Fic: Chameleon
Title: Chameleon
Pairing: Eventual Sherlock/John, iffily platonic Harry/John, spoilery: eventual Sebastian Moran/John
Rating: R
Features/Warnings: Crossover with the Sentinel, AU, Plotfic. Forced Bonding, Non-con, coersion, imprisonment, incesty vibes, mild violence.
Summary: Written for This Prompt: In a world filled with Sentinels with heightened senses, strength and endurance, and Guides, with seductive empathy, who knew that seeming "ordinary" could be John's greatest strength.
Word count: 5000
A/N: Because I've rewritten a portion of this, I'm moving it from the meme to my LJ, even though it's not yet complete.
Prologue
June 1987
John followed Harry through the fields of heather and scrub to the oak tree where long ago they’d made their fort. They were too damn old for the treehouse now - Harry at sixteen, John a year younger - but that didn’t stop Harry from levering herself up the branches until she stood on the rain-warped, age-enfeebled planking. It bent slightly under her weight but held. Which was good, because if it broke, she’d be dropped unceremoniously twenty feet down into the dry ditch beneath. Broken legs would be a bad way to start the summer.
Harry didn’t worry. She never did. She was, after all, going to be Sentinel one day, and her life would be filled with adventure and danger. Or so she’d been saying since she was six.
And who knew, she might be right. It was in the family blood. So much so that the generations that the Watson clan didn’t produce at least one Sentinel had been full of accusations of weak blood and moral decay. Harry and John’s generation had already produced three likely candidates, and the whole clan couldn’t stop crowing over the abundance.
None of those three were John, though. Just as Harry was destined for greatness, he was destined for ordinariness. Just as she’d kept her eyes on the horizon, he’d kept his on his feet. Such was life.
There was nothing to be done about it. There was no way into that guaranteed a path to clan pride and approval. No matter how bravely he tagged along on Harry’s adventures, he simply wasn’t Sentinel material. Because that was it - he tagged. He’d follow her down any dark cave or up any rickety tree, but without Harry it wouldn’t have occurred to him to do either. He was hopelessly fated to be a follower. A listener of other people’s stories, never having one for himself.
A dark, angry part of John secretly hoped that despite all indications, Harry wouldn’t be a Sentinel after all. Her senses hadn’t kicked in yet; maybe they never would. Then she’d just be ordinary like him. If that were the case, everything would stay the same. She wouldn’t go on to glory and leave him behind. She wouldn’t be the favorite anymore.
But now, as he watched her climb further up and settle herself like some cat in the twisted branches above, he knew that wouldn’t happen. Harry was right. She was a Sentinel. He could damn well sense it, like a glow about her. And just as well; failure would be humiliating for Harry after bragging all these years. Jealous as he was, he really didn’t wish that on her.
John gingerly settled on the old planking of their tree-fort, not trusting himself enough to join Harry in the thinner branches above. He let out a breath as the chipboard bent and creaked, and tried not to look at the drop down to the dry creak. “Why are we here?” he asked her.
“I need to be somewhere extra quiet,” said Harry. “I need to test something.” There was a trill of excitement in her voice that really could only mean one thing.
“Is it starting? The change?” asked John, knowing that it was.
“That’s it,” said Harry. “I don’t know yet. I think my hearing has improved. I’m going to tell you what I hear, and you tell me if you can hear it too. That way I’ll know if it’s really my ears or if what I’m listening to is just really loud.”
John began to nod, then stopped. He noticed a slight shifting out of the corner of his eye and turned. There, on a leaf, was a green lizard, nearly perfectly camouflaged. Squinting, he craned forward to see it better, but it was far enough away that his very ordinary eyes couldn’t make out much detail. He smiled at it, and felt a curious sense of stillness and peace.
“Okay, pay attention, John. Do you hear that woman calling to her kid?”
John turned his head. He heard the wind in the leaves and the creaking of the branches. He thought he might be hearing a car. But no woman. No kid. “Nope,” he confirmed.
“Are you sure? It’s so loud!”
John shook his head. “Your hearing is much better than mine, Harry. I guess you are a real Sentinel now.”
“Ah! Yes!” Harry crowed excitedly. “Well, no, not quite. It’s only hearing yet, but I know the others will kick in soon. And about time! I’ve been waiting years for this. I know it never kicks in too young, but Clyde beat me and that’s just shameful. At least I’m ahead of Roger. Oh, John, I feel like my birthright is coming to me. Like this great inheritance. This amazing responsibility is on me. It’s scary, but it’s… oh god, how do I even describe it!” She was bubbling.
John’s heart sank, but he managed a weak smile. “Congratulations.”
That was it. She was gone from his life. As a Sentinel she’d be hanging out with her own kind from now on. Training for her future duties. And who knows where she’d end up being posted. Maybe it would be Aberdeen. Or Glasgow. Maybe even London. And when she returned, she’d be full of interesting stories. People she’d helped. Maybe even battles she fought, if she ended up in the military arm. Everyone would talk about her forever. It actually wouldn’t be all that different from the way things already were.
Harry seemed to look at him for the first time. Her eyes narrowed and she grinned. “You are jealous.”
“Am not,” John defended himself. “You are the one who has her whole life mapped out for her. Not me. Why would I be jealous.”
“You are jealous,” Harry teased. “Oh John. You know what? You could be a Guide. You almost seem like one, you know. Always there, always helpful. Accommodating.” She smiled down at him speculatively. “That would make you even more special than me. Sentinels are a dime a dozen - Guides are rare and precious, like beautiful gems!” She said it in what John called her ‘pretty pony’ voice. He had a vision of himself buried in gaudy plastic jewelery, like a little girl’s idea of riches. He shook the image off with a shudder.
“I’m not a Guide,” John said firmly. “Don’t even wish that on me.”
Harry frowned. “But the world needs Guides, John. I’m going to need a Guide someday. Hopefully soon. It’s not a bad thing - ” She reached down playfully to try and pat his head.
