Challenge Two Fics: Part Three
21.
Warning: Off-screen character death
Blog of John H. Watson, M.D.
Official Biography of Mr Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective
---14.02.2042---
In all those years I have now been living with Sherlock, I have attended many occasions were he was the centre of attention - not that I was surprised. After the Moriarty-affair and our near-death at the swimming pool, he had risen to become one of the most famous and most talked about detectives of all time. He certainly never was doubtful of his skill.
While I, after a time, was quite content to be mentioned as his partner, and, by people who knew us more closely, his friend, our other acquaintances of those early days were seldom mentioned, much less often honourably.
Some of them, of course, have already passed on long ago, as now both Sherlock and I are feeling old age creeping in upon us. However, I feel that on this day of all days I have to mention one of our dearest companions, who has been with us right from the start until this day - the day which marks both her death and Sherlock's retirement.
For many years I have thought it would be impossible for Sherlock to ever take such a step, but we both agree that if the date had to come at any time, it was just as well that it should come today - I fear that even my writing has become affected by my age, seeming stale and much less modern than it once was.
At any rate, this entry should be in honour of that one person. I have often wondered, and so, I think, has Sherlock, why she did put up with us, or, at least, him. Sherlock was certainly the worst tenant in existence, and his habits and lifestyle were erratic. As his job flourished, we often received clients, not only Inspector Lestrade, directly in our flat, and they were more often than not of a kind that people tend to pass quickly in the street. Over the years, I learned to understand that it was far more than the gratitude for Sherlock's favour even before I knew him, and I think that over the years even Sherlock softened towards her. Perhaps it would be wise to mention that Sherlock has changed, as well - he certainly does have a heart, and a great one at that.
I know that Mrs Hudson loved him like a son, despite all the shocks he gave her in his long career. I remember one occasion at the hight of Sherlock's career, when he deemed it wise to break into 221 Baker Street through the kitchen window facing into the parlour after he had passed through the empty house next to ours in impeccable disguise to shake off a pursuer! Mrs Hudson, of course, had been working in the kitchen, and I could have sworn that her shriek would have shattered even the phials of Sherlock's most recent experiment on our kitchen table.
She had the patience of a saint, to be sure. She never kicked us out, which, in itself, was a miracle, and as the years passed, she even took to making us tea when we came home, exhausted from the latest chase. Neither of us could get sick without her fussing over us, and if Sherlock's iron condition broke down under the strain he constantly put on it, she would stay by his side long after his irritable behaviour had driven even me away. She even coped better with Sherlock's black moods, as we have dubbed his phases of boredom, coaxing him into watching ridiculous day time TV with her, later discovering the old Agatha Christie mysteries on DVD.
I believe that Sherlock, for his part, appreciated her effort more than he would ever let on, and he treated her with respect whenever he was not too caught up in a case to really notice much of the world around him. I would even go so far as to say that he did love her in return. If I would have needed any more proof, the fact that he attended the funeral without fuss and that he decided that this day would be the day to end his career were enough. I have not often seen Sherlock cry...
--- ---
Comments - (1)
SH - John, usually I would have criticized you for your ridiculously romantic style, but I think on this occasion I won't. Thank you for putting it into words.
22.
Sherlock was firmly of the opinion that you didn't have to have been in love to understand love. Or, if not precisely understand it, to be able to use the available data to predict the outcome. For all intents and purposes, the two were the same.
*
"What reason did she give?" he asked, when John came in slightly early one evening and sat down heavily in the armchair rather than going to put the kettle on.
"What?" John said, looking startled, as if he hadn't realised Sherlock was in the room. Sherlock frowned, but repeated himself.
"What reason did Jennifer give for ending your burgeoning relationship?"
"The same reason they always give," John said, sounding actually annoyed. Sherlock felt a stirring of unease deep in his belly.
"Which is?" he asked, more sharply than he'd perhaps intended, his mind occupied with running back over the ends of John's previous relationships. Sarah…well, obvious why that ended. The Chinese equivalent of a harpoon gun and then your boyfriend almost getting blown up was enough to deter anyone not fully determined. Then there had been Anna, what had happened to her? And Lucy? Sherlock frowned, realising that he couldn't actually remember why John had stopped dating those women, just that he'd been grateful that John had stopped chasing after them.
"Never mind," John said. "It doesn't matter." He stood up abruptly and walked, no, stalked over to the kitchen. Sherlock watched his retreating back in alarm. He heard the sound of John taking the kettle from its stand and moving towards the sink, but he didn't hear him turn the tap on. Almost despite himself, Sherlock found himself getting up and moving towards the kitchen, coming to a halt in the doorway.
John was standing with both hands braced against the edge of the sink, head bowed. He looked…defeated, but that didn't make sense, he hadn't been very attached to Jennifer, had only slept with her twice and the sex had been mediocre both times.
"What reason did she give?" asked Sherlock insistently. He can't remember if he's ever repeated himself three times before. For a long moment, he thought John wasn't going to answer. Then he straightened up and turned to Sherlock, face set, and Sherlock almost took a step backwards at his expression.
"I'm going to start looking for somewhere else to live," John said, and Sherlock was grateful that he was already holding onto the doorframe, he just hoped that John hadn't noticed the way his fingers tightened on the wood until his knuckles were white.
"You can't," he said, knowing how stupid it was even as he said it.
"I'm sorry," said John, averting his eyes and moving towards Sherlock…no, towards the door. Without thinking, Sherlock reached out, grabbing John's arm and bringing him to a standstill. John stopped, looking up at him, so close...
They stared at each other for what seemed like forever, Sherlock trying to calm his racing thoughts and work out what this meant, work out what any of this meant. John's hand suddenly covered his and Sherlock had a moment of blinding clarity...but then John was untangling Sherlock's fingers from his jumper before moving past him and up the stairs. Sherlock slumped in the doorway, staring at the kettle abandoned by the sink, mind completely blank.
*
Later, much later, he reflected that he had forgotten that love makes people unpredictable.
23.
Yao Soo-Lin, (whose family name means ‘mother-of-pearl,’ whose first name means nothing at all,) is blessed with one thousand memories, each one round and smooth within her mind. The one which glows brightest is from when she is seven years old, and it glows like this:
She is curled into a knot of dark skin and black hair at the bottom of her mother’s laundry bucket. Hot water steams around her, and more is boiling on the stove. Nearby her mother stands, one teapot in each hand, a concerned expression on her face.
Soo-Lin has a head cold that is stubbornly refusing to go away.
“Do you feel better?” her mother asks her.
Soo-Lin shakes her head. Her mother walks over slowly and kneels, before tipping one teapot so that it pours over the other, amber liquid dribbling into the laundry bucket.
“Mò-lì-huā,” she says she pours. “Jasmine.” The aroma rises and clears Soo-Lin’s sinuses, brightens her eyes. She feels the ache leave her temples and leans back with a smile.
At the door, her brother stands, curious.
“Wait outside,” their mother orders.
Later, Soo-Lin rises from her tea bath, a few stray jasmine flowers stuck to her skin. Her mother drapes a blanket over her bony shoulders, and Soo-Lin pads out to find her brother seated in the kitchen, poking at spiders with a stick.
“Are you alright?” he murmurs, eyes fixed on his prey and their webs.
“I’m alright,” she says, pulling a flower from her arm and sticking it to her brother’s cheek.
Their mother dies when Soo-Lin is fifteen and her brother is twelve, and they end up on the streets. Work isn’t hard to find for girls, but Soo-Lin is too strong of will and refuses. There are other ways. She keeps her hands on her brother’s shoulders and continues to search.
The Tong recruits them within a two-month. Children are small and quick; children see what others don’t; children are told what others aren’t. The bosses like the look of Soo-Lin-she is pretty with a sweet tilt to her eyes and lips-but they don’t like her brother.
“His hands are too small-what can he carry?” they say.
“If he goes, I go,” she replies.
That night she and her brother sleep in a bed for the first time in weeks, her nose buried in his hair.
