Fic for roane: Unseen Influence
Title: Unseen Influence
Recipient: roane
Author: yeomanrand and shinychimera
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes & or / John Watson
Rating: PG
Warnings: Brief abstract mentions of bullying, suicidal thoughts, canon violence. Begins with short passages of John and Sherlock as children, but not a kid-fic. References to The Great Game.
Summary: Their lives are complicated, but John and Sherlock find a little help in their not-quite-so-ordinary dreams.
Author's Notes: Thank you to roane for the prompts, and the room to play!
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers
And sitting by desolate streams;-
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
- Ode, Arthur O'Shaughnessy
John lies on his stomach in his favourite puddle of sitting room sunshine, working out the problem of drawing feathers in crayon so they don't turn into a big blob of black.
His mum leans over him, hands on thighs, casting a shadow over his paper.
"More black birds, sweetie? Why?"
John squints at his drawings. She can't see they're all the same?
"He dreamed me again."
"You mean you dreamt of him." She hovers, uncertain, while he searches for the white nub in the tin of crayons.
John stubbornly shakes his head. "He dreamed me."
She sighs and watches him for a minute longer, then pets the crown of his head in the mysterious way of mothers and steps out of the light to fetch him more paper.
Sherlock hangs by his knees from the branch of his favourite apple tree, trying to read his brother's science textbook on the patio table. The text is triply fascinating for being doubly upside-down from his perspective.
"Did you know what's the most interesting acid?"
"Do I know which acid is the most interesting," Mycroft corrects, looking quizzically up at Sherlock from the spot on the backyard terrace he's taken over for revising.
"Aqua regia can dissolve gold and platinum. It's been used to dissolve royal crowns, and I bet it could dissolve kings, too."
"Where did you learn that?"
"Badger told me."
"Ah, Mr Badger again. Tell me, will I ever get to meet him?"
"Don't be ludicrous." Sherlock swings down to the ground, and rakes fingers through his unruly curls.
"Yes, of course; Badger hates Society, and invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing."
"Not that Mr Badger, you ponce. I told you, he only speaks to me when I'm sleeping."
"And he told you how to mix nitric and hydrochloric acid to dissolve kings and their regalia?"
"Well, not how, he thought that would be quite dangerous for a little boy," Sherlock says, miffed. "But he told me how men in Copenhagen used it to dissolve some scientists' Nobel Prize medals so the Nazis wouldn't steal them, and let them sit in a glass jar for years. And after the war they preci - precipated - pre-cip-itated the gold out and recoined the medals for them."
Mycroft frowns at him, and Sherlock preens at having once again surprised his big twelve-year-old brother with what he knows; not at all easy when he's only four and a half, and Mycroft has read all the same encyclopedias he has (though he'd probably claim to have read them at a younger age, just to prove he was still the smartest).
But Badger knows everything worth knowing, even more than Mycroft.
"...carpals, metacarpals, and phalanges. And your wings are made up of humerus, radius, ulna, and carpometacarpus with alular, major, and minor digits. I do drills on this stuff when we're not dreaming together, you know."
Raven croaks laughter and takes off from the bare branches of his perch; John automatically extends his right arm for the large bird to land on. His talons bite at John's skin but don't scratch, his grip firm but gentle. John raises his arm so they can look each other in the eye; Raven stands out as starkly as he always does against the startling blue of the desert sky.
"Then what is on your mind, if it isn't the joys of anatomy?"
John strokes his breast feathers. "Things are just... dull around here since Harry moved out."
"If I didn't know you so well, I'd expect you to enjoy the respite from her dramatics."
"I don't miss the two a.m. I'm-drunk-come-and-get-me calls, no." His voice is as dry as the strange arid breezes of this place he's only seen in dreams.
"And however you love her, you don't exactly miss her company. I know. But you miss being needed. Having someone who needs looking after."
John grimaces. It's not something he'd put into words with anyone else, but... "A bit. What do you suggest?"
"Patience."
"Same as always."
Another croaky laugh. "Better to practice patience now, as carefully as you practice your scales and skeletons. You'll need it, my boy."
Sherlock bends and scoops up chestnuts from the uneven floor of a wood on Hampstead Heath, and in his dream they fly as far and hard as he wants them to, thunking angrily against his chosen tree trunk again and again.
"Well? Where are you?" he snaps at last, knowing that the one constant in his dreams will be lurking somewhere nearby.
"You see but you do not observe," Badger says, and Sherlock turns his head, triangulating, choosing to believe that his subconscious acoustics play by the rules for this purpose: he walks ahead and to the left, observing any small hummock in the leaf litter for patterns that betray the badger's camouflage, shaking off his useless frustration and focusing on the challenge his own brain has created for him.