“Not a bad thing?” John said, pushing himself away from her. “Are you kidding? Giving up everything for your Sentinel? Not being able to get a job, or move to a new town, or even get your own flat without some Sentinel’s approval? No rights of your own? Why would anyone want that?”
Harry’s smile disappeared. “Well it sounds crappy when you say it like that - but Guides are treated well, John. No one would dare hurt one. Yeah, they don’t get to choose their own career or where they live, but that’s because their Sentinel needs them close. They are a team. It’s not practical that they should have a separate life. And yes, they have to go with their Sentinel, but John… they get to go with their Sentinel. Who wouldn’t want that?”
“Me,” said John, firmly. He spotted the lizard again. It was brown this time, crawling slowly up the side of a branch. Nearly invisible except when it moved. Someone’s escaped pet chameleon, John realized. It won’t last the winter, he thought sadly.
“Well, what do you want then?” asked Harry, crossing her arms over her chest and swinging her leg dramatically. John would have been terrified of losing his balance and tumbling head first into the rocks, but Harry seemed perfectly at ease.
“I want to be a doctor,” said John impulsively. “Like Uncle Mark.” Doctors were valuable and respected.
Harry leaned back. “Yeah right. You really think you could settle for something boring like that? Admit it, you like hanging out with me, like a Guide.”
”I’m not a Guide,” John said, feeling like some odd strength was welling up from deep in his gut. “I’m ordinary.” His voice resonated. The little chameleon went still and seemed to vanish into the branch.
Harry’s foot stilled for a second, then started swinging again. “Yeah, okay, you are ordinary, John. And I’m teasing. But you know what? You rock ordinary. You have a talent for ordinary. And that makes you kind of special, at least to me.” She said it very fondly, but he couldn’t help but hear the disappointment in it.
Good. There was nothing at all wrong with ordinary, John decided. He looked for the chameleon again, thinking perhaps he could catch it and keep it as a pet, but he couldn’t find it.
Harry was insufferably smug for two days, and then the downside of being a Sentinel crashed in on her. She spent Tuesday in her room, sick from sensory overload. John tried to see her, partially because he felt bad for her, partially because her misery seemed to permeate the house. But Father intervened. He was a Sentinel, and Mother was a Guide. They knew what they were doing, and John was in the way.
“Go play outside,” suggested Father, kindly, but firmly. “Or maybe you can hang out with one of your friends at his house, until your sister gets past this crisis.” Father looked stoic and concerned, but John could tell under the serious face he was brimming with pride that his first-born, his daughter, was following his footsteps. Even having a Sentinel for a father and a Guide for a mother, it hadn’t been assured that either of them would inherit all the right genes. And even then, only five percent of Sentinels were female. Harry had beaten the odds twice.
“Will she be okay,” John asked, backing away.
“Don’t worry, lad,” said Sentinel Watson, giving his son’s back a friendly, though somewhat condescending pat. “I know it looks scary, but it’s just an ordinary Sentinel rite of passage. If it gets too bad we’ll send her to the Tower.” His attitude sent another message: stop bothering me, son, can’t you see we are busy?
John sighed. He’d known that he’d be forgotten about when Harry turned, so it wasn’t like he wasn’t expecting this. Still being kicked out of his own house stoked the rebellious fires in belly. Then again, there wasn’t anything to do here, and the atmosphere was nerve-wrackingly oppressive. Harry needed space more than she needed to know he was concerned.
He was about to leave when Mother opened the door. As a Guide, she was more equipped to help Harry through the initial transition than Father was. Now she looked harried and exhausted. “I’m going to get her some water, could you watch her for a bit? I don’t trust her to be alone.” She meant Sentinel Watson, not John, of course. Then as if noticing that she even had a son for the first time, she said a quick “Hey sweetie, she’s fine,” and ruffled his hair.
Through the open door, John heard Harry moan. He glanced into the unlit room. Mother had put cardboard into the windows to block the light. Harry lay flung over the bed like a rag, wrapped somewhat indecently in Mother’s silk robe and nothing else. Her ears were covered with fuzzy winter muffs to block out the sound. A low white-noise generator hummed in the background.
Suddenly John noticed a dark lump beside her, nestled up to her rump like a giant house cat. It was a Lynx. Very unmistakably.
John froze.
The Lynx’s tail flicked with irritation. It twisted, bending to lick a spot on it’s rear leg, then rolling over onto it’s back. The tufts on it’s ears flattened against Harry’s thigh and it batted it’s paws, kittenish, at the air. It’s eyes flickered towards John.
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Don’t look at it! John told himself. He turned his face sideways and stared at the wall. A cold sweat sprang out on his forehead. Don’t let it notice. I’m ordinary, I can’t be - I’m ordinary, I’m ordinary.
He knew what it was. If there had been a real lynx in Harry’s bedroom, both she and their parents would have raised an alarm. And where would one even come from? A zoo?
No, it was a spirit guide. Which meant that John could see spirit guides.
Which meant that John was a Guide, no ifs, ands, or buts. Normals couldn’t see spirit guides. And he didn’t have any of the senses to be a Sentinel. That just left one choice. And if he was a Guide, he’d have to register at Aberdeen Tower. And once he was there, they wouldn’t let him out until he was bonded to a Sentinel. And that would be it. A life of doing what he was fucking told. A life of existing for someone else's benefit. A life of being treated like someone’s goddamn property.
But if he didn’t register, he’d be hunted down. They had Sentinels that specialized in sniffing out rogue Guides. Shit. Shit.
John looked at his parents - did they know? Surely if Harry’s spirit guide could see him, they’d be able to sense him, too. But, no, thank God, they were too wound up in Harry to spare him a second look. He had to get out of there until he could get some handle on his heartbeat; otherwise it would tip them off something was up.
Or maybe he could tell them? Would they turn him in? They probably would. Maybe they’d even be more than diplomatically proud of him.
