. “There’s another bedroom upstairs.”
In any case, while a flat share might be nice, in this prime location, the cost would probably be too high. And Sherlock probably wasn’t actually looking for a flatmate -
“It’s under the chair closer to the fireplace,” Sherlock adds, in his other ear. “And yes, I really am looking for a flatmate.”
He needs to come up with a way to get Mrs Hudson out of the room so he can get Sherlock’s wands. He picks a path through the mess, moving towards the fireplace, making a show of looking around.
“This could be very nice,” John says. But “must be expensive,” he adds under his breath to Sherlock.
“Mrs Hudson gave me a special deal,” Sherlock says. “She owes me a favour. A few years back, her husband got himself sentenced to death in Florida. I was able to help out.”
Aware that Mrs Hudson is in the room, John doesn’t ask for clarification. But - “that’s a skull,” he says, his gaze stopping at the fireplace mantel.
“Oh, Sherlock talks to it. Says it’s a friend.”
“Well, I say friend,” Sherlock says without further explanation. He sounds like he’s telling a joke. He flaps off John’s shoulder and pulls a bag from under the chair.
Mrs Hudson is still watching him. John doesn’t dare to bend down and help Sherlock. He wonders what Mrs Hudson sees - can she see the bag moving on its own?
Mrs Hudson’s hand twitches. Something in John screams danger, and he dodges left on instinct. There is a blue flash where he had been standing a moment earlier.
“Where’s Sherlock?” Mrs Hudson says, pointing at him, mage mark glimmering on her outstretched hand. She looks dangerous, a far cry from the genial woman who showed him in.
“Sherlock’s busy,” John says. At his feet, Sherlock lets out a shout of laughter.
“Oh, Mrs Hudson,” his tone is affectionate. “John, she knows. Tell her I’m here. I’m under an anti-notice spell, a stronger one than her husband had in Florida.”
“Liar,” Mrs Hudson says, over Sherlock. “I know he’s somewhere in the room. My wards can sense him. But I don’t see him. What have you done with him?”
John repeats Sherlock’s words hurriedly, but he’s not fast enough. She punctuates each sentence with a spell that John senses rather than sees. John tries to dodge them, but he finds his feet stuck to the floor suddenly, and his hands frozen to his sides.
Mrs Hudson lowers her hand. “Really, Sherlock.” she says, reprovingly. “The messes you get yourself into.”
“Still no worse than the Florida spiders,” Sherlock says cheerfully, which John obediently repeats.
It must be some code between the two of them, because Mrs Hudson smiles and John’s body is free to move again. “Would you like a cuppa, John? Do you need any help, Sherlock?”
“Get one of her herbal soothers,” Sherlock advises. “They’ll be good for you.”
-
Mrs Hudson’s herbal soothers make John feel like there’s something pleasantly bubbling just under his skin. The world seems sharper, somehow. More real. There are flashes of light at the edges of his vision.
“Those are the wards,” Sherlock says.
“How-“
“You keep looking around, trying to look out of the corners of your eyes. You have recently awakened your Sight. Mrs Hudson’s soothers strengthen your magic temporarily, so you must be noticing the wards for the first time.”
“I didn’t know there were wards on buildings,” John says. He looks around. Some of them glow in his vision, others merely glimmer. He figures it must show the strength of the wards.
Sherlock directs John to a heavily graffitied public basement. “You need Raz for this,” he says. “When you’ve gotten the spell key, you need to make a fast getaway. I buy tags from Raz.”
“Teleportation tags? Unauthorised teleportation tags? Should I expect to blow up in two hours?”
“Raz does the best unauthorized teleportation tags.”
He studies the boy Sherlock identifies as Raz, unimpressed. Hoody, baggy jeans. There doesn’t seem to be more to him than “street punk”, though the graffiti he’s adding to the wall is remarkably detailed.
“What do you want?” he says at John’s approach, not looking up from his work.
“Sherlock needs some tags,” John says, keeping his voice quiet. “He’ll pay later.”
Raz stiffens.
“Where’s Sherlock?”
“He’s tied up in some investigation.”
“Why’s Sherlock sending me some cripple?”
John’s grip on his cane tightens. “The first time Sherlock met you, you had just drawn a policeman with a pig face on the wall. It was the part of your urban installation.”
“‘Urbanbloodlustfrenzy’. I don’t know you, but I know Sherlock. I’ll locate the other tag here.”