Badger himself had been a strange puzzle, persisting long after Sherlock stopped mentioning his nightly presence to others. Sherlock could never abide being accused of having anything so banal as an imaginary friend, much less one cribbed from the pages of a nursery story. His youthful mind might have identified with the brilliant but antisocial Mr Badger in The Wind in the Willows - who was "the best of fellows! But you must take him as you find him" - but his Meles meles is a proper wild creature. No dressing gown or slippers, nor a belt with pistol or cudgel - just a very old badger with ragged fur, keen dark eyes overhung by bushy white brows, and long gray side-whiskers.
And at the moment, a near-infuriating ability to blend into the variegated terrain - Sherlock jumps back when the ground erupts beneath his foot with a hiss.
"You must always be prepared for anything," Badger says, subsiding back into a deep chuckle.
"You - that's - " But Sherlock stops himself. Even in the malleable dream, Badger never does anything impossible, and when he looks he sees a dirt wallow beneath the creature, just deep enough to hide the humped silhouette for which Sherlock had been hunting.
Badger flexes his forefeet, reminding Sherlock of his massive digging claws.
So what is he trying to tell himself? Sherlock has come to understand that his brain is always busily at work, sometimes on problems he's discarded (especially pointless emotional ones), or ones of which he isn't yet consciously aware. Badger is a personification of his own mind's purest logic, in melipomorphic form: long-ago perceptions, barely-noticed overheard conversations, and idle research collated into solutions relevant to his day-to-day life. The arbitrary shape has persisted, from childhood on, because "he" succeeds in getting Sherlock to listen to those ideas his conscious mind wants to discard.
Sherlock sighs, and settles cross-legged on the dirt. "You're telling me they're on the hunt, and I keep presenting them with a silhouette to target."
"Which means?"
"Why should I be the one to change my behaviour, when they're the ones acting like idiots?"
A soft growl. "Why should I bury myself in leaves and dirt, when I am here with you to learn and teach?"
"Because..." Sherlock's lips tighten. "Because doing so helps you accomplish your purpose."
"And what purpose are you pursuing, in demonstrating your superiority at every opportunity, amongst the pitiful children who have learned cruelty and disdain at their parent's knee?"
"I'm not afraid of them."
"You can be courageous and proud without provoking their tempers, Sherlock," Badger chides gently. "Face the winter of your discontent stoically, and silently where you can, because your activities now are only about surviving until the spring. It's the next stage of your life where the things you do will really matter."
The battlefield is dim and distant around John; searing pain dulls his external senses. Still, he's almost certain he's still conscious when Raven settles on his chest, talons barely prickling in comparison to the fire in his shoulder: shattered scapula, fragmented bullet, probably shrapnel in or near lungs and spine. And John might laugh if it weren't for needing all his focus to keep his teeth gritted against screaming: only he would be soothed by a carrion bird coming to him under these circumstances.
"No, damn your eyes, no, you can't die here. You haven't even met him yet."
John fights harder to hold onto the pain and his jangled awareness, spurred just a little more deeply by the urgency in Raven's normally relaxed croak. Who...? The medic arrives, but Raven's weight remains, reassuring, despite the way the helping hands pass right through his body; John knows he's lost another battle when Raven starts passing through the medic instead.
"I'll never understand why history has such a perverse sense of humour," Raven says crossly, rubbing his curved beak under John's chin in his oldest gesture of fondness. "Kindly avoid the fever, John. You wouldn't enjoy it."
His Raven's not making sense, and John wants to ask what he means about history, but even within the Dreaming he can't fight the blackness - blood loss and shock and anaesthesia - closing in around him.
John stares at a wall as empty as his war-numb mind, empty as his pointless days, wondering why he bothers hanging around London at all. He can't afford even this tiny flat, and there's nothing for him to do here, no reason to stay.
No reason to do anything at all, any longer.
Don't you dare. Just a little more patience, John. You have my word. You'll be needed soon.
Sherlock watches Stamford enter the room, deduces why he's returned with a friend, and can't explain why he doesn't instantly search for reasons he can't live with this potential flatmate either. Far too many obvious differences between them, and yet he's intrigued by the subtle anomalies, impressed by the man's quiet equilibrium, eager to introduce him to Baker Street and Mrs Hudson.
He can almost hear Badger's gruff voice. Yes, he's the one who will understand you, the one you didn't know you needed. For once just trust your instincts, and don't let him get away!
Sherlock had chosen to meet Moriarty at midnight for logical reasons, not the least of which was minimizing the risks to John, but logic failed him on this disastrous evening; leaving John behind had put him in more danger than ever. John abducted, John threatened, John forced to play the madman's part until Sherlock recognised the truth. John's brave and exceptional heart trapped, pounding beneath an explosive vest.
Midnight had been the wrong choice, and now they're both snared in the aftermath: metro police, bomb disposal unit, Security Service and more crawling about the pool and locker rooms; Mycroft, coldly furious, insisting on a personal debrief; and Lestrade stern and unwilling to let his questions wait until daylight. John sits exhausted beneath the shock blanket around his shoulders, responding only when addressed directly. All Sherlock wants to do is take them home, but it's nearly eight in the morning before they finally stumble up to the privacy of their flat.