But it wasn’t worth it. Not to have his freedom taken away like that. He’d never be a doctor. Or travel. Or get married. Or any of the things he’d dreamed about, if he was found to be a Guide. God, he didn’t want to give up his freedom to cater to the needs of some hairy, old, musclebound, and almost certainly male Sentinel.
He turned towards the living room and the front door and saw it. The little chameleon scampered across the wall in quick rushes. I’m ordinary! he thought desperately at it. I’m normal. No one can see me! Hide me! The lizard stopped where it was, rolling one bulbous eye his direction. It’s skin turned beige like the paint. Then it vanished.
Mother and Father broke apart from their discussion. Father sniffed the air once, then shook his head and walked into Harry’s room, closing the door behind him. Mother passed John with a quick hand to his hair. John followed her numbly with his eyes and watched as she passed a second Lynx, draped over the back of the couch. This wasn’t Harry’s. It was bigger and more grizzled looking. It licked it’s paw and arched it’s back. Met his eyes. Then dropped silently to the floor.
John froze, barely breathing, the litany going over and over in his mind like a mantra: Ordinary, ordinary, ordinary. The Lynx strolled straight for him. He didn’t move his eyes. He was stuck in place. Trapped. I’m normal! he shouted with his mind. Without slowing down at all, the Lynx passed right through him, feeling like nothing at all, not even a breeze. John tightened his jaw and waited. Then, knowing it was the wrong thing to do - but somehow not able to stop himself - he turned his head. He saw it passing like a ghost through Harry’s door.
Father’s spirit guide had seen him. Then it hadn’t. It almost recognized him - and then it hadn’t.
John’s breath came in shallow puffs, that gradually slowed and became deeper as the panic lifted.
I told it I was ordinary… and it believed me. He looked to the spot on the wall where his own spirit guide was. He saw it shifting again, still beige as paint, scrabbling up to the ceiling, then passing right through a heavy timbered beam. Chameleon. No one could see his spirit guide, unless it wanted to be seen. No one could sense that he was a Guide unless he let them. Not even someone as close to him as Father.
John breathed putting a hand to his heart, then smiled. If he was careful and smart. He had a chance.
Harry was hurting and it was waking John up. He rolled over and covered his head with a pillow, but it muffled nothing. Her feelings pounded at him like a panic attack. Please. He thought desperately her way. Dial it down. Just dial it down the way Mom tells Dad.
He heard the door creek open. Oh, God Harry. No. Don’t come in. Go to sleep. She must have sensed him somehow.
Footsteps creaked across the floor. John held still, pretending to sleep, while being wide awake. He felt a feverish hand against his exposed foot. He pulled the pillow off his head and looked through the darkness at Harry, crouched like some homunculus on the foot of his bed. God, she even looked a bit like a Lynx, with her hair tufted up in snarls.
He couldn’t not help her. She needed Mother. Or another Guide. But she hurt, and he couldn’t not do something about it.
“Dial it down, Harry,” he whispered as softly as he could softly. “Do it like Mom said. See the dials and turn them down.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t reach them. They keep moving.” She clutched his leg. “You smell good.”
There was a wet warmth against the top of his foot. She was licking him, now. Like some wounded animal begging for tenderness. A shiver of terror went through his middle. “No, Harry. Gross,” he whispered, yanking his foot automatically out of the way. He shuffled up until he could tuck himself into a defensive ball against the wall at the head of his bed. Harry was dangerous right now. All his instincts said so.
“You taste good,” she said, and there was a purr in her voice. He could tell she was ready to spring at him, and wrestle him the way they had when they were kids. He’d held his own against her back then, but being a Sentinel just made her stronger. He was pretty sure that she didn’t intend to tickle him once he was pinned. Oh, she so wasn’t in control of her instincts right now. He could feel waves of need and desire coming off of her. Part of him wanted to give into them, to comfort and soothe her, the way he had for years. But under that innocent need, he felt a pulse of something darkly possessive, a nascent desire to rub her scent into him and mark him as her territory.
She was his sister. God, no.
“You need to see Mom. She can Guide you.”
“She isn’t enough. We aren’t compatible.”
“Then you need to go to a Tower where they know what they are doing.”
“I know. I know,” she cried. John instantly felt sorry for her. She couldn’t help being overwhelmed.
He leaned forward and rubbed her shoulder through the thin silk of Mother’s robe. He thought soothing thoughts at her and started repeating the words he’d heard Mother say to Father so many times. Harry stopped crying and he could tell that they were having an effect. He felt a surge of pride. No one had ever taught him how to be a Guide, but it didn’t seem that difficult. Mostly a matter of projecting calm thoughts and doing the simple guided visualizations like those he’d learned from his rugby coach. Seeing success and knowing he could achieve it. Good think.
It seemed to be working. Harry breathed slower. She felt a lot calmer. He knew when her senses were back to normal because his own headache had vanished.
“John,” she said softly. “You know I think you might be a -“
John stiffened. I’m ordinary! he mentally shouted at her mind. Normal. Completely normal!
She didn’t say anything more. “Go back to your own bed and get some sleep,” he told her.
She nodded and crawled off the bed. He heard his door click behind her. And then Harry receded completely from his mind. And for once he actually felt just as normal as he wanted Harry to believe he was.
They set off for Aberdeen Tower at first light, the next morning. Harry was doing much better, which pleased Mother and Father a lot. They’d been worried how she would take the long trip. John volunteered to stay home but his parents for once remembered that they had a second child and had notions about this being a family affair, and somehow making it up to him by treating him to an afternoon in the City.
Harry said nothing of her trip to his room that night. Maybe she thought it was a dream. John didn’t know, but he was glad she decided not to question it.
Especially when the Aberdeen Tower rose up in sight. He gaped up at it’s thick, forbidding outer walls, and the square stone spire at the centre. The pamphlet in his lap said that it was over 300 years old. The windows were narrow, paned with thick rippled glass. The upper floors of the tower, where the Guides were kept, had even smaller windows, like a series of holes punched into the rough hewn rock. It looked like a prison.