“We’ll need to put it next to Barts,” Sherlock says. “Once you’ve got the spell key, you’ve got to lift the spell. Bart’s is the best place to go to. It’ll be easier to come out there then travel through London. They might catch up with you.”
“Sherlock’s going to owe me big time,” Raz remarks when John repeats this. “Two moveable tags? Who’s he after that it’s such a rush?”
“An illegal smuggling ring. Sherlock’s been compromised,” John says, on Sherlock’s instructions. “Can you put the other tag on Barts? We don’t have time to drop by there.”
“For Sherlock? Sure. Come back in half an hour.”
“He likes to be left alone,” Sherlock says from John’s shoulder. “Go wander off somewhere.”
John moves off. Sherlock hops from his shoulder. “What about you?” he whispers.
“I’ve never had a chance to watch him before. Meet back here.”
John hesitates. “You’re sure the place will be empty?”
Sherlock ignores him, flying away. He makes for a rather ungainly bird. John sighs. The spell wands fit snugly into the back of his jeans. John flips his jacket over them, and takes a deep breath. He feels like he’s going to war again.
He supposes he shouldn’t like the thought as much as he does.
-
Night falls.
There’s nothing unusual about the underground warehouse where Sherlock says his spell key is kept in. The place seems as empty as Sherlock said it would be. John keeps his eyes and ears peeled. He should be relieved at how easy this is going, and John is, but it’s also something of a letdown after all the preparation.
A glint of magic sparks at the edge of John’s vision, and John reaches for the spell wands. A man rounds a corner. The rims of his spectacles gleam in John’s vision. He lets out a shout, even as John fires a spell off the offensive wand. The man throws out his arm before him; his mage mark glows, and the spell bounces off. John ducks under it, breaking into a run. Sherlock separates from him, flapping into flight.
John sees the spell coming towards him and activates a shield from the defensive wand. They clash; both shield and spell dissolve. Another spell; he ducks under it in a classic rugby move - shoulder first, knocking the breath out of the man, then grabbing the legs in a dump tackle. Sherlock claws the spectacles off the man’s face, leaving streaks of blood.
A quick tap on the guard with the spell wand, and he’s unconscious. Sherlock passes him the spectacles. John puts them on, breaking into another run. The alarm has been sounded, and they don’t have much time. He can hear footsteps coming.
“Staircase,” Sherlock hisses. John turns left, running up a staircase. Pounding feet above his head - one man descending the stairs. He hasn’t noticed him. John fires the second spell from the offensive wand, hitting his feet. He stumbles and falls. Out for the count, broken arm.
“Behind you,” Sherlock says, and John activates the second shield spell without looking around. The stairs are not a good place to turn; he makes it to the halfway landing, turns, and fires the third spell, counting in his head. The other person dodges. John runs up the stairs. He’s only got one offensive spell left before he has to use the gun.
“Two doors down,” Sherlock says. John thunders down the hallway to the door. It glows to John’s bespectacled eyes. John isn’t surprised that it’s locked. “The black wand,” Sherlock says. “Press the red button.”
John switches the wands in his hands. Holding the defensive wand in his left, he reaches for the last wand, switching the offensive wand for it. Another moment and he’s activated the spell, holding it against the lock. The wand heats up in his hand, glowing. He can hear his pursuers coming up the stairs, and his left hand tightens, a hair trigger from activating the shield spell. He quiets his breathing. His hands are absolutely steady. His mind is filled with a strange sense of calm.
The door unlocks as the pursuer comes up the stairs. A spell flash - John activates the final shield spell, dropping both wands to get the door open and tumbling in, his right hand reaching for the other offensive wand. A quick sweep of the foot, and the spent wands are in the room with him. He shuts the door. It closes with another glow, wards reasserting themselves.
There are two other men in the room. John sizes them up in an instant - one tall, huge, heavily muscled. A bodyguard? One with a mage mark, probably average size, but slender beside the other.
The bodyguard hurtles for him; John dodges, but he’s not fast enough - or the man is faster and changes the angle of the blow with John’s movement. John’s breath is driven out of him by the force of the punch, but he reflexively rolls with it, and taps the man with the last knockout spell. The man glows with the force of the spell, but a bracelet on his wrist glows in response, and nothing happens.
Sherlock dives at the bodyguard. The man bats Sherlock away, and John takes advantage of the distraction to punch him. Brute force can disrupt spells, and John can see where the weak spots of this protection charm are. The man staggers back with a cry of pain, and John steps in swiftly and punches him out.