Sherlock's prioritised and shortened the things he needs to say while John prepares for well-deserved sleep, but John gives a short sharp shake of his head when Sherlock starts to follow him to the upstairs bedroom. Not angry, not emotional, not like he had been earlier about Moriarty's game. But not welcoming, either.
Sherlock stands too long with one hand on the newel post, struggling to verbalise any important thing at all around the thickness in his throat, and John's door closes with a deliberate click. At last Sherlock turns, every limb heavy, and he hangs up his scarf and coat and drops into his chair to think, with one ear attuned to any noise from upstairs. So much to re-think...but all too soon the derelict weight of his chin settles onto his chest, joined by the solid weight of Badger upon his lap. The coarse-furred muzzle nudges under his hand.
"How could I have been so wrong?" Sherlock snaps. "About everything?"
"Oh, my dear boy...it's always such a hard lesson. I know it." He pushes up against Sherlock's palm, chuffing softly. "We are all fallible, and it's when we forget it that we make our worst mistakes. But losing your belief in yourself will only compound the damage, and lower your defences when you will need them most."
"I almost got him killed tonight."
"It was the madman who almost killed him - not you." And it's a small, strange thing to note in the midst of a conversation he doesn't want to have, in the midst of his subconscious, that his Badger never speaks Moriarty's name. "You aimed to protect him, but underestimated your foe; we won't do so again. But build a memento mori to this in your mind palace: the two of you will always be safer together than apart, and keeping him in the dark for any reason, especially for his own protection, can lead you both into disaster."
"But I can't bear..."
"Nor can he." In the hazy morning light of the dream-flat, Sherlock hears the faint echoes of John shouting Sherlock, RUN!, and he shakes anew at John's impossible courage, his absurd self-sacrifice in the face of terrifying danger. Badger looks up at him, genteel and reflective. "Sherlock Holmes - it is not possible to stop John Watson doing his utmost to protect you. The only thing you can do is strive to be worthy of his devotion. Admit it: part of the reason you went alone was because you knew he would object. He's seldom as right as you are, but if you're avoiding an argument with him rather than winning it, then you already know you're in the wrong. And dodging the issue is unworthy of you both."
John closes the door behind him with a soft click; knows that will make his point better than a slam or the slide of the lock. Safe, finally, in the semi-darkness of his room, he strips out of the slightly-too-large clothes Mycroft's assistant had handed him so he could give what he'd been wearing to Anderson and the other crime scene techs. He tosses each piece into the corner nearest the door, not carelessly but with solemn intent.
His world is in upheaval, why not his quarters as well?
He ruthlessly cuts that thought off at the source, pulls his pyjama bottoms by touch from his wardrobe and draws them on, and scrubs fiercely at the phantom pain in his leg. Sits on the edge of his military-neat bed and has to take a measured breath before he can force himself to lie down. Aware of the faint rustle of agitated wings brushing along his subconscious.
He's man enough to admit he's terrified to close his eyes; the weight of the vest still tortures him with its ghostly absence. He tucks himself up toward the head of the bed, his back firmly against the wall. Considers pulling the pillow to his chest the way he would have as a child.
Sees the bright pinpoint of red against the dark of Sherlock's curls; his eyes snap open again.
The whole situation is crazy. He knows - he'd known, right from the start - Sherlock is crazy, and chasing after him, being his faithful pet, was going to be dangerous to John's health. He'd assessed the risk and concluded the most likely possibility was being driven to bedlam. Not strapped to high-powered explosives by a man who'd killed just to get Sherlock's attention. To flirt with him.
They'd not just flirted with death tonight. In the absence of other options they'd held a shotgun wedding with death, had been right on the verge of saying vows - and then to be rescued by a random phone call? The whim of a psychopath?
John's startled to feel his own fist come down hard on the mattress, forces the fingers open, lets them tangle in his duvet. Grits his teeth against any sound that might escape. The danger he knows he can live with, even if the evening's multilayered loss of control will give him nightmares for a bit, but it's Sherlock leaving him out of the plan, the decision-making, that's marooned him somewhere between outraged and wounded. The man might need looking after, but he obviously doesn't want it. And John's been down that road before, painfully, pointlessly entangling himself in his own need to be needed.
His stomach twists. He should walk away, tell Sherlock he'll need to find another flatmate. That would be the smart thing to do.
Then again, he has it on solid authority he's an idiot.
He closes his eyes at last, sure that sleep will be a long time coming - and isn't surprised when Raven lands on the bed near his hand moments later.
"You've had such a busy day, my boy..."
John's chuckle tastes of bitter chlorine, but his dream-self releases the duvet. "More than one. The bloody supernova."
A cackle of laughter. "Could anyone else have done that?"
"That's exactly it! No one else would have had to. Moriarty wanted Sherlock, and he knew just what to do to get him." Not that Moriarty had to do much to catch Sherlock up in his game. Set a few puzzles. Kill a few people.