As Mother circled the visitor’s parking lot looking for an open space, John looked down again at the pamphlet in his lap, turning it over. There were six pages devoted to Your Sentinel Child. Passages about the school, counsellors, teachers and “Experienced Bonded Guides” who were available cater to the new Sentinel’s wellbeing. Food cooked to not overwhelm the Sentinel’s sense of smell and taste. Natural fibres. Sound proofed sleeping quarters. Adjustable white noise generators in the classrooms and recreation areas. Yoga. Weight rooms. Whirlpools. Massage. It all seemed more like a spa than a school.
The last page was devoted to Guides. The Safety and Happiness of Your Guide Child is Our Greatest Goal it read in cheerfully large print. It then went on to discuss “homey, comfortable” interview rooms, where a Guide could seamlessly move from first introductions with his Sentinel to the “joyous fulfillment” of bonding. It raved about the years of experience their “matchmakers” had in creating “happy, effective partnerships.” Their low “divorce” rate and high “contentment” index. The post-bonding classes in “domestic engineering,” “Sentinel guidance,” with a small “g,” and “shielding,” which seemed to be the only course primarily aimed at benefitting the Guides themselves. It generously offered access to all Sentinel facilities and classes, once the Guide was successfully bonded and no longer a “distraction.”
Christ.
“Stop reading that and say good-bye to your sister,” said Sentinel Watson, a bit gruffly. “Don’t be so petulant about this, John. Pull yourself together.”
John reluctantly put down the pamphlet and got out of the car. He approached Harry, who stared up at the tower with a look of near terror. And then John could tell it wasn’t just a look. He felt the waves of fear coming off of her. A sense that she had made some kind of critical mistake and that it was already too late. He felt sympathetic to her. Everything that had been her life before was gone. Once she went in, she wouldn’t be coming out until Christmas, or her powers were under some reliable control.
Sorry, sis, he thought. You’ll be fine. He managed to find a smile to plaster on his face, and leaned awkwardly in to give her a farewell hug.
For half a second Harry did nothing. She was too zoned out to realize he was hugging her. Then, just as he released her and was about to step back, she grabbed him back in a powerful, spine-cracking hug. Her face was buried in the crook of his neck, and he could feel her breathing him in. A wave of possessive want rolled off her.
I’m Normal! John frantically willed at her and felt her grip ease up. It was his own personal magic spell. Worked every time. If only he could keep it up all the time, instead of having to invoke it.
He glanced over her shoulder and saw his Father looking sharply at him for a second before his eyes seemed to be diverted elsewhere. Mother quickly stepped in and pulled Harry off of him. “She’s had you next to her all her life,” said Mother, apologetically. “She’s always protected you. And now that she’s a Sentinel that instinct is more powerful.” Mother turned to Harry who seemed dazed. “Dial it down, dear. John’s going to be safe. Don’t worry. Dad and I will watch him for you.”
That seemed to get through to Harry. Father grabbed her luggage in one hand, and her arm in the other, and started leading her to the front gate, where two uniformed Sentinels, each looking barely older than Harry herself, waited alertly at the door. John felt a little weird watching her walk off. She was almost unrecognizable, so quiet, so feral, as though some wild creature had come to live in her skin. Was the gregarious Harry he’d grown up with still in there some place? Or had the Sentinel in her hollowed her out to make room for all those senses? It seemed more tragedy than triumph. Harry may have dreamed this, but she couldn’t have understood the price.
Mother put her hand on John’s back. “You know, we can wait inside, in the visitor’s centre. I think they have a small museum in there you might find interesting. Your dad shouldn’t take more than half an hour getting Harry registered. Then we’ll go get lunch.”
John shook his head. “No thanks.” There were a lot of Sentinels in there. He could sense them now, even through the layers of heavy rock, like little beacons. He didn’t trust his ability to camouflage enough to risk close proximity to so many.
Mother laughed. “I know it looks imposing, but you don’t have to be scared of the place. They welcome Normals. Many of the support staff are normals, as well as most of the visitors. They won’t keep you out.”
John let out a choked laugh. Getting in wasn’t the problem.
He looked at the Sentinels at the entrance, their eyes sweeping the street, their senses obviously attuned to any disturbance. The one on the right seemed to stand out to John’s mind more than the one on the left. John could tell the man was unbonded. There was an unfinished feel to him. And then suddenly the man’s emotions were far, far too obvious to John. Boredom mostly, then suddenly a thread of excitement. Alertness. A small weasel like creature appeared near the Sentinel’s feet.
Shit! Somehow John’s barrier of invisibility had dropped and he was sensed. He quickly erected his camouflage again. The Sentinel’s emotions cut off like a door shutting. Too damn close! It was one thing to accidentally reveal himself to Harry, who had no idea what she was looking at, or to his parents, who were too distracted to pay attention, but these two were on alert and wouldn’t let it go. The Sentinel he’d inadvertently provoked was looking in his direction now, looking curious and tense.
John had to get out of the man’s view. He slipped into the car and hoped that the barrier of metal and glass would help shield him from the man’s hyper-alert senses. He might hide his Guide nature from the man, but he couldn’t hide the smell of fear or the rapid beating of his heart. The Sentinel stepped away from his post saying a quick word to his companion.
As a last ditch attempt to drive his interest off, John concentrated with all his might on blending in, being nothing to see. He thought bland thoughts so hard his brain hurt with it. The Sentinel stopped in his tracks, shook his head, then returned to his post. It worked. Thank God, it worked.
A moment later Mother opened her door and slipped into the driver’s seat again with a gusty sigh. “I was expecting Harry to be scared, but not you,” she said. “What’s gotten int-“
She got the full brunt of John’s furious projecting, and then, like a miracle, she went quiet, as if she’d forgotten entirely what she was planning on saying to him. Instead she started fishing through her purse. John relaxed by degrees.