“I won’t ever leave you,” she promises.
“Good,” he says, spreading his fingers out against the sheets, willing them to grow.
She loses her use in a matter of years, when her bosses want her to take more than just drugs. Stolen artifacts, pinched from graves-jade jewelery, bone combs. Soo-Lin feels like she is handing her children away.
“Just things,” her brother says. He is still short, his hands still small, but these things no longer work against him. He is their acrobat, their spider. He comes home only once a week, smelling of a women and alcohol. He wants fast cars, clothes from Europe, shoes from America.
The bosses now want Soo-Lin to stop smuggling. They want her to be their pet, to bed her and pay her trinkets. And so, one evening, when she is eighteen, Soo-Lin brings one last package over the border to Hong Kong-a small crate of antique teapots. She keeps two, wraps them carefully, leaving the rest at the dropoff.
Then she disappears, and breaks her promise.
The pots she stole pay her way to England. She feels guilty about it, the memory hard and painful, even works in the museum to fix what she has broken, her days unchanging, her labor one of love.
Her brother comes on a rainy night in winter. He is older, with many lines on his face, the sight of him both welcome and terrifying. He asks her what he has come to ask her in the voice of a stranger.
“No,” she says.
After he leaves, she makes herself jasmine tea in a pot of plain, white porcelain. She drinks and watches the rain come down, her memories spinning within her head like pearls alongside her brother’s words.
“You left me. You betrayed me.”
Soo-Lin replied, “Still, I love you,” even though she has done both these things.
The night she dies, Soo-Lin leaves the basement door unbolted for a reason. Her brother crawls in like a spider, or a ghost, or a memory.
She goes with his gun to her head, and her hand on his cheek.
24.
When Molly brings him a coffee, she sucks on her finger and draws a heart on the side of the cup in her own saliva and waits for it to dry invisible before she gives it to him. Sherlock doesn’t even take a second glance at the cup, but she knows that the heart is right there under his fingers, and it makes her smile.
It’s ironic that the one thing that Sherlock can’t see is the one thing that is so obvious it hurts. Molly loves him more than she’s ever loved anything else in the world, and everyone knows it except him. She has tried being obvious. She has tried things that any sane man would be able to understand. But Sherlock’s one great flaw is that he wouldn’t know human emotion if it slapped him in the face, and maybe Molly loves that about him a little bit too.
Sherlock is anything but predictable, but Molly knows the few habits he has, and when she has time, she spends hours in his favorite coffee shop, hoping to run into him by happy coincidence. She lurks in the aisles of the Tesco closest to his flat, staring at the products and trying to guess which one he uses.
She runs into John one afternoon, buying a few things for the flat. When he leaves, Molly buys everything that John did, including a bottle of shampoo. When she goes back to her own flat and opens the shampoo, it smells like Sherlock. She showers with it, rubbing it all over her body.
Maybe the next time she sees Sherlock and he doesn’t notice that she’s there, it will be because she smells so much like Sherlock that she could be his own shadow.
His coat is heavy and swirly and gorgeous. He leaves it on a hook and when he isn’t around Molly tries it on, twirling to let it flare out. It wraps around her like a hug. Molly picks at the seam of the lining until a tiny section of it comes away from the fabric of the coat just at the neck. She clips a lock of her hair and winds it around her finger, then pokes it into the lining of the coat. She sews the lining back in place again with a single stitch, then hangs it on the hook again.
Sherlock spends nearly a week in St. Bart’s, investigating a case. A few new corpses arrive and Molly is able to hover nearby while Sherlock examines them thoroughly. His long fingers run over skin that she touched just minutes ago. She imagines that his fingers are soaking in the tiny warmth that her hands left on the corpse. He will never touch her the way he touches that corpse, but she is okay with that. She imagines that the corpse is a glove, the only thing separating his flesh from hers.
A few nights later, she finds him sitting in the lab, his head pillowed in his arms, sound asleep. By her calculations, he’s been awake for fifty-two hours now, so this is good for him. She’s careful not to wake him as she leans over his shoulder and lets her breath gust across his cheek. The moisture from her lungs settles on his skin, an invisible kiss. Later, when he wakes, he won’t even know it’s there.
But she will.
25.
Their love was probably one of a kind, unique and unheard of in the entire universe. If people were to know about it, about them, they would probably disapprove, or more likely: ignore the fact that they even came to the knowledge of such love being in existence. Their love was supposed to be nonexistent. Yet, there it was.
The Skull sighed deeply, or at least pretended he did because he hadn’t had lungs or a real mouth in decades. “Why, oh why, my dear, must we live through such difficult times?” he spoke. His eyeless sockets staring at the bright yellow smiley face that had been drawn onto the wall. “It is so unfair that I am doomed to sit upon this mantelpiece, for the rest of eternity.”
“Or until Mrs Hudson chucks you out again,” The Smiley Face replied sadly.
“Not that I am not pleased to look upon thine beautiful face,” The Skull said. He’d be weeping right now if he still had tear ducts. “I just wish I could be nearer. To touch thine face.”
“So do I, my love.” The single, yellow, curved line that represented The Smiley Face’s mouth changed from a smile to a pout.
A silence fell upon the two lovers.
“Skull of mine?” The Smiley Face said after a while.
“Yes, darling?”
“Would you mind citing some Shakespeare for me?” The Smiley Face asked. He loved to listen to the Skull’s voice. It was so deep and soothing. (The Smiley Face didn’t have any ears, but he could hear perfectly well. It must have been some odd occurrence of nature that happened every once in a while. Just like talking skulls and graffiti)
“Everything to please thee, my love.” During his youth, The Skull had been present at many a performance of Shakespeare’s plays. Over the years he had memorised every word of the most occurring ones, such as Hamlet (in which he had often starred himself) and Romeo and Juliet, his two favourites.
;;;
Sherlock was comfortably sitting on his sofa, trying to read a book about bees. Unfortunately for him he was constantly distracted by the lovey-dovey conversation The Skull and The Smiley Face were having with each other. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t painted that face on the wall. (He knew he never should have bought that paint from that weird shaman guy, he should have known that only trouble could have come from it)
Sherlock closed his book and left the room while The Skull and The Smiley Face continued their conversation.
When Sherlock passed John’s bedroom, he yelled: “Please, never let me buy any paint from a shaman again in the future. Or a skull from a guy claiming to be a warlock!” He slammed the door of his bedroom shut.
;;;
John entered the living room, coming home after a long and tiring day at work. At first he didn’t realise the change. It took him about a minute to realise something was very different in the room. “Sherlock!” he shouted, gently pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Yes!” Sherlock replied from the kitchen. “What is it?”
“Why did you move a cupboard behind the sofa?” John asked, not entirely sure if he actually wanted to know the answer.
“The Skull and The Smiley Face just wouldn’t keep quiet,” Sherlock replied. “So I told them I’d put them together if they promised to whisper from now on.”
John left the room and made a beeline for his bedroom.
;;;
“Skull?” The Smiley Face whispered, staying true to his promise.
“Yes, my dear?” The Skull replied, (mentally) smiling.
“I love you.”
“Love you too, darling.”
26.
John Watson loved many things, and he loved them easily. He loved milk in his tea, since it had been scarce in Afghanistan and it was plentiful in England. He loved the Scottish countryside, having traveled there every summer to visit his parents’ parents. He loved dogs, but mostly the medium sized ones, not the little yappy ones or the great jumping-on-you-knock-you-down ones, because they were clever and loyal and liked to have their bellies rubbed. He loved Sherlock, but that was a confusing, tangle of emotions that he didn’t entirely want to examine too closely just yet, so early in their friendship.
But his first love (well, perhaps that was a bit much: his first love had been seahorses at the age of six), his longest abiding love was Rugby. He’d played Wing at Blackheath when he was still a med student, and he’d been damn good, too. He wasn’t quite as fast anymore, but he could still keep up with a lanky, fit, consulting detective at a full run, so he wasn’t counting it as too much of a loss. That, or he’d been freakishly fast at twenty-two.