Raven hops a bit closer, watching him compassionately, and his talons open and close fitfully on the bedding before he finally speaks. "I could go round and round, about how that particular evil would still exist even if it didn't have something good to attract it. But it all comes down to one question for you, John. Is Sherlock worth it?"
John starts to shake his head, then stills. "I should say no. You know that. I should say no, he isn't, and get up in the morning and say goodbye and leave him and his brother and the god-damned battlefield behind."
He brings his fingers up to stroke soft breast feathers, the resurgent anger leaching away. "But...we both know doing so would be the worst kind of lie."
Raven chucks at him, tilts his head to look more closely at John with one bright black eye.
"Did he ever intend to kill us, do you think?" John asks. "Or was it all a carefully choreographed dance - drive a wedge, make Sherlock doubt, threaten us and make us choose to threaten ourselves, only to have a prearranged, I don't know, explosus interruptus with the mystery caller?"
Even in the dream, John shivers. A mind to rival Sherlock's and three moves ahead the entire time.
"He was prepared to kill at any moment, John," Raven croaks, gravely. "Killing excites him. But this time-" he shakes himself, wings half-open, a shudder rippling through his feathers and settling again. "I believe the truest thing he said about himself is that he's changeable. Quite, quite mad."
"Definitely mad," John agrees, sitting up. He offers a hand to his Raven, who opts instead to settle on his knee. "I'm sure he'll be back for more, though; not so changeable as that. I don't want Sherlock to face him alone..."
John hesitates, unsure how to explain what he's conflicted about - it's not the obvious things. But Raven's bright eyes watch him with calm understanding, as always, underlaid with a new, quiet sadness.
"Holmes doesn't think the way the rest of us do, about priorities, about people. But he will go to greater lengths than you can imagine to protect you and yours. His actions so often look hurtful, or nonsensical, but only because his heart is a cipher that might take lifetimes to solve. If he's worth staying, worthy in himself, not just for the good he can do or the evil he can prevent, then - you have to learn to trust him."
The dream echoes with memories: Sherlock leading John on a mad merry chase around Soho, leaving his limp behind; Sherlock in a darkened tunnel, tauntingly drawing a gangster's attention from John; Sherlock tearing the Semtex off John's chest, frantically sending it skidding away from them.
And John, seeing on the opportunity to focus the danger on himself, get Sherlock away from the explosives, the sniper - and that was the rub. He had acted without a second thought, and put everything he had on the line for a person who hadn't even wanted him there.
"I trust him." He reaches out to ruffle Raven's feathers. "But he trusts himself more than he'll ever trust me."
"Oh, janaan... he's still learning. He's never had anyone else in whom to place his trust."
John's hand stills on the warm smooth plane of Raven's folded wings. Mycroft - but no, that relationship is fraught no matter how he looks at it; an even less likely confidant than Harry is to John. Lestrade might be a friend, but he's also the one person Sherlock most wants to convince of his seeming omniscience. Sherlock speaks highly of Dr Hooper by omission, insulting everything about her but her intelligence, and is completely oblivious to her languishing crush. Mrs Hudson is dear to him but, again...
Raven stretches up to stroke his bill beneath John's jaw. "Have patience with him, John. He can and will learn from his mistakes. Tonight he learned how deep and wide and trustworthy your loyalty is, and how very much he needs you."
How much does Sherlock need John, really? Although...really, the question that matters is: how much does John need Sherlock?
The answer is right in front of him: Sherlock is his life now, and his world would be dull and grey again without Sherlock in it.
He acts without a second thought, pushes the duvet aside - making Raven flutter aloft before landing on his shoulder - and heads down the stairs.
Sherlock stirs uneasily in his sleep, the evening's might-have-beens playing themselves out in proto-nightmares that don't quite get past Badger's soothing reassurances and snapping teeth, but briefly fill his mind with distressing images anyway.
A light footfall sounds on the dream-landing, and he tries to rouse himself from his diagonal slump in the chair, but the old voice at the back of his head tells him there's no danger. Badger weaves a pleasant image into his dream to counter the nightmares: John hovers in the doorway - wistful affection on his imagined features - then turns down the hall, returns to spread a blanket gently over him. Sherlock vividly feels the fingers tucking the blanket behind his shoulder, feels John's warmth lingering nearby, is surprised when John folds to the floor at his side with a heavy sigh and leans one cheek against Sherlock's leg. If his arms weren't caught within the blanket's embrace, he could reach out to touch John's hair, ask him to look up.
Instead, he listens to John's quiet breathing, lets the random dream images flow around him...the lab at Bart's, a chestnut wood, a crayon on a sunlit floor, a royal crown; his badger, standing alert in the grass, muzzle lifted to scent the air; a glossy raven, peering intently down from a barren tree branch.
John stands, shaking his head; he tugs one edge of the blanket a little higher over the arm of Sherlock's chair, and the dream ends as he walks softly into the kitchen to put the kettle on.