A flicker of movement. John saw his little lizard, trying to blend with the mauve fabric of the seat back. Unnatural. And he got the faint sense of reluctance from it, as though it disapproved of his actions. As if it, too, thought he should turn himself in. For a moment he considered getting out and walking up to those two Sentinels and admitting he was a Guide. It was the law after all. But once he’d done that, there was no taking it back. The thought made him feel sick.
Not yet, he told it. One day - just not yet.
The spirit guide stilled and seemed to vanish. It’s reluctance disappeared with it. John let out the deep breath he was holding. One day, he’d turn himself in. When he was older. When he was ready. When his other options stopped being better. When he’d found a Sentinel he was willing to bond with. And not a moment before.
Chapter 1
Pairing: Eventual Sherlock/John, iffily platonic Harry/John, spoilery: eventual Sebastian Moran/John
Rating: R
Features/Warnings: Crossover with the Sentinel, AU, Plotfic. Forced Bonding, Non-con, coersion, imprisonment, incesty vibes, mild violence.
Summary: Written for This Prompt: In a world filled with Sentinels with heightened senses, strength and endurance, and Guides, with seductive empathy, who knew that seeming "ordinary" could be John's greatest strength.
Word count: 5000
A/N: Because I've rewritten a portion of this, I'm moving it from the meme to my LJ, even though it's not yet complete.
Prologue
June 1987
John followed Harry through the fields of heather and scrub to the oak tree where long ago they’d made their fort. They were too damn old for the treehouse now - Harry at sixteen, John a year younger - but that didn’t stop Harry from levering herself up the branches until she stood on the rain-warped, age-enfeebled planking. It bent slightly under her weight but held. Which was good, because if it broke, she’d be dropped unceremoniously twenty feet down into the dry ditch beneath. Broken legs would be a bad way to start the summer.
Harry didn’t worry. She never did. She was, after all, going to be Sentinel one day, and her life would be filled with adventure and danger. Or so she’d been saying since she was six.
And who knew, she might be right. It was in the family blood. So much so that the generations that the Watson clan didn’t produce at least one Sentinel had been full of accusations of weak blood and moral decay. Harry and John’s generation had already produced three likely candidates, and the whole clan couldn’t stop crowing over the abundance.
None of those three were John, though. Just as Harry was destined for greatness, he was destined for ordinariness. Just as she’d kept her eyes on the horizon, he’d kept his on his feet. Such was life.
There was nothing to be done about it. There was no way into that guaranteed a path to clan pride and approval. No matter how bravely he tagged along on Harry’s adventures, he simply wasn’t Sentinel material. Because that was it - he tagged. He’d follow her down any dark cave or up any rickety tree, but without Harry it wouldn’t have occurred to him to do either. He was hopelessly fated to be a follower. A listener of other people’s stories, never having one for himself.
A dark, angry part of John secretly hoped that despite all indications, Harry wouldn’t be a Sentinel after all. Her senses hadn’t kicked in yet; maybe they never would. Then she’d just be ordinary like him. If that were the case, everything would stay the same. She wouldn’t go on to glory and leave him behind. She wouldn’t be the favorite anymore.
But now, as he watched her climb further up and settle herself like some cat in the twisted branches above, he knew that wouldn’t happen. Harry was right. She was a Sentinel. He could damn well sense it, like a glow about her. And just as well; failure would be humiliating for Harry after bragging all these years. Jealous as he was, he really didn’t wish that on her.
John gingerly settled on the old planking of their tree-fort, not trusting himself enough to join Harry in the thinner branches above. He let out a breath as the chipboard bent and creaked, and tried not to look at the drop down to the dry creak. “Why are we here?” he asked her.
“I need to be somewhere extra quiet,” said Harry. “I need to test something.” There was a trill of excitement in her voice that really could only mean one thing.
“Is it starting? The change?” asked John, knowing that it was.
“That’s it,” said Harry. “I don’t know yet. I think my hearing has improved. I’m going to tell you what I hear, and you tell me if you can hear it too. That way I’ll know if it’s really my ears or if what I’m listening to is just really loud.”
John began to nod, then stopped. He noticed a slight shifting out of the corner of his eye and turned. There, on a leaf, was a green lizard, nearly perfectly camouflaged. Squinting, he craned forward to see it better, but it was far enough away that his very ordinary eyes couldn’t make out much detail. He smiled at it, and felt a curious sense of stillness and peace.
“Okay, pay attention, John. Do you hear that woman calling to her kid?”
John turned his head. He heard the wind in the leaves and the creaking of the branches. He thought he might be hearing a car. But no woman. No kid. “Nope,” he confirmed.
“Are you sure? It’s so loud!”
John shook his head. “Your hearing is much better than mine, Harry. I guess you are a real Sentinel now.”
“Ah! Yes!” Harry crowed excitedly. “Well, no, not quite. It’s only hearing yet, but I know the others will kick in soon. And about time! I’ve been waiting years for this. I know it never kicks in too young, but Clyde beat me and that’s just shameful. At least I’m ahead of Roger. Oh, John, I feel like my birthright is coming to me. Like this great inheritance. This amazing responsibility is on me. It’s scary, but it’s… oh god, how do I even describe it!” She was bubbling.
John’s heart sank, but he managed a weak smile. “Congratulations.”
That was it. She was gone from his life. As a Sentinel she’d be hanging out with her own kind from now on. Training for her future duties. And who knows where she’d end up being posted. Maybe it would be Aberdeen. Or Glasgow. Maybe even London. And when she returned, she’d be full of interesting stories. People she’d helped. Maybe even battles she fought, if she ended up in the military arm. Everyone would talk about her forever. It actually wouldn’t be all that different from the way things already were.
Harry seemed to look at him for the first time. Her eyes narrowed and she grinned. “You are jealous.”
“Am not,” John defended himself. “You are the one who has her whole life mapped out for her. Not me. Why would I be jealous.”