Now the only way he could get anywhere near the rush of playing in a match was by kicking Sherlock off the couch when it was on the telly instead. Sherlock bitched and moaned at the injustice, made a hazardous mess in the kitchen in retaliation, and John allowed himself not to care for an hour and a half. John imagined he could smell the air on the pitch, and it didn’t smell like weird experiments and Sherlock’s expensive shampoo: it smelled like sweat and dirt and late autumn air, like excitement and focus and plastic water bottles. He remembered the way his jersey reeked no matter how many times he washed it, and the feeling of his socks pulled up to his knees. He remembered the thrill of sidestepping a tackle, darting out of the way just in time and pelting on, ball tucked snug under his arm.
Sherlock didn’t even know what he was getting into when he opened an envelope from a client one time and sighed, “Oh hell, she’s paid me in tickets.”
“Tickets to what?” John asked from the doorway, hanging up his coat.
“Rugby match,” Sherlock said, throwing them down on the table. “England is playing Wales in a month.”
John approached the table slowly, almost unbelieving. “Sherlock, you’ve got to be kidding.”
“Oh that’s right,” Sherlock said, in the kitchen now, “you like Rugby, don’t you.”
“Er,” John said, peering at the tickets. There were two of them, all shiny and crisp peeking out of the envelope. If he picked them up, they might disappear.
“What’s the matter?” Sherlock asked, poking his head back into the sitting room. “John?”
“These seats are right below the royal box,” John said, suddenly breathless. “Sherlock, these are the most expensive seats you can get.”
“Oh, good. So you want to go, then.”
“Of course I do! Are you mad?”
“I thought I’d give them to Lestrade.”
“You are mad,” John said, but when he turned around Sherlock was grinning. “Oh piss off,” he said, but it didn’t carry any heat. Being teased by Sherlock was a bit like being indulged by a tiger, and John also loved danger.
“You’ll have to explain it to me,” Sherlock said, flinging himself onto the sofa and lifting an eyebrow in John’s direction.
“Yes,” John agreed, scrambling for his laptop. “Yes, of course. Are you busy right now? Because this’ll take a while. I played after university, you know.”
“I know,” Sherlock said. “Scars on your knees; the one on your upper lip; your dislocated shoulder.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“It’s the other shoulder from the one that got shot.”
“That’s not- never mind.” John pushed Sherlock to the side and opened the laptop. “You actually want to learn something new that’s not relevant to a case?”
“It might be relevant in the future,” Sherlock said, noncommittally. He stretched his long arms over his head and then lay them along the back of the couch, thumb just brushing the back of John’s twice-dislocated shoulder.
“Right then,” John said, flustered.
“Are we going to watch the video of you getting absolutely murdered by that fellow from Richmond?”
“Shut up and let me explain,” John said, “and then you’ll tell me where you found that video, you scheming prat.”
27.
John shifted the Tesco's bag to his other hand and grabbed hold of the banister. In his exhausted state, the stairs looked especially daunting. He took a deep breath and started up the mountain. About two-thirds of the way to the top, he stopped, hearing angry voices reverberating through the flat.
"Really, Sherlock, if you wanted my attention, there are easier ways to go about it," Mycroft drawled.
Sherlock scoffed. "I don't want anything from you, least of all attention. If you displayed even half the intelligence you claim to have..."
Lowering his eyes, John mentally sighed. He glanced back down the steps, wondering if he could escape before either of them noticed. Perhaps he could hide at the clinic.
"John, do stop dawdling and get in here," Sherlock called.
John cringed, then squared his shoulders and finished ascending the stairs. "I'm not getting in the middle of you two," he announced as he took off his coat, hanging it on the hook. The brothers were in their favorite positions-facing each other like opposing generals on the field of battle.
"I was merely informing Sherlock that, as the elder sibling," Mycroft said, "it's my duty to care for my younger brother. Watch out for his welfare, whether or not he thinks it necessary."
"To which I responded that whatever I do is none of his business," Sherlock scathingly added.
"I'm not taking sides, dammit!" John burst out, flushing as two pairs of eyes fixed on him.
John knew he'd given away too much, and couldn't endure the intensity of the twin stares, especially right now. Trying to spare himself, John hurried into the kitchen and started unpacking the groceries. There weren't many, so to avoid going back out to the main room, he filled the kettle and placed it on the burner.
He heard Mycroft leave.
By the time the water was boiling, Sherlock was leaning against the doorframe. "What's she done this time?"
John shook his head. "Nothing."
"Hmmm." Sherlock raised an eyebrow and watched John pour water into the teapot.
Used to such scrutiny, John ignored it. He knew whatever expression was on his face, whatever his body language related, whatever infinitesimal clue he was displaying, Sherlock would see. No use trying to hide anything, and John wasn't sure he wanted to. If there was anyone who could understand the maddening nature of siblings, it would be Sherlock.
Finally, Sherlock walked into the kitchen, standing on the other side of the table. "How is she?" he asked gently...for Sherlock.
Even after all the times he'd seen Sherlock pull someone's life history out of virtually nothing, it still impressed John. Though he wondered what had given it away, this time he wasn't in the mood to ask. "She'll live."
"But for how much longer if she keeps going on like she has been?"
"Apparently, it's 'none of my business,'" John reported with a sneer.
Sherlock grunted. "Then why did she call you?"
"Habit, most likely."
"And why did you respond?"
"The same."
"You need to break off all contact. You can't help and she's only making you miserable."
John winced. "I can't not love her."
"Have you tried?" Sherlock countered.
"Yes."
Sherlock paused, as if the answer had surprised him.
"You haven't cut yourself off from your brother," John reminded.
"Oh, believe me," Sherlock said, "I have endeavored to do so."
Smiling wryly, John shook his head. "If you really wanted to, you could disappear and Mycroft would never find you. You haven't." He finally turned to face Sherlock. "Tea?" he asked, silently pleading his flatmate-his friend-to let it be for once.
And, for once, Sherlock seemed to understand. He nodded. "Yes, please."
They drank their tea in silence.
28.
If Fate is anything, she’s a comedian. Not a good comedian, like Eddie Izzard. She’s more like Dane Cook. Essentially, a comedian who thinks she’s funny as all fuck because she appeals to drunken frat boys and drunken hooligans and, really, anyone drunk. Her jokes would center on digging your nose into shit and then yelling at you about how funny it was.
Basically, Fate is a dick.
And Love…Love just makes shit worse.
--
On the night John tells Sarah in stumbling, certain terms that he is not in love with her, that he likes her as a friend and he doesn’t not want to have a relationship to her, but he just can’t torture the two of them by not being honest and being in a relationship that will, ultimately, end very badly, he tells Sherlock in stumbling, certain terms that he is desperately, horribly, painfully in love with him, that he wants to be by his side for the rest of their lives, however short that might be, and he has to be honest with him because if he wasn’t Sherlock would find out anyway and he would rather start their life together with as much clarity as he can.
It is the only time in John’s life that Sherlock genuinely says he’s sorry.
--
If Love is anything, she’s the stupid friend on a sitcom. Love is the neighbor that brings a six-pack, that just so happens to be a three-pack, whoops, after your dog has been run over three days prior but had been stashed in a trashcan because the person who ran it over (the guy who just brought you a three-pack) wanted to tell you that your dog ran away before he bought a “replacement” dog.
Basically, Love is a necessary dick.
But Happiness…Happiness pisses on your dead dog.
--
“I’m seeing someone.”
John looked up from his plate of noodles and stared at Sherlock. He was as serious as a stone and looking out the window, just past John’s right ear.
John dipped his head back down. “That’s good. That’s very good.”
“It’s a man.”
John continued to nod, though the muscles in his neck ticked with a sudden stiffness. “Well, like I said. It’s all good.”
“You know him.”
John put down his fork. “If you haven’t noticed,” John hissed, “I don’t really care.”
“Of course you do” Sherlock said. “You would ask questions if you didn’t.”