Then “duck!” Sherlock shouts. John ducks immediately, spellfire whizzing over the top of his head. John turns, and takes in his new foe; clearly not trained in combat, used to standing still and concentrating before firing spells. It’s this hesitation that costs him. John easily dodges the spells and knocks him out with another punch.
There’s no one else. John takes that moment of respite to take a breath.
“The key’s in his pocket,” Sherlock says, hopping down to the mage. “I’ll get it. Activate the teleportation tag.”
The door to the corridor is dimming - John guesses that the wards will not last. John darts to get the spent wands, careful of leaving too much information that could lead to him. He tucks them in his pocket and pulls out the tag.
It’s smoking.
“Spell backwash,” Sherlock says. “They’re sensitive. It’ll only support one person through now.”
“You go,” John says immediately.
“And you?”
“I can fight my way out. You’re the civilian. You’re the one they’re after.”
“You can’t make it out there alone.” Sherlock hesitates. “Touch my head, and send your magic into me.”
John complies. Sherlock hums something, and suddenly John’s looking at himself. He pulls his hand back. The double vision fades, but there’s something more, a sort of greater awareness of something more than himself.
“We’re surprisingly compatible,” Sherlock says. There’s something different about his voice - it’s deeper, somehow. Like it’s bypassing John’s ears, and going straight to his brain.
What? he thinks, but the answer is immediately obvious - Sherlock’s made a mind-to-mind connection and John’s hearing his mental voice. It’s dizzying to realise how fast Sherlock’s mind works - but that’s because of their unexpected compatibility; most people only get the briefest information that Sherlock wants them to give. How much longer than the average connection will this last? It’s normally weak, but at this strength, it might last a day? No more than a week.
Several spells flash through John’s mind, both offensive and defensive spells, and John suddenly knows how to perform them, and also knows that Sherlock has a layout of the building in his mind, showing John the fastest way out, and the fastest way from that to Barts.
The connection - lightens, Sherlock reasserting control. “Go out by this route,” Sherlock tells John. “You can pick up your cane on the way out. It’s by the first guy you knocked out.”
Oh. John hadn’t noticed that he didn’t have his cane. He hadn’t needed it. He doesn’t think he will need any more. There’s a kind of smug satisfaction coming off Sherlock’s side of the connection.
“Did you know that would happen?”
“I was proving a point. There’s nothing actually wrong with your limp. It was irritating me.”
He teleports out. John stretches, standing firmly on both feet. There’s no pain from either. He goes through the spells in his head, picks one. He grins to himself.
He opens the door.
-
The taxi pulls up outside Barts, and John limps out. He looks around for Sherlock, who swoops down onto his shoulder, settling there as John makes his way in. There is the faintest thread of worry from Sherlock, amplified by the contact.
The heat of battle has wound down, and he feels relaxed and relieved. This is one of the most brilliant things he’s done since he’s returned from Afghanistan. He’s missed this - the fighting, the adrenaline rush. He wonders what it says about him.
He wonders idly what Sherlock looks like in person. He wonders what will happen after this. He feels hungry. Chinese, he decides. He wonders if there are any good places around. He’s tired enough to sleep, but the thought of food is highly appealing.
The actual spell breaking is extremely easy. He knows what to do from Sherlock’s mind - mixing the right ingredients together, binding the mixture with his magic. The most difficult part is chanting a spell of release in concert with Sherlock, a back and forth that goes off without a hitch, aided again by the connection.
And then there is a man where the bird was, tall and thin and handsome in a way that makes John’s mind stutter for a moment before he masks it, hoping that Sherlock hasn’t noticed. Sherlock’s too busy looking over his restored body.
“Good,” says Sherlock. “There’s no need to go to Mycroft after all.” His physical voice is every bit as deep as his mental voice.
“Who?”
“My archenemy.”
“Your archenemy?”
“In most cases, this spell needs some degree of connection between the parties to work. It appears we had enough, or I might have had to go to Mycroft.”
“Er, thanks,” John says. “Most people don’t have archenemies, you know.”
“Dull,” Sherlock dismisses. “About the flatshare. It’ll be easier to teach you more magic if we live together.” Unspoken, his thoughts are throwing up more ideas and their associated images - someone with the Sight to help him when solving crimes, a second point of view worth listening to, experiments...
John grins. There is something uncurling in his stomach - a kind of excitement for the future. He doesn’t know what it’ll bring, but for the first time since he’s returned to London, it looks like it might be fun.
“Of course,” he agrees.