“You are jealous,” Harry teased. “Oh John. You know what? You could be a Guide. You almost seem like one, you know. Always there, always helpful. Accommodating.” She smiled down at him speculatively. “That would make you even more special than me. Sentinels are a dime a dozen - Guides are rare and precious, like beautiful gems!” She said it in what John called her ‘pretty pony’ voice. He had a vision of himself buried in gaudy plastic jewelery, like a little girl’s idea of riches. He shook the image off with a shudder.
“I’m not a Guide,” John said firmly. “Don’t even wish that on me.”
Harry frowned. “But the world needs Guides, John. I’m going to need a Guide someday. Hopefully soon. It’s not a bad thing - ” She reached down playfully to try and pat his head.
“Not a bad thing?” John said, pushing himself away from her. “Are you kidding? Giving up everything for your Sentinel? Not being able to get a job, or move to a new town, or even get your own flat without some Sentinel’s approval? No rights of your own? Why would anyone want that?”
Harry’s smile disappeared. “Well it sounds crappy when you say it like that - but Guides are treated well, John. No one would dare hurt one. Yeah, they don’t get to choose their own career or where they live, but that’s because their Sentinel needs them close. They are a team. It’s not practical that they should have a separate life. And yes, they have to go with their Sentinel, but John… they get to go with their Sentinel. Who wouldn’t want that?”
“Me,” said John, firmly. He spotted the lizard again. It was brown this time, crawling slowly up the side of a branch. Nearly invisible except when it moved. Someone’s escaped pet chameleon, John realized. It won’t last the winter, he thought sadly.
“Well, what do you want then?” asked Harry, crossing her arms over her chest and swinging her leg dramatically. John would have been terrified of losing his balance and tumbling head first into the rocks, but Harry seemed perfectly at ease.
“I want to be a doctor,” said John impulsively. “Like Uncle Mark.” Doctors were valuable and respected.
Harry leaned back. “Yeah right. You really think you could settle for something boring like that? Admit it, you like hanging out with me, like a Guide.”
”I’m not a Guide,” John said, feeling like some odd strength was welling up from deep in his gut. “I’m ordinary.” His voice resonated. The little chameleon went still and seemed to vanish into the branch.
Harry’s foot stilled for a second, then started swinging again. “Yeah, okay, you are ordinary, John. And I’m teasing. But you know what? You rock ordinary. You have a talent for ordinary. And that makes you kind of special, at least to me.” She said it very fondly, but he couldn’t help but hear the disappointment in it.
Good. There was nothing at all wrong with ordinary, John decided. He looked for the chameleon again, thinking perhaps he could catch it and keep it as a pet, but he couldn’t find it.
Harry was insufferably smug for two days, and then the downside of being a Sentinel crashed in on her. She spent Tuesday in her room, sick from sensory overload. John tried to see her, partially because he felt bad for her, partially because her misery seemed to permeate the house. But Father intervened. He was a Sentinel, and Mother was a Guide. They knew what they were doing, and John was in the way.
“Go play outside,” suggested Father, kindly, but firmly. “Or maybe you can hang out with one of your friends at his house, until your sister gets past this crisis.” Father looked stoic and concerned, but John could tell under the serious face he was brimming with pride that his first-born, his daughter, was following his footsteps. Even having a Sentinel for a father and a Guide for a mother, it hadn’t been assured that either of them would inherit all the right genes. And even then, only five percent of Sentinels were female. Harry had beaten the odds twice.
“Will she be okay,” John asked, backing away.
“Don’t worry, lad,” said Sentinel Watson, giving his son’s back a friendly, though somewhat condescending pat. “I know it looks scary, but it’s just an ordinary Sentinel rite of passage. If it gets too bad we’ll send her to the Tower.” His attitude sent another message: stop bothering me, son, can’t you see we are busy?
John sighed. He’d known that he’d be forgotten about when Harry turned, so it wasn’t like he wasn’t expecting this. Still being kicked out of his own house stoked the rebellious fires in belly. Then again, there wasn’t anything to do here, and the atmosphere was nerve-wrackingly oppressive. Harry needed space more than she needed to know he was concerned.
He was about to leave when Mother opened the door. As a Guide, she was more equipped to help Harry through the initial transition than Father was. Now she looked harried and exhausted. “I’m going to get her some water, could you watch her for a bit? I don’t trust her to be alone.” She meant Sentinel Watson, not John, of course. Then as if noticing that she even had a son for the first time, she said a quick “Hey sweetie, she’s fine,” and ruffled his hair.
Through the open door, John heard Harry moan. He glanced into the unlit room. Mother had put cardboard into the windows to block the light. Harry lay flung over the bed like a rag, wrapped somewhat indecently in Mother’s silk robe and nothing else. Her ears were covered with fuzzy winter muffs to block out the sound. A low white-noise generator hummed in the background.
Suddenly John noticed a dark lump beside her, nestled up to her rump like a giant house cat. It was a Lynx. Very unmistakably.
John froze.
The Lynx’s tail flicked with irritation. It twisted, bending to lick a spot on it’s rear leg, then rolling over onto it’s back. The tufts on it’s ears flattened against Harry’s thigh and it batted it’s paws, kittenish, at the air. It’s eyes flickered towards John.
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Don’t look at it! John told himself. He turned his face sideways and stared at the wall. A cold sweat sprang out on his forehead. Don’t let it notice. I’m ordinary, I can’t be - I’m ordinary, I’m ordinary.
He knew what it was. If there had been a real lynx in Harry’s bedroom, both she and their parents would have raised an alarm. And where would one even come from? A zoo?
No, it was a spirit guide. Which meant that John could see spirit guides.
Which meant that John was a Guide, no ifs, ands, or buts. Normals couldn’t see spirit guides. And he didn’t have any of the senses to be a Sentinel. That just left one choice. And if he was a Guide, he’d have to register at Aberdeen Tower. And once he was there, they wouldn’t let him out until he was bonded to a Sentinel. And that would be it. A life of doing what he was fucking told. A life of existing for someone else's benefit. A life of being treated like someone’s goddamn property.