John rubbed his eyes. “Do you ever stop doing that?”
Sherlock’s eyes shifted an inch. “I wanted to tell you.”
John opened his mouth, but then looked into his lap and closed it. He ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. He thought of what great amount of trust Sherlock must have in him to tell him that there was another man. He thought what a wonderful and close relationship they must have. He thought that he should be happy, touched, elated, instead of feeling the wormy noodles wriggle through his stomach.
“Thank you” John said. He picked up his fork and started eating again.
--
Happiness is the couple that gets together at the end of a romantic comedy. They’re perfect for each other, proving their nearly-impossible relationship through a series of banal, predictable, easily avoidable hijinks that make them look simultaneously like horny monkeys and the intellectually challenged. And yet, they’re perfect for each other, and you’re left with the sensation that maybe, one day, you can have credits rolls over your face as you kiss the person you love in front of a tangerine sunset.
Basically, Happiness is the end of the story.
--
The first time John sees Sherlock with his boyfriend, DI Dimmock, they had just been kissing. Steeped in the holy light of a street lamp and kissed by gnats, Sherlock and some man John barely recognized stood forehead-to-forehead, breath exchanged between their slightly parted, panting mouths like a wonderful secret. He watched as Dimmock’s thumb ghosted over Sherlock’s chin before they both stepped away and the officer disappeared into shadows.
John stood several feet away and watched as Sherlock turned to him and jerked his head towards 221B. “Are you coming?”
It was a moment that John should’ve reviled. He just found the love of his life kissing someone else and he wasn’t angry. He wasn’t happy, certainly, but there was a sense of easy acceptance. He was…fine. He was fine.
With only a moment’s hesitation to consider his emotions, John walked.
29.
At four, Sherlock fell off the tree in their gardens. He had clamored up to observe the habits of a Sphodromantis viridis. Had it not been for the timely intervention of Mycroft's body, Sherlock would have broken a bone. That would have been most undesirable. Mycroft didn’t notice the pain in his wrist until he lifted Sherlock to his arms, but then Sherlock pressed his face to Mycroft’s neck and chubby short fingers clutched his shirt.
It wasn't too long of a walk home and Mycroft’s wrist was most likely only sprained, not broken.
Mycroft understood the importance of delegation from an early age. Brian Striker was as thick as he was huge, but even the less intellectually gifted had their uses. And when Striker had a few words with his younger cousins-or whatever passed for communication in that family-about the certain evils of bullying, there would be no evidence leading back to Mycroft.
But even in primary school, Sherlock proved to be a nonbeliever of coincidence. He returned from class the next day unscathed for once, but mute. He glared at Mycroft over the dinner table and did not speak to him for a week.
Mycroft still considered it money well spent.
Sebastian was a man who boasted too much. He mocked, he preyed, he collected jeering followers and took delight in throwing out verbal barbs and vicious rumors. He had a natural instinct for capitalizing on the weakness of others. He would have been quite at home in Whitehall.
It was unfortunate that every application Sebastian submitted for a political internship was turned down.
The experience could have possibly net him contacts for an ambitious career after uni. Sebastian's lofty aspirations fell to the private sector instead. Sherlock said nothing but he did not come home from uni that summer.
Next Christmas found Mycroft staring across the dining table at a hollow-cheeked, sunken-eyed, twenty-year-old Sherlock. He looked utterly depleted. Mycroft reluctantly resolved to inquire after Sherlock. After all, another holiday like this would upset Mummy.
But the interviews with Sherlock's professors, his classmates, his former flatmates, the vendor across the street from his flat, the cabbie who picked him up from class, the woman who jogged by him yesterday morning, and the receptionist in the uni library Sherlock frequently visited bore no useful information, only vague misgivings. Then Mycroft lost him entirely.
Mycroft found it irritating, wasting time locating the newest hovel Sherlock had fled to; especially when there were delicate situations in certain parts of the world requiring his full attention. But the blank area on Sherlock's latest surveillance reports distracted him; he didn't like incomplete work. Mycroft stalked streets, tunnels, decrepit buildings. A week later, he found himself brushing a numb hand across clammy skin on a body curled, passed out on a poor excuse of a mattress, checking for a pulse.
He did not climb into the ambulance as it drove away with Sherlock. Nor was he in the vehicle that took Sherlock to an undisclosed country home. He was needed elsewhere. Besides, reports were sent daily for Mycroft to read, should he be interested.
DI Lestrade proved to be harmless as Mycroft’s research suggested. Nevertheless, when he started allowing Sherlock into his crime scenes with SOCO, Mycroft ordered surveillance for the detective inspector.
The next week, a shattered mobile, its GPS tracker conspicuously absent, was sent to his office. That it was sent to his office at a supposedly unknown location did not surprise him. Minutes later, Mycroft received a text from an undisclosed number with just the word 'Stop'.
Mycroft simply upped the surveillance to level two.
The man-military, psychosomatic limp, insomniac-gazed back unflinching, unafraid, demanding to know why. Bravery like that deserved a reward. Mycroft answered.
"I worry about him. Constantly."
"Well that's nice of you."
Nice, Mycroft thought.
Nice. As nice as keeping one’s own heart whole, Mycroft supposed.
The End
30.
It will be three months to the day that John told Sherlock he loved him.
(…the pulse of his heart thrums behind his ears and the words thrust themselves from his mouth and the gun shakes and the devil laughs and it’s all gone in a flash of heat and pain and the look of surprise on my face, can you see…)
Three months to the day since John blinked, and opened his eyes to white on white, too much light, tubes, wires and the nightmare.
(…the devil rips out his heart, beating beating beating, and sets it aflame, grasping it in his claws as it churns with fire…)
Three months and he can still hear the words.
(…right near the explosion… nothing left… took them both to the grave…)
When he wakes up tomorrow morning, he will try to stand. He will forget the scars that map his legs, half-muscles embedded with stone and shrapnel, and he will fall. It will wake his lover. Deep brown eyes will meet grey-blue ones and in silence they will start to cry.
He will remember Sherlock, and loving him. How loving him was the hardest thing he could ever do to himself. But somehow it didn’t hurt when Sherlock glanced with a disapproving eye at John’s infinite humanity, or less than encouraged his attempts at his own amateur deductions. It was easier for John to love him and never have him.
(…never know how much it will ache, it will burn when he’s gone and how fending off regrets proves useless…)
He will not visit the grave. The graveyard is too vast, the gravestone too simple. He had tried once to make the journey there, wrap a scarf around the stone, speak to the ground and the lost loved spirit like so many others did. But the rows of grey stone and cut grass and cross and flower will suffocate him. He will not want to read the gravestone, or brush it with his fingertips as if…
(…here lies Sherlock… odds are he would not have liked you…)
John will not think of the explosion. Instead, he will watch telly. The people on the screen will try their best to make him laugh, cry, get angry, leave him feeling something. But he will stare at the screen in the chair that had been Sherlock’s, curled up with his feet beneath him, tracing the shape of the scars through his jeans.
A hand will cover his and he will look up. The late hour will cast an angelic incandescence on the older man’s face, feeding color and mystery to broad form as Lestrade gently helps John to stand.
(…remember when I told you I needed you and you left… I did not find someone else for the longest time…not like you…)
John will hurt. It isn’t love they make, or lust. They are two naked souls sharing the pain of his memory, the body giving them only the reactions they need for physical relief. John will ache. Not with pleasure, the friction of bare skin against bare skin, not with arousal or the sensations when orgasm finally claims him, John only half-committing to the feelings. He ache for Sherlock. They both will. So after they have shared and lay silent against each other, John’s eyes will leak tears slowly down onto Lestrade’s chest, joining the inspector’s own.
(…I never told you I loved you… love was too far away for you to reach…)
He will turn away, curl into himself and dry his eyes. He wants to whisper ‘I love you’ to Sherlock, pretend, if only for one moment, that his body was the one stretched out bare beside him. But he will be silent, the dull echo of love churning through him, if only just a memory remaining.