❦
Recipient: roane
Author: yeomanrand and shinychimera
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes & or / John Watson
Rating: PG
Warnings: Brief abstract mentions of bullying, suicidal thoughts, canon violence. Begins with short passages of John and Sherlock as children, but not a kid-fic. References to The Great Game.
Summary: Their lives are complicated, but John and Sherlock find a little help in their not-quite-so-ordinary dreams.
Author's Notes: Thank you to roane for the prompts, and the room to play!
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers
And sitting by desolate streams;-
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
- Ode, Arthur O'Shaughnessy
John lies on his stomach in his favourite puddle of sitting room sunshine, working out the problem of drawing feathers in crayon so they don't turn into a big blob of black.
His mum leans over him, hands on thighs, casting a shadow over his paper.
"More black birds, sweetie? Why?"
John squints at his drawings. She can't see they're all the same?
"He dreamed me again."
"You mean you dreamt of him." She hovers, uncertain, while he searches for the white nub in the tin of crayons.
John stubbornly shakes his head. "He dreamed me."
She sighs and watches him for a minute longer, then pets the crown of his head in the mysterious way of mothers and steps out of the light to fetch him more paper.
Sherlock hangs by his knees from the branch of his favourite apple tree, trying to read his brother's science textbook on the patio table. The text is triply fascinating for being doubly upside-down from his perspective.
"Did you know what's the most interesting acid?"
"Do I know which acid is the most interesting," Mycroft corrects, looking quizzically up at Sherlock from the spot on the backyard terrace he's taken over for revising.
"Aqua regia can dissolve gold and platinum. It's been used to dissolve royal crowns, and I bet it could dissolve kings, too."
"Where did you learn that?"
"Badger told me."
"Ah, Mr Badger again. Tell me, will I ever get to meet him?"
"Don't be ludicrous." Sherlock swings down to the ground, and rakes fingers through his unruly curls.
"Yes, of course; Badger hates Society, and invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing."
"Not that Mr Badger, you ponce. I told you, he only speaks to me when I'm sleeping."
"And he told you how to mix nitric and hydrochloric acid to dissolve kings and their regalia?"
"Well, not how, he thought that would be quite dangerous for a little boy," Sherlock says, miffed. "But he told me how men in Copenhagen used it to dissolve some scientists' Nobel Prize medals so the Nazis wouldn't steal them, and let them sit in a glass jar for years. And after the war they preci - precipated - pre-cip-itated the gold out and recoined the medals for them."
Mycroft frowns at him, and Sherlock preens at having once again surprised his big twelve-year-old brother with what he knows; not at all easy when he's only four and a half, and Mycroft has read all the same encyclopedias he has (though he'd probably claim to have read them at a younger age, just to prove he was still the smartest).
But Badger knows everything worth knowing, even more than Mycroft.
"...carpals, metacarpals, and phalanges. And your wings are made up of humerus, radius, ulna, and carpometacarpus with alular, major, and minor digits. I do drills on this stuff when we're not dreaming together, you know."
Raven croaks laughter and takes off from the bare branches of his perch; John automatically extends his right arm for the large bird to land on. His talons bite at John's skin but don't scratch, his grip firm but gentle. John raises his arm so they can look each other in the eye; Raven stands out as starkly as he always does against the startling blue of the desert sky.
"Then what is on your mind, if it isn't the joys of anatomy?"
John strokes his breast feathers. "Things are just... dull around here since Harry moved out."
"If I didn't know you so well, I'd expect you to enjoy the respite from her dramatics."
"I don't miss the two a.m. I'm-drunk-come-and-get-me calls, no." His voice is as dry as the strange arid breezes of this place he's only seen in dreams.
"And however you love her, you don't exactly miss her company. I know. But you miss being needed. Having someone who needs looking after."
John grimaces. It's not something he'd put into words with anyone else, but... "A bit. What do you suggest?"
"Patience."
"Same as always."
Another croaky laugh. "Better to practice patience now, as carefully as you practice your scales and skeletons. You'll need it, my boy."
Sherlock bends and scoops up chestnuts from the uneven floor of a wood on Hampstead Heath, and in his dream they fly as far and hard as he wants them to, thunking angrily against his chosen tree trunk again and again.
"Well? Where are you?" he snaps at last, knowing that the one constant in his dreams will be lurking somewhere nearby.
"You see but you do not observe," Badger says, and Sherlock turns his head, triangulating, choosing to believe that his subconscious acoustics play by the rules for this purpose: he walks ahead and to the left, observing any small hummock in the leaf litter for patterns that betray the badger's camouflage, shaking off his useless frustration and focusing on the challenge his own brain has created for him.