But if he didn’t register, he’d be hunted down. They had Sentinels that specialized in sniffing out rogue Guides. Shit. Shit.
John looked at his parents - did they know? Surely if Harry’s spirit guide could see him, they’d be able to sense him, too. But, no, thank God, they were too wound up in Harry to spare him a second look. He had to get out of there until he could get some handle on his heartbeat; otherwise it would tip them off something was up.
Or maybe he could tell them? Would they turn him in? They probably would. Maybe they’d even be more than diplomatically proud of him.
But it wasn’t worth it. Not to have his freedom taken away like that. He’d never be a doctor. Or travel. Or get married. Or any of the things he’d dreamed about, if he was found to be a Guide. God, he didn’t want to give up his freedom to cater to the needs of some hairy, old, musclebound, and almost certainly male Sentinel.
He turned towards the living room and the front door and saw it. The little chameleon scampered across the wall in quick rushes. I’m ordinary! he thought desperately at it. I’m normal. No one can see me! Hide me! The lizard stopped where it was, rolling one bulbous eye his direction. It’s skin turned beige like the paint. Then it vanished.
Mother and Father broke apart from their discussion. Father sniffed the air once, then shook his head and walked into Harry’s room, closing the door behind him. Mother passed John with a quick hand to his hair. John followed her numbly with his eyes and watched as she passed a second Lynx, draped over the back of the couch. This wasn’t Harry’s. It was bigger and more grizzled looking. It licked it’s paw and arched it’s back. Met his eyes. Then dropped silently to the floor.
John froze, barely breathing, the litany going over and over in his mind like a mantra: Ordinary, ordinary, ordinary. The Lynx strolled straight for him. He didn’t move his eyes. He was stuck in place. Trapped. I’m normal! he shouted with his mind. Without slowing down at all, the Lynx passed right through him, feeling like nothing at all, not even a breeze. John tightened his jaw and waited. Then, knowing it was the wrong thing to do - but somehow not able to stop himself - he turned his head. He saw it passing like a ghost through Harry’s door.
Father’s spirit guide had seen him. Then it hadn’t. It almost recognized him - and then it hadn’t.
John’s breath came in shallow puffs, that gradually slowed and became deeper as the panic lifted.
I told it I was ordinary… and it believed me. He looked to the spot on the wall where his own spirit guide was. He saw it shifting again, still beige as paint, scrabbling up to the ceiling, then passing right through a heavy timbered beam. Chameleon. No one could see his spirit guide, unless it wanted to be seen. No one could sense that he was a Guide unless he let them. Not even someone as close to him as Father.
John breathed putting a hand to his heart, then smiled. If he was careful and smart. He had a chance.
Harry was hurting and it was waking John up. He rolled over and covered his head with a pillow, but it muffled nothing. Her feelings pounded at him like a panic attack. Please. He thought desperately her way. Dial it down. Just dial it down the way Mom tells Dad.
He heard the door creek open. Oh, God Harry. No. Don’t come in. Go to sleep. She must have sensed him somehow.
Footsteps creaked across the floor. John held still, pretending to sleep, while being wide awake. He felt a feverish hand against his exposed foot. He pulled the pillow off his head and looked through the darkness at Harry, crouched like some homunculus on the foot of his bed. God, she even looked a bit like a Lynx, with her hair tufted up in snarls.
He couldn’t not help her. She needed Mother. Or another Guide. But she hurt, and he couldn’t not do something about it.
“Dial it down, Harry,” he whispered as softly as he could softly. “Do it like Mom said. See the dials and turn them down.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t reach them. They keep moving.” She clutched his leg. “You smell good.”
There was a wet warmth against the top of his foot. She was licking him, now. Like some wounded animal begging for tenderness. A shiver of terror went through his middle. “No, Harry. Gross,” he whispered, yanking his foot automatically out of the way. He shuffled up until he could tuck himself into a defensive ball against the wall at the head of his bed. Harry was dangerous right now. All his instincts said so.
“You taste good,” she said, and there was a purr in her voice. He could tell she was ready to spring at him, and wrestle him the way they had when they were kids. He’d held his own against her back then, but being a Sentinel just made her stronger. He was pretty sure that she didn’t intend to tickle him once he was pinned. Oh, she so wasn’t in control of her instincts right now. He could feel waves of need and desire coming off of her. Part of him wanted to give into them, to comfort and soothe her, the way he had for years. But under that innocent need, he felt a pulse of something darkly possessive, a nascent desire to rub her scent into him and mark him as her territory.
She was his sister. God, no.
“You need to see Mom. She can Guide you.”
“She isn’t enough. We aren’t compatible.”
“Then you need to go to a Tower where they know what they are doing.”
“I know. I know,” she cried. John instantly felt sorry for her. She couldn’t help being overwhelmed.
He leaned forward and rubbed her shoulder through the thin silk of Mother’s robe. He thought soothing thoughts at her and started repeating the words he’d heard Mother say to Father so many times. Harry stopped crying and he could tell that they were having an effect. He felt a surge of pride. No one had ever taught him how to be a Guide, but it didn’t seem that difficult. Mostly a matter of projecting calm thoughts and doing the simple guided visualizations like those he’d learned from his rugby coach. Seeing success and knowing he could achieve it. Good think.
It seemed to be working. Harry breathed slower. She felt a lot calmer. He knew when her senses were back to normal because his own headache had vanished.
“John,” she said softly. “You know I think you might be a -“
John stiffened. I’m ordinary! he mentally shouted at her mind. Normal. Completely normal!
She didn’t say anything more. “Go back to your own bed and get some sleep,” he told her.
She nodded and crawled off the bed. He heard his door click behind her. And then Harry receded completely from his mind. And for once he actually felt just as normal as he wanted Harry to believe he was.