Part Four: Entries 31 - 40 >>
Warning: Off-screen character death
Blog of John H. Watson, M.D.
Official Biography of Mr Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective
---14.02.2042---
In all those years I have now been living with Sherlock, I have attended many occasions were he was the centre of attention - not that I was surprised. After the Moriarty-affair and our near-death at the swimming pool, he had risen to become one of the most famous and most talked about detectives of all time. He certainly never was doubtful of his skill.
While I, after a time, was quite content to be mentioned as his partner, and, by people who knew us more closely, his friend, our other acquaintances of those early days were seldom mentioned, much less often honourably.
Some of them, of course, have already passed on long ago, as now both Sherlock and I are feeling old age creeping in upon us. However, I feel that on this day of all days I have to mention one of our dearest companions, who has been with us right from the start until this day - the day which marks both her death and Sherlock's retirement.
For many years I have thought it would be impossible for Sherlock to ever take such a step, but we both agree that if the date had to come at any time, it was just as well that it should come today - I fear that even my writing has become affected by my age, seeming stale and much less modern than it once was.
At any rate, this entry should be in honour of that one person. I have often wondered, and so, I think, has Sherlock, why she did put up with us, or, at least, him. Sherlock was certainly the worst tenant in existence, and his habits and lifestyle were erratic. As his job flourished, we often received clients, not only Inspector Lestrade, directly in our flat, and they were more often than not of a kind that people tend to pass quickly in the street. Over the years, I learned to understand that it was far more than the gratitude for Sherlock's favour even before I knew him, and I think that over the years even Sherlock softened towards her. Perhaps it would be wise to mention that Sherlock has changed, as well - he certainly does have a heart, and a great one at that.
I know that Mrs Hudson loved him like a son, despite all the shocks he gave her in his long career. I remember one occasion at the hight of Sherlock's career, when he deemed it wise to break into 221 Baker Street through the kitchen window facing into the parlour after he had passed through the empty house next to ours in impeccable disguise to shake off a pursuer! Mrs Hudson, of course, had been working in the kitchen, and I could have sworn that her shriek would have shattered even the phials of Sherlock's most recent experiment on our kitchen table.
She had the patience of a saint, to be sure. She never kicked us out, which, in itself, was a miracle, and as the years passed, she even took to making us tea when we came home, exhausted from the latest chase. Neither of us could get sick without her fussing over us, and if Sherlock's iron condition broke down under the strain he constantly put on it, she would stay by his side long after his irritable behaviour had driven even me away. She even coped better with Sherlock's black moods, as we have dubbed his phases of boredom, coaxing him into watching ridiculous day time TV with her, later discovering the old Agatha Christie mysteries on DVD.
I believe that Sherlock, for his part, appreciated her effort more than he would ever let on, and he treated her with respect whenever he was not too caught up in a case to really notice much of the world around him. I would even go so far as to say that he did love her in return. If I would have needed any more proof, the fact that he attended the funeral without fuss and that he decided that this day would be the day to end his career were enough. I have not often seen Sherlock cry...
--- ---
Comments - (1)
SH - John, usually I would have criticized you for your ridiculously romantic style, but I think on this occasion I won't. Thank you for putting it into words.
22.
Sherlock was firmly of the opinion that you didn't have to have been in love to understand love. Or, if not precisely understand it, to be able to use the available data to predict the outcome. For all intents and purposes, the two were the same.
*
"What reason did she give?" he asked, when John came in slightly early one evening and sat down heavily in the armchair rather than going to put the kettle on.
"What?" John said, looking startled, as if he hadn't realised Sherlock was in the room. Sherlock frowned, but repeated himself.
"What reason did Jennifer give for ending your burgeoning relationship?"
"The same reason they always give," John said, sounding actually annoyed. Sherlock felt a stirring of unease deep in his belly.
"Which is?" he asked, more sharply than he'd perhaps intended, his mind occupied with running back over the ends of John's previous relationships. Sarah…well, obvious why that ended. The Chinese equivalent of a harpoon gun and then your boyfriend almost getting blown up was enough to deter anyone not fully determined. Then there had been Anna, what had happened to her? And Lucy? Sherlock frowned, realising that he couldn't actually remember why John had stopped dating those women, just that he'd been grateful that John had stopped chasing after them.
"Never mind," John said. "It doesn't matter." He stood up abruptly and walked, no, stalked over to the kitchen. Sherlock watched his retreating back in alarm. He heard the sound of John taking the kettle from its stand and moving towards the sink, but he didn't hear him turn the tap on. Almost despite himself, Sherlock found himself getting up and moving towards the kitchen, coming to a halt in the doorway.
John was standing with both hands braced against the edge of the sink, head bowed. He looked…defeated, but that didn't make sense, he hadn't been very attached to Jennifer, had only slept with her twice and the sex had been mediocre both times.
"What reason did she give?" asked Sherlock insistently. He can't remember if he's ever repeated himself three times before. For a long moment, he thought John wasn't going to answer. Then he straightened up and turned to Sherlock, face set, and Sherlock almost took a step backwards at his expression.
"I'm going to start looking for somewhere else to live," John said, and Sherlock was grateful that he was already holding onto the doorframe, he just hoped that John hadn't noticed the way his fingers tightened on the wood until his knuckles were white.
"You can't," he said, knowing how stupid it was even as he said it.
"I'm sorry," said John, averting his eyes and moving towards Sherlock…no, towards the door. Without thinking, Sherlock reached out, grabbing John's arm and bringing him to a standstill. John stopped, looking up at him, so close...
They stared at each other for what seemed like forever, Sherlock trying to calm his racing thoughts and work out what this meant, work out what any of this meant. John's hand suddenly covered his and Sherlock had a moment of blinding clarity...but then John was untangling Sherlock's fingers from his jumper before moving past him and up the stairs. Sherlock slumped in the doorway, staring at the kettle abandoned by the sink, mind completely blank.
*
Later, much later, he reflected that he had forgotten that love makes people unpredictable.
23.
Yao Soo-Lin, (whose family name means ‘mother-of-pearl,’ whose first name means nothing at all,) is blessed with one thousand memories, each one round and smooth within her mind. The one which glows brightest is from when she is seven years old, and it glows like this:
She is curled into a knot of dark skin and black hair at the bottom of her mother’s laundry bucket. Hot water steams around her, and more is boiling on the stove. Nearby her mother stands, one teapot in each hand, a concerned expression on her face.
Soo-Lin has a head cold that is stubbornly refusing to go away.
“Do you feel better?” her mother asks her.
Soo-Lin shakes her head. Her mother walks over slowly and kneels, before tipping one teapot so that it pours over the other, amber liquid dribbling into the laundry bucket.
“Mò-lì-huā,” she says she pours. “Jasmine.” The aroma rises and clears Soo-Lin’s sinuses, brightens her eyes. She feels the ache leave her temples and leans back with a smile.
At the door, her brother stands, curious.
“Wait outside,” their mother orders.
Later, Soo-Lin rises from her tea bath, a few stray jasmine flowers stuck to her skin. Her mother drapes a blanket over her bony shoulders, and Soo-Lin pads out to find her brother seated in the kitchen, poking at spiders with a stick.
“Are you alright?” he murmurs, eyes fixed on his prey and their webs.
“I’m alright,” she says, pulling a flower from her arm and sticking it to her brother’s cheek.
Their mother dies when Soo-Lin is fifteen and her brother is twelve, and they end up on the streets. Work isn’t hard to find for girls, but Soo-Lin is too strong of will and refuses. There are other ways. She keeps her hands on her brother’s shoulders and continues to search.
The Tong recruits them within a two-month. Children are small and quick; children see what others don’t; children are told what others aren’t. The bosses like the look of Soo-Lin-she is pretty with a sweet tilt to her eyes and lips-but they don’t like her brother.
“His hands are too small-what can he carry?” they say.
“If he goes, I go,” she replies.
That night she and her brother sleep in a bed for the first time in weeks, her nose buried in his hair.
“I won’t ever leave you,” she promises.