Badger himself had been a strange puzzle, persisting long after Sherlock stopped mentioning his nightly presence to others. Sherlock could never abide being accused of having anything so banal as an imaginary friend, much less one cribbed from the pages of a nursery story. His youthful mind might have identified with the brilliant but antisocial Mr Badger in The Wind in the Willows - who was "the best of fellows! But you must take him as you find him" - but his Meles meles is a proper wild creature. No dressing gown or slippers, nor a belt with pistol or cudgel - just a very old badger with ragged fur, keen dark eyes overhung by bushy white brows, and long gray side-whiskers.
And at the moment, a near-infuriating ability to blend into the variegated terrain - Sherlock jumps back when the ground erupts beneath his foot with a hiss.
"You must always be prepared for anything," Badger says, subsiding back into a deep chuckle.
"You - that's - " But Sherlock stops himself. Even in the malleable dream, Badger never does anything impossible, and when he looks he sees a dirt wallow beneath the creature, just deep enough to hide the humped silhouette for which Sherlock had been hunting.
Badger flexes his forefeet, reminding Sherlock of his massive digging claws.
So what is he trying to tell himself? Sherlock has come to understand that his brain is always busily at work, sometimes on problems he's discarded (especially pointless emotional ones), or ones of which he isn't yet consciously aware. Badger is a personification of his own mind's purest logic, in melipomorphic form: long-ago perceptions, barely-noticed overheard conversations, and idle research collated into solutions relevant to his day-to-day life. The arbitrary shape has persisted, from childhood on, because "he" succeeds in getting Sherlock to listen to those ideas his conscious mind wants to discard.
Sherlock sighs, and settles cross-legged on the dirt. "You're telling me they're on the hunt, and I keep presenting them with a silhouette to target."
"Which means?"
"Why should I be the one to change my behaviour, when they're the ones acting like idiots?"
A soft growl. "Why should I bury myself in leaves and dirt, when I am here with you to learn and teach?"
"Because..." Sherlock's lips tighten. "Because doing so helps you accomplish your purpose."
"And what purpose are you pursuing, in demonstrating your superiority at every opportunity, amongst the pitiful children who have learned cruelty and disdain at their parent's knee?"
"I'm not afraid of them."
"You can be courageous and proud without provoking their tempers, Sherlock," Badger chides gently. "Face the winter of your discontent stoically, and silently where you can, because your activities now are only about surviving until the spring. It's the next stage of your life where the things you do will really matter."
The battlefield is dim and distant around John; searing pain dulls his external senses. Still, he's almost certain he's still conscious when Raven settles on his chest, talons barely prickling in comparison to the fire in his shoulder: shattered scapula, fragmented bullet, probably shrapnel in or near lungs and spine. And John might laugh if it weren't for needing all his focus to keep his teeth gritted against screaming: only he would be soothed by a carrion bird coming to him under these circumstances.
"No, damn your eyes, no, you can't die here. You haven't even met him yet."
John fights harder to hold onto the pain and his jangled awareness, spurred just a little more deeply by the urgency in Raven's normally relaxed croak. Who...? The medic arrives, but Raven's weight remains, reassuring, despite the way the helping hands pass right through his body; John knows he's lost another battle when Raven starts passing through the medic instead.
"I'll never understand why history has such a perverse sense of humour," Raven says crossly, rubbing his curved beak under John's chin in his oldest gesture of fondness. "Kindly avoid the fever, John. You wouldn't enjoy it."
His Raven's not making sense, and John wants to ask what he means about history, but even within the Dreaming he can't fight the blackness - blood loss and shock and anaesthesia - closing in around him.
John stares at a wall as empty as his war-numb mind, empty as his pointless days, wondering why he bothers hanging around London at all. He can't afford even this tiny flat, and there's nothing for him to do here, no reason to stay.
No reason to do anything at all, any longer.
Don't you dare. Just a little more patience, John. You have my word. You'll be needed soon.
Sherlock watches Stamford enter the room, deduces why he's returned with a friend, and can't explain why he doesn't instantly search for reasons he can't live with this potential flatmate either. Far too many obvious differences between them, and yet he's intrigued by the subtle anomalies, impressed by the man's quiet equilibrium, eager to introduce him to Baker Street and Mrs Hudson.
He can almost hear Badger's gruff voice. Yes, he's the one who will understand you, the one you didn't know you needed. For once just trust your instincts, and don't let him get away!
Sherlock had chosen to meet Moriarty at midnight for logical reasons, not the least of which was minimizing the risks to John, but logic failed him on this disastrous evening; leaving John behind had put him in more danger than ever. John abducted, John threatened, John forced to play the madman's part until Sherlock recognised the truth. John's brave and exceptional heart trapped, pounding beneath an explosive vest.
Midnight had been the wrong choice, and now they're both snared in the aftermath: metro police, bomb disposal unit, Security Service and more crawling about the pool and locker rooms; Mycroft, coldly furious, insisting on a personal debrief; and Lestrade stern and unwilling to let his questions wait until daylight. John sits exhausted beneath the shock blanket around his shoulders, responding only when addressed directly. All Sherlock wants to do is take them home, but it's nearly eight in the morning before they finally stumble up to the privacy of their flat.