“Good,” he says, spreading his fingers out against the sheets, willing them to grow.
She loses her use in a matter of years, when her bosses want her to take more than just drugs. Stolen artifacts, pinched from graves-jade jewelery, bone combs. Soo-Lin feels like she is handing her children away.
“Just things,” her brother says. He is still short, his hands still small, but these things no longer work against him. He is their acrobat, their spider. He comes home only once a week, smelling of a women and alcohol. He wants fast cars, clothes from Europe, shoes from America.
The bosses now want Soo-Lin to stop smuggling. They want her to be their pet, to bed her and pay her trinkets. And so, one evening, when she is eighteen, Soo-Lin brings one last package over the border to Hong Kong-a small crate of antique teapots. She keeps two, wraps them carefully, leaving the rest at the dropoff.
Then she disappears, and breaks her promise.
The pots she stole pay her way to England. She feels guilty about it, the memory hard and painful, even works in the museum to fix what she has broken, her days unchanging, her labor one of love.
Her brother comes on a rainy night in winter. He is older, with many lines on his face, the sight of him both welcome and terrifying. He asks her what he has come to ask her in the voice of a stranger.
“No,” she says.
After he leaves, she makes herself jasmine tea in a pot of plain, white porcelain. She drinks and watches the rain come down, her memories spinning within her head like pearls alongside her brother’s words.
“You left me. You betrayed me.”
Soo-Lin replied, “Still, I love you,” even though she has done both these things.
The night she dies, Soo-Lin leaves the basement door unbolted for a reason. Her brother crawls in like a spider, or a ghost, or a memory.
She goes with his gun to her head, and her hand on his cheek.
24.
When Molly brings him a coffee, she sucks on her finger and draws a heart on the side of the cup in her own saliva and waits for it to dry invisible before she gives it to him. Sherlock doesn’t even take a second glance at the cup, but she knows that the heart is right there under his fingers, and it makes her smile.
It’s ironic that the one thing that Sherlock can’t see is the one thing that is so obvious it hurts. Molly loves him more than she’s ever loved anything else in the world, and everyone knows it except him. She has tried being obvious. She has tried things that any sane man would be able to understand. But Sherlock’s one great flaw is that he wouldn’t know human emotion if it slapped him in the face, and maybe Molly loves that about him a little bit too.
Sherlock is anything but predictable, but Molly knows the few habits he has, and when she has time, she spends hours in his favorite coffee shop, hoping to run into him by happy coincidence. She lurks in the aisles of the Tesco closest to his flat, staring at the products and trying to guess which one he uses.
She runs into John one afternoon, buying a few things for the flat. When he leaves, Molly buys everything that John did, including a bottle of shampoo. When she goes back to her own flat and opens the shampoo, it smells like Sherlock. She showers with it, rubbing it all over her body.
Maybe the next time she sees Sherlock and he doesn’t notice that she’s there, it will be because she smells so much like Sherlock that she could be his own shadow.
His coat is heavy and swirly and gorgeous. He leaves it on a hook and when he isn’t around Molly tries it on, twirling to let it flare out. It wraps around her like a hug. Molly picks at the seam of the lining until a tiny section of it comes away from the fabric of the coat just at the neck. She clips a lock of her hair and winds it around her finger, then pokes it into the lining of the coat. She sews the lining back in place again with a single stitch, then hangs it on the hook again.
Sherlock spends nearly a week in St. Bart’s, investigating a case. A few new corpses arrive and Molly is able to hover nearby while Sherlock examines them thoroughly. His long fingers run over skin that she touched just minutes ago. She imagines that his fingers are soaking in the tiny warmth that her hands left on the corpse. He will never touch her the way he touches that corpse, but she is okay with that. She imagines that the corpse is a glove, the only thing separating his flesh from hers.
A few nights later, she finds him sitting in the lab, his head pillowed in his arms, sound asleep. By her calculations, he’s been awake for fifty-two hours now, so this is good for him. She’s careful not to wake him as she leans over his shoulder and lets her breath gust across his cheek. The moisture from her lungs settles on his skin, an invisible kiss. Later, when he wakes, he won’t even know it’s there.
But she will.
25.
Their love was probably one of a kind, unique and unheard of in the entire universe. If people were to know about it, about them, they would probably disapprove, or more likely: ignore the fact that they even came to the knowledge of such love being in existence. Their love was supposed to be nonexistent. Yet, there it was.
The Skull sighed deeply, or at least pretended he did because he hadn’t had lungs or a real mouth in decades. “Why, oh why, my dear, must we live through such difficult times?” he spoke. His eyeless sockets staring at the bright yellow smiley face that had been drawn onto the wall. “It is so unfair that I am doomed to sit upon this mantelpiece, for the rest of eternity.”
“Or until Mrs Hudson chucks you out again,” The Smiley Face replied sadly.
“Not that I am not pleased to look upon thine beautiful face,” The Skull said. He’d be weeping right now if he still had tear ducts. “I just wish I could be nearer. To touch thine face.”
“So do I, my love.” The single, yellow, curved line that represented The Smiley Face’s mouth changed from a smile to a pout.
A silence fell upon the two lovers.
“Skull of mine?” The Smiley Face said after a while.
“Yes, darling?”
“Would you mind citing some Shakespeare for me?” The Smiley Face asked. He loved to listen to the Skull’s voice. It was so deep and soothing. (The Smiley Face didn’t have any ears, but he could hear perfectly well. It must have been some odd occurrence of nature that happened every once in a while. Just like talking skulls and graffiti)
“Everything to please thee, my love.” During his youth, The Skull had been present at many a performance of Shakespeare’s plays. Over the years he had memorised every word of the most occurring ones, such as Hamlet (in which he had often starred himself) and Romeo and Juliet, his two favourites.
;;;
Sherlock was comfortably sitting on his sofa, trying to read a book about bees. Unfortunately for him he was constantly distracted by the lovey-dovey conversation The Skull and The Smiley Face were having with each other. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t painted that face on the wall. (He knew he never should have bought that paint from that weird shaman guy, he should have known that only trouble could have come from it)
Sherlock closed his book and left the room while The Skull and The Smiley Face continued their conversation.
When Sherlock passed John’s bedroom, he yelled: “Please, never let me buy any paint from a shaman again in the future. Or a skull from a guy claiming to be a warlock!” He slammed the door of his bedroom shut.
;;;
John entered the living room, coming home after a long and tiring day at work. At first he didn’t realise the change. It took him about a minute to realise something was very different in the room. “Sherlock!” he shouted, gently pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Yes!” Sherlock replied from the kitchen. “What is it?”
“Why did you move a cupboard behind the sofa?” John asked, not entirely sure if he actually wanted to know the answer.
“The Skull and The Smiley Face just wouldn’t keep quiet,” Sherlock replied. “So I told them I’d put them together if they promised to whisper from now on.”
John left the room and made a beeline for his bedroom.
;;;
“Skull?” The Smiley Face whispered, staying true to his promise.
“Yes, my dear?” The Skull replied, (mentally) smiling.
“I love you.”
“Love you too, darling.”
26.
John Watson loved many things, and he loved them easily. He loved milk in his tea, since it had been scarce in Afghanistan and it was plentiful in England. He loved the Scottish countryside, having traveled there every summer to visit his parents’ parents. He loved dogs, but mostly the medium sized ones, not the little yappy ones or the great jumping-on-you-knock-you-down ones, because they were clever and loyal and liked to have their bellies rubbed. He loved Sherlock, but that was a confusing, tangle of emotions that he didn’t entirely want to examine too closely just yet, so early in their friendship.
But his first love (well, perhaps that was a bit much: his first love had been seahorses at the age of six), his longest abiding love was Rugby. He’d played Wing at Blackheath when he was still a med student, and he’d been damn good, too. He wasn’t quite as fast anymore, but he could still keep up with a lanky, fit, consulting detective at a full run, so he wasn’t counting it as too much of a loss. That, or he’d been freakishly fast at twenty-two.
Now the only way he could get anywhere near the rush of playing in a match was by kicking Sherlock off the couch when it was on the telly instead. Sherlock bitched and moaned at the injustice, made a hazardous mess in the kitchen in retaliation, and John allowed himself not to care for an hour and a half. John imagined he could smell the air on the pitch, and it didn’t smell like weird experiments and Sherlock’s expensive shampoo: it smelled like sweat and dirt and late autumn air, like excitement and focus and plastic water bottles. He remembered the way his jersey reeked no matter how many times he washed it, and the feeling of his socks pulled up to his knees. He remembered the thrill of sidestepping a tackle, darting out of the way just in time and pelting on, ball tucked snug under his arm.
Sherlock didn’t even know what he was getting into when he opened an envelope from a client one time and sighed, “Oh hell, she’s paid me in tickets.”
“Tickets to what?” John asked from the doorway, hanging up his coat.
“Rugby match,” Sherlock said, throwing them down on the table. “England is playing Wales in a month.”
John approached the table slowly, almost unbelieving. “Sherlock, you’ve got to be kidding.”
“Oh that’s right,” Sherlock said, in the kitchen now, “you like Rugby, don’t you.”
“Er,” John said, peering at the tickets. There were two of them, all shiny and crisp peeking out of the envelope. If he picked them up, they might disappear.
“What’s the matter?” Sherlock asked, poking his head back into the sitting room. “John?”
“These seats are right below the royal box,” John said, suddenly breathless. “Sherlock, these are the most expensive seats you can get.”
“Oh, good. So you want to go, then.”
“Of course I do! Are you mad?”
“I thought I’d give them to Lestrade.”
“You are mad,” John said, but when he turned around Sherlock was grinning. “Oh piss off,” he said, but it didn’t carry any heat. Being teased by Sherlock was a bit like being indulged by a tiger, and John also loved danger.
“You’ll have to explain it to me,” Sherlock said, flinging himself onto the sofa and lifting an eyebrow in John’s direction.
“Yes,” John agreed, scrambling for his laptop. “Yes, of course. Are you busy right now? Because this’ll take a while. I played after university, you know.”
“I know,” Sherlock said. “Scars on your knees; the one on your upper lip; your dislocated shoulder.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“It’s the other shoulder from the one that got shot.”
“That’s not- never mind.” John pushed Sherlock to the side and opened the laptop. “You actually want to learn something new that’s not relevant to a case?”
“It might be relevant in the future,” Sherlock said, noncommittally. He stretched his long arms over his head and then lay them along the back of the couch, thumb just brushing the back of John’s twice-dislocated shoulder.
“Right then,” John said, flustered.
“Are we going to watch the video of you getting absolutely murdered by that fellow from Richmond?”
“Shut up and let me explain,” John said, “and then you’ll tell me where you found that video, you scheming prat.”
27.
John shifted the Tesco's bag to his other hand and grabbed hold of the banister. In his exhausted state, the stairs looked especially daunting. He took a deep breath and started up the mountain. About two-thirds of the way to the top, he stopped, hearing angry voices reverberating through the flat.
"Really, Sherlock, if you wanted my attention, there are easier ways to go about it," Mycroft drawled.
Sherlock scoffed. "I don't want anything from you, least of all attention. If you displayed even half the intelligence you claim to have..."
Lowering his eyes, John mentally sighed. He glanced back down the steps, wondering if he could escape before either of them noticed. Perhaps he could hide at the clinic.
"John, do stop dawdling and get in here," Sherlock called.
John cringed, then squared his shoulders and finished ascending the stairs. "I'm not getting in the middle of you two," he announced as he took off his coat, hanging it on the hook. The brothers were in their favorite positions-facing each other like opposing generals on the field of battle.
"I was merely informing Sherlock that, as the elder sibling," Mycroft said, "it's my duty to care for my younger brother. Watch out for his welfare, whether or not he thinks it necessary."
"To which I responded that whatever I do is none of his business," Sherlock scathingly added.
"I'm not taking sides, dammit!" John burst out, flushing as two pairs of eyes fixed on him.
John knew he'd given away too much, and couldn't endure the intensity of the twin stares, especially right now. Trying to spare himself, John hurried into the kitchen and started unpacking the groceries. There weren't many, so to avoid going back out to the main room, he filled the kettle and placed it on the burner.
He heard Mycroft leave.
By the time the water was boiling, Sherlock was leaning against the doorframe. "What's she done this time?"
John shook his head. "Nothing."
"Hmmm." Sherlock raised an eyebrow and watched John pour water into the teapot.
Used to such scrutiny, John ignored it. He knew whatever expression was on his face, whatever his body language related, whatever infinitesimal clue he was displaying, Sherlock would see. No use trying to hide anything, and John wasn't sure he wanted to. If there was anyone who could understand the maddening nature of siblings, it would be Sherlock.
Finally, Sherlock walked into the kitchen, standing on the other side of the table. "How is she?" he asked gently...for Sherlock.
Even after all the times he'd seen Sherlock pull someone's life history out of virtually nothing, it still impressed John. Though he wondered what had given it away, this time he wasn't in the mood to ask. "She'll live."
"But for how much longer if she keeps going on like she has been?"
"Apparently, it's 'none of my business,'" John reported with a sneer.
Sherlock grunted. "Then why did she call you?"
"Habit, most likely."
"And why did you respond?"
"The same."
"You need to break off all contact. You can't help and she's only making you miserable."
John winced. "I can't not love her."
"Have you tried?" Sherlock countered.
"Yes."
Sherlock paused, as if the answer had surprised him.
"You haven't cut yourself off from your brother," John reminded.
"Oh, believe me," Sherlock said, "I have endeavored to do so."
Smiling wryly, John shook his head. "If you really wanted to, you could disappear and Mycroft would never find you. You haven't." He finally turned to face Sherlock. "Tea?" he asked, silently pleading his flatmate-his friend-to let it be for once.
And, for once, Sherlock seemed to understand. He nodded. "Yes, please."
They drank their tea in silence.
28.
If Fate is anything, she’s a comedian. Not a good comedian, like Eddie Izzard. She’s more like Dane Cook. Essentially, a comedian who thinks she’s funny as all fuck because she appeals to drunken frat boys and drunken hooligans and, really, anyone drunk. Her jokes would center on digging your nose into shit and then yelling at you about how funny it was.
Basically, Fate is a dick.
And Love…Love just makes shit worse.
--
On the night John tells Sarah in stumbling, certain terms that he is not in love with her, that he likes her as a friend and he doesn’t not want to have a relationship to her, but he just can’t torture the two of them by not being honest and being in a relationship that will, ultimately, end very badly, he tells Sherlock in stumbling, certain terms that he is desperately, horribly, painfully in love with him, that he wants to be by his side for the rest of their lives, however short that might be, and he has to be honest with him because if he wasn’t Sherlock would find out anyway and he would rather start their life together with as much clarity as he can.
It is the only time in John’s life that Sherlock genuinely says he’s sorry.
--
If Love is anything, she’s the stupid friend on a sitcom. Love is the neighbor that brings a six-pack, that just so happens to be a three-pack, whoops, after your dog has been run over three days prior but had been stashed in a trashcan because the person who ran it over (the guy who just brought you a three-pack) wanted to tell you that your dog ran away before he bought a “replacement” dog.
Basically, Love is a necessary dick.
But Happiness…Happiness pisses on your dead dog.
--
“I’m seeing someone.”
John looked up from his plate of noodles and stared at Sherlock. He was as serious as a stone and looking out the window, just past John’s right ear.
John dipped his head back down. “That’s good. That’s very good.”
“It’s a man.”
John continued to nod, though the muscles in his neck ticked with a sudden stiffness. “Well, like I said. It’s all good.”
“You know him.”
John put down his fork. “If you haven’t noticed,” John hissed, “I don’t really care.”
“Of course you do” Sherlock said. “You would ask questions if you didn’t.”
John rubbed his eyes. “Do you ever stop doing that?”