Sherlock's prioritised and shortened the things he needs to say while John prepares for well-deserved sleep, but John gives a short sharp shake of his head when Sherlock starts to follow him to the upstairs bedroom. Not angry, not emotional, not like he had been earlier about Moriarty's game. But not welcoming, either.
Sherlock stands too long with one hand on the newel post, struggling to verbalise any important thing at all around the thickness in his throat, and John's door closes with a deliberate click. At last Sherlock turns, every limb heavy, and he hangs up his scarf and coat and drops into his chair to think, with one ear attuned to any noise from upstairs. So much to re-think...but all too soon the derelict weight of his chin settles onto his chest, joined by the solid weight of Badger upon his lap. The coarse-furred muzzle nudges under his hand.
"How could I have been so wrong?" Sherlock snaps. "About everything?"
"Oh, my dear boy...it's always such a hard lesson. I know it." He pushes up against Sherlock's palm, chuffing softly. "We are all fallible, and it's when we forget it that we make our worst mistakes. But losing your belief in yourself will only compound the damage, and lower your defences when you will need them most."
"I almost got him killed tonight."
"It was the madman who almost killed him - not you." And it's a small, strange thing to note in the midst of a conversation he doesn't want to have, in the midst of his subconscious, that his Badger never speaks Moriarty's name. "You aimed to protect him, but underestimated your foe; we won't do so again. But build a memento mori to this in your mind palace: the two of you will always be safer together than apart, and keeping him in the dark for any reason, especially for his own protection, can lead you both into disaster."
"But I can't bear..."
"Nor can he." In the hazy morning light of the dream-flat, Sherlock hears the faint echoes of John shouting Sherlock, RUN!, and he shakes anew at John's impossible courage, his absurd self-sacrifice in the face of terrifying danger. Badger looks up at him, genteel and reflective. "Sherlock Holmes - it is not possible to stop John Watson doing his utmost to protect you. The only thing you can do is strive to be worthy of his devotion. Admit it: part of the reason you went alone was because you knew he would object. He's seldom as right as you are, but if you're avoiding an argument with him rather than winning it, then you already know you're in the wrong. And dodging the issue is unworthy of you both."
John closes the door behind him with a soft click; knows that will make his point better than a slam or the slide of the lock. Safe, finally, in the semi-darkness of his room, he strips out of the slightly-too-large clothes Mycroft's assistant had handed him so he could give what he'd been wearing to Anderson and the other crime scene techs. He tosses each piece into the corner nearest the door, not carelessly but with solemn intent.
His world is in upheaval, why not his quarters as well?
He ruthlessly cuts that thought off at the source, pulls his pyjama bottoms by touch from his wardrobe and draws them on, and scrubs fiercely at the phantom pain in his leg. Sits on the edge of his military-neat bed and has to take a measured breath before he can force himself to lie down. Aware of the faint rustle of agitated wings brushing along his subconscious.
He's man enough to admit he's terrified to close his eyes; the weight of the vest still tortures him with its ghostly absence. He tucks himself up toward the head of the bed, his back firmly against the wall. Considers pulling the pillow to his chest the way he would have as a child.
Sees the bright pinpoint of red against the dark of Sherlock's curls; his eyes snap open again.
The whole situation is crazy. He knows - he'd known, right from the start - Sherlock is crazy, and chasing after him, being his faithful pet, was going to be dangerous to John's health. He'd assessed the risk and concluded the most likely possibility was being driven to bedlam. Not strapped to high-powered explosives by a man who'd killed just to get Sherlock's attention. To flirt with him.
They'd not just flirted with death tonight. In the absence of other options they'd held a shotgun wedding with death, had been right on the verge of saying vows - and then to be rescued by a random phone call? The whim of a psychopath?
John's startled to feel his own fist come down hard on the mattress, forces the fingers open, lets them tangle in his duvet. Grits his teeth against any sound that might escape. The danger he knows he can live with, even if the evening's multilayered loss of control will give him nightmares for a bit, but it's Sherlock leaving him out of the plan, the decision-making, that's marooned him somewhere between outraged and wounded. The man might need looking after, but he obviously doesn't want it. And John's been down that road before, painfully, pointlessly entangling himself in his own need to be needed.
His stomach twists. He should walk away, tell Sherlock he'll need to find another flatmate. That would be the smart thing to do.
Then again, he has it on solid authority he's an idiot.
He closes his eyes at last, sure that sleep will be a long time coming - and isn't surprised when Raven lands on the bed near his hand moments later.
"You've had such a busy day, my boy..."
John's chuckle tastes of bitter chlorine, but his dream-self releases the duvet. "More than one. The bloody supernova."
A cackle of laughter. "Could anyone else have done that?"
"That's exactly it! No one else would have had to. Moriarty wanted Sherlock, and he knew just what to do to get him." Not that Moriarty had to do much to catch Sherlock up in his game. Set a few puzzles. Kill a few people.