Sherlock’s eyes shifted an inch. “I wanted to tell you.”
John opened his mouth, but then looked into his lap and closed it. He ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. He thought of what great amount of trust Sherlock must have in him to tell him that there was another man. He thought what a wonderful and close relationship they must have. He thought that he should be happy, touched, elated, instead of feeling the wormy noodles wriggle through his stomach.
“Thank you” John said. He picked up his fork and started eating again.
--
Happiness is the couple that gets together at the end of a romantic comedy. They’re perfect for each other, proving their nearly-impossible relationship through a series of banal, predictable, easily avoidable hijinks that make them look simultaneously like horny monkeys and the intellectually challenged. And yet, they’re perfect for each other, and you’re left with the sensation that maybe, one day, you can have credits rolls over your face as you kiss the person you love in front of a tangerine sunset.
Basically, Happiness is the end of the story.
--
The first time John sees Sherlock with his boyfriend, DI Dimmock, they had just been kissing. Steeped in the holy light of a street lamp and kissed by gnats, Sherlock and some man John barely recognized stood forehead-to-forehead, breath exchanged between their slightly parted, panting mouths like a wonderful secret. He watched as Dimmock’s thumb ghosted over Sherlock’s chin before they both stepped away and the officer disappeared into shadows.
John stood several feet away and watched as Sherlock turned to him and jerked his head towards 221B. “Are you coming?”
It was a moment that John should’ve reviled. He just found the love of his life kissing someone else and he wasn’t angry. He wasn’t happy, certainly, but there was a sense of easy acceptance. He was…fine. He was fine.
With only a moment’s hesitation to consider his emotions, John walked.
29.
At four, Sherlock fell off the tree in their gardens. He had clamored up to observe the habits of a Sphodromantis viridis. Had it not been for the timely intervention of Mycroft's body, Sherlock would have broken a bone. That would have been most undesirable. Mycroft didn’t notice the pain in his wrist until he lifted Sherlock to his arms, but then Sherlock pressed his face to Mycroft’s neck and chubby short fingers clutched his shirt.
It wasn't too long of a walk home and Mycroft’s wrist was most likely only sprained, not broken.
Mycroft understood the importance of delegation from an early age. Brian Striker was as thick as he was huge, but even the less intellectually gifted had their uses. And when Striker had a few words with his younger cousins-or whatever passed for communication in that family-about the certain evils of bullying, there would be no evidence leading back to Mycroft.
But even in primary school, Sherlock proved to be a nonbeliever of coincidence. He returned from class the next day unscathed for once, but mute. He glared at Mycroft over the dinner table and did not speak to him for a week.
Mycroft still considered it money well spent.
Sebastian was a man who boasted too much. He mocked, he preyed, he collected jeering followers and took delight in throwing out verbal barbs and vicious rumors. He had a natural instinct for capitalizing on the weakness of others. He would have been quite at home in Whitehall.
It was unfortunate that every application Sebastian submitted for a political internship was turned down.
The experience could have possibly net him contacts for an ambitious career after uni. Sebastian's lofty aspirations fell to the private sector instead. Sherlock said nothing but he did not come home from uni that summer.
Next Christmas found Mycroft staring across the dining table at a hollow-cheeked, sunken-eyed, twenty-year-old Sherlock. He looked utterly depleted. Mycroft reluctantly resolved to inquire after Sherlock. After all, another holiday like this would upset Mummy.
But the interviews with Sherlock's professors, his classmates, his former flatmates, the vendor across the street from his flat, the cabbie who picked him up from class, the woman who jogged by him yesterday morning, and the receptionist in the uni library Sherlock frequently visited bore no useful information, only vague misgivings. Then Mycroft lost him entirely.
Mycroft found it irritating, wasting time locating the newest hovel Sherlock had fled to; especially when there were delicate situations in certain parts of the world requiring his full attention. But the blank area on Sherlock's latest surveillance reports distracted him; he didn't like incomplete work. Mycroft stalked streets, tunnels, decrepit buildings. A week later, he found himself brushing a numb hand across clammy skin on a body curled, passed out on a poor excuse of a mattress, checking for a pulse.
He did not climb into the ambulance as it drove away with Sherlock. Nor was he in the vehicle that took Sherlock to an undisclosed country home. He was needed elsewhere. Besides, reports were sent daily for Mycroft to read, should he be interested.
DI Lestrade proved to be harmless as Mycroft’s research suggested. Nevertheless, when he started allowing Sherlock into his crime scenes with SOCO, Mycroft ordered surveillance for the detective inspector.
The next week, a shattered mobile, its GPS tracker conspicuously absent, was sent to his office. That it was sent to his office at a supposedly unknown location did not surprise him. Minutes later, Mycroft received a text from an undisclosed number with just the word 'Stop'.
Mycroft simply upped the surveillance to level two.
The man-military, psychosomatic limp, insomniac-gazed back unflinching, unafraid, demanding to know why. Bravery like that deserved a reward. Mycroft answered.
"I worry about him. Constantly."
"Well that's nice of you."
Nice, Mycroft thought.
Nice. As nice as keeping one’s own heart whole, Mycroft supposed.
The End
30.
It will be three months to the day that John told Sherlock he loved him.
(…the pulse of his heart thrums behind his ears and the words thrust themselves from his mouth and the gun shakes and the devil laughs and it’s all gone in a flash of heat and pain and the look of surprise on my face, can you see…)
Three months to the day since John blinked, and opened his eyes to white on white, too much light, tubes, wires and the nightmare.
(…the devil rips out his heart, beating beating beating, and sets it aflame, grasping it in his claws as it churns with fire…)
Three months and he can still hear the words.
(…right near the explosion… nothing left… took them both to the grave…)
When he wakes up tomorrow morning, he will try to stand. He will forget the scars that map his legs, half-muscles embedded with stone and shrapnel, and he will fall. It will wake his lover. Deep brown eyes will meet grey-blue ones and in silence they will start to cry.
He will remember Sherlock, and loving him. How loving him was the hardest thing he could ever do to himself. But somehow it didn’t hurt when Sherlock glanced with a disapproving eye at John’s infinite humanity, or less than encouraged his attempts at his own amateur deductions. It was easier for John to love him and never have him.
(…never know how much it will ache, it will burn when he’s gone and how fending off regrets proves useless…)
He will not visit the grave. The graveyard is too vast, the gravestone too simple. He had tried once to make the journey there, wrap a scarf around the stone, speak to the ground and the lost loved spirit like so many others did. But the rows of grey stone and cut grass and cross and flower will suffocate him. He will not want to read the gravestone, or brush it with his fingertips as if…
(…here lies Sherlock… odds are he would not have liked you…)
John will not think of the explosion. Instead, he will watch telly. The people on the screen will try their best to make him laugh, cry, get angry, leave him feeling something. But he will stare at the screen in the chair that had been Sherlock’s, curled up with his feet beneath him, tracing the shape of the scars through his jeans.
A hand will cover his and he will look up. The late hour will cast an angelic incandescence on the older man’s face, feeding color and mystery to broad form as Lestrade gently helps John to stand.
(…remember when I told you I needed you and you left… I did not find someone else for the longest time…not like you…)
John will hurt. It isn’t love they make, or lust. They are two naked souls sharing the pain of his memory, the body giving them only the reactions they need for physical relief. John will ache. Not with pleasure, the friction of bare skin against bare skin, not with arousal or the sensations when orgasm finally claims him, John only half-committing to the feelings. He ache for Sherlock. They both will. So after they have shared and lay silent against each other, John’s eyes will leak tears slowly down onto Lestrade’s chest, joining the inspector’s own.
(…I never told you I loved you… love was too far away for you to reach…)
He will turn away, curl into himself and dry his eyes. He wants to whisper ‘I love you’ to Sherlock, pretend, if only for one moment, that his body was the one stretched out bare beside him. But he will be silent, the dull echo of love churning through him, if only just a memory remaining.
Part Four: Entries 31 - 40 >>