Raven hops a bit closer, watching him compassionately, and his talons open and close fitfully on the bedding before he finally speaks. "I could go round and round, about how that particular evil would still exist even if it didn't have something good to attract it. But it all comes down to one question for you, John. Is Sherlock worth it?"
John starts to shake his head, then stills. "I should say no. You know that. I should say no, he isn't, and get up in the morning and say goodbye and leave him and his brother and the god-damned battlefield behind."
He brings his fingers up to stroke soft breast feathers, the resurgent anger leaching away. "But...we both know doing so would be the worst kind of lie."
Raven chucks at him, tilts his head to look more closely at John with one bright black eye.
"Did he ever intend to kill us, do you think?" John asks. "Or was it all a carefully choreographed dance - drive a wedge, make Sherlock doubt, threaten us and make us choose to threaten ourselves, only to have a prearranged, I don't know, explosus interruptus with the mystery caller?"
Even in the dream, John shivers. A mind to rival Sherlock's and three moves ahead the entire time.
"He was prepared to kill at any moment, John," Raven croaks, gravely. "Killing excites him. But this time-" he shakes himself, wings half-open, a shudder rippling through his feathers and settling again. "I believe the truest thing he said about himself is that he's changeable. Quite, quite mad."
"Definitely mad," John agrees, sitting up. He offers a hand to his Raven, who opts instead to settle on his knee. "I'm sure he'll be back for more, though; not so changeable as that. I don't want Sherlock to face him alone..."
John hesitates, unsure how to explain what he's conflicted about - it's not the obvious things. But Raven's bright eyes watch him with calm understanding, as always, underlaid with a new, quiet sadness.
"Holmes doesn't think the way the rest of us do, about priorities, about people. But he will go to greater lengths than you can imagine to protect you and yours. His actions so often look hurtful, or nonsensical, but only because his heart is a cipher that might take lifetimes to solve. If he's worth staying, worthy in himself, not just for the good he can do or the evil he can prevent, then - you have to learn to trust him."
The dream echoes with memories: Sherlock leading John on a mad merry chase around Soho, leaving his limp behind; Sherlock in a darkened tunnel, tauntingly drawing a gangster's attention from John; Sherlock tearing the Semtex off John's chest, frantically sending it skidding away from them.
And John, seeing on the opportunity to focus the danger on himself, get Sherlock away from the explosives, the sniper - and that was the rub. He had acted without a second thought, and put everything he had on the line for a person who hadn't even wanted him there.
"I trust him." He reaches out to ruffle Raven's feathers. "But he trusts himself more than he'll ever trust me."
"Oh, janaan... he's still learning. He's never had anyone else in whom to place his trust."
John's hand stills on the warm smooth plane of Raven's folded wings. Mycroft - but no, that relationship is fraught no matter how he looks at it; an even less likely confidant than Harry is to John. Lestrade might be a friend, but he's also the one person Sherlock most wants to convince of his seeming omniscience. Sherlock speaks highly of Dr Hooper by omission, insulting everything about her but her intelligence, and is completely oblivious to her languishing crush. Mrs Hudson is dear to him but, again...
Raven stretches up to stroke his bill beneath John's jaw. "Have patience with him, John. He can and will learn from his mistakes. Tonight he learned how deep and wide and trustworthy your loyalty is, and how very much he needs you."
How much does Sherlock need John, really? Although...really, the question that matters is: how much does John need Sherlock?
The answer is right in front of him: Sherlock is his life now, and his world would be dull and grey again without Sherlock in it.
He acts without a second thought, pushes the duvet aside - making Raven flutter aloft before landing on his shoulder - and heads down the stairs.
Sherlock stirs uneasily in his sleep, the evening's might-have-beens playing themselves out in proto-nightmares that don't quite get past Badger's soothing reassurances and snapping teeth, but briefly fill his mind with distressing images anyway.
A light footfall sounds on the dream-landing, and he tries to rouse himself from his diagonal slump in the chair, but the old voice at the back of his head tells him there's no danger. Badger weaves a pleasant image into his dream to counter the nightmares: John hovers in the doorway - wistful affection on his imagined features - then turns down the hall, returns to spread a blanket gently over him. Sherlock vividly feels the fingers tucking the blanket behind his shoulder, feels John's warmth lingering nearby, is surprised when John folds to the floor at his side with a heavy sigh and leans one cheek against Sherlock's leg. If his arms weren't caught within the blanket's embrace, he could reach out to touch John's hair, ask him to look up.
Instead, he listens to John's quiet breathing, lets the random dream images flow around him...the lab at Bart's, a chestnut wood, a crayon on a sunlit floor, a royal crown; his badger, standing alert in the grass, muzzle lifted to scent the air; a glossy raven, peering intently down from a barren tree branch.
John stands, shaking his head; he tugs one edge of the blanket a little higher over the arm of Sherlock's chair, and the dream ends as he walks softly into the kitchen to put the kettle on.
❦