They set off for Aberdeen Tower at first light, the next morning. Harry was doing much better, which pleased Mother and Father a lot. They’d been worried how she would take the long trip. John volunteered to stay home but his parents for once remembered that they had a second child and had notions about this being a family affair, and somehow making it up to him by treating him to an afternoon in the City.
Harry said nothing of her trip to his room that night. Maybe she thought it was a dream. John didn’t know, but he was glad she decided not to question it.
Especially when the Aberdeen Tower rose up in sight. He gaped up at it’s thick, forbidding outer walls, and the square stone spire at the centre. The pamphlet in his lap said that it was over 300 years old. The windows were narrow, paned with thick rippled glass. The upper floors of the tower, where the Guides were kept, had even smaller windows, like a series of holes punched into the rough hewn rock. It looked like a prison.
As Mother circled the visitor’s parking lot looking for an open space, John looked down again at the pamphlet in his lap, turning it over. There were six pages devoted to Your Sentinel Child. Passages about the school, counsellors, teachers and “Experienced Bonded Guides” who were available cater to the new Sentinel’s wellbeing. Food cooked to not overwhelm the Sentinel’s sense of smell and taste. Natural fibres. Sound proofed sleeping quarters. Adjustable white noise generators in the classrooms and recreation areas. Yoga. Weight rooms. Whirlpools. Massage. It all seemed more like a spa than a school.
The last page was devoted to Guides. The Safety and Happiness of Your Guide Child is Our Greatest Goal it read in cheerfully large print. It then went on to discuss “homey, comfortable” interview rooms, where a Guide could seamlessly move from first introductions with his Sentinel to the “joyous fulfillment” of bonding. It raved about the years of experience their “matchmakers” had in creating “happy, effective partnerships.” Their low “divorce” rate and high “contentment” index. The post-bonding classes in “domestic engineering,” “Sentinel guidance,” with a small “g,” and “shielding,” which seemed to be the only course primarily aimed at benefitting the Guides themselves. It generously offered access to all Sentinel facilities and classes, once the Guide was successfully bonded and no longer a “distraction.”
Christ.
“Stop reading that and say good-bye to your sister,” said Sentinel Watson, a bit gruffly. “Don’t be so petulant about this, John. Pull yourself together.”
John reluctantly put down the pamphlet and got out of the car. He approached Harry, who stared up at the tower with a look of near terror. And then John could tell it wasn’t just a look. He felt the waves of fear coming off of her. A sense that she had made some kind of critical mistake and that it was already too late. He felt sympathetic to her. Everything that had been her life before was gone. Once she went in, she wouldn’t be coming out until Christmas, or her powers were under some reliable control.
Sorry, sis, he thought. You’ll be fine. He managed to find a smile to plaster on his face, and leaned awkwardly in to give her a farewell hug.
For half a second Harry did nothing. She was too zoned out to realize he was hugging her. Then, just as he released her and was about to step back, she grabbed him back in a powerful, spine-cracking hug. Her face was buried in the crook of his neck, and he could feel her breathing him in. A wave of possessive want rolled off her.
I’m Normal! John frantically willed at her and felt her grip ease up. It was his own personal magic spell. Worked every time. If only he could keep it up all the time, instead of having to invoke it.
He glanced over her shoulder and saw his Father looking sharply at him for a second before his eyes seemed to be diverted elsewhere. Mother quickly stepped in and pulled Harry off of him. “She’s had you next to her all her life,” said Mother, apologetically. “She’s always protected you. And now that she’s a Sentinel that instinct is more powerful.” Mother turned to Harry who seemed dazed. “Dial it down, dear. John’s going to be safe. Don’t worry. Dad and I will watch him for you.”
That seemed to get through to Harry. Father grabbed her luggage in one hand, and her arm in the other, and started leading her to the front gate, where two uniformed Sentinels, each looking barely older than Harry herself, waited alertly at the door. John felt a little weird watching her walk off. She was almost unrecognizable, so quiet, so feral, as though some wild creature had come to live in her skin. Was the gregarious Harry he’d grown up with still in there some place? Or had the Sentinel in her hollowed her out to make room for all those senses? It seemed more tragedy than triumph. Harry may have dreamed this, but she couldn’t have understood the price.
Mother put her hand on John’s back. “You know, we can wait inside, in the visitor’s centre. I think they have a small museum in there you might find interesting. Your dad shouldn’t take more than half an hour getting Harry registered. Then we’ll go get lunch.”
John shook his head. “No thanks.” There were a lot of Sentinels in there. He could sense them now, even through the layers of heavy rock, like little beacons. He didn’t trust his ability to camouflage enough to risk close proximity to so many.
Mother laughed. “I know it looks imposing, but you don’t have to be scared of the place. They welcome Normals. Many of the support staff are normals, as well as most of the visitors. They won’t keep you out.”
John let out a choked laugh. Getting in wasn’t the problem.
He looked at the Sentinels at the entrance, their eyes sweeping the street, their senses obviously attuned to any disturbance. The one on the right seemed to stand out to John’s mind more than the one on the left. John could tell the man was unbonded. There was an unfinished feel to him. And then suddenly the man’s emotions were far, far too obvious to John. Boredom mostly, then suddenly a thread of excitement. Alertness. A small weasel like creature appeared near the Sentinel’s feet.
Shit! Somehow John’s barrier of invisibility had dropped and he was sensed. He quickly erected his camouflage again. The Sentinel’s emotions cut off like a door shutting. Too damn close! It was one thing to accidentally reveal himself to Harry, who had no idea what she was looking at, or to his parents, who were too distracted to pay attention, but these two were on alert and wouldn’t let it go. The Sentinel he’d inadvertently provoked was looking in his direction now, looking curious and tense.
John had to get out of the man’s view. He slipped into the car and hoped that the barrier of metal and glass would help shield him from the man’s hyper-alert senses. He might hide his Guide nature from the man, but he couldn’t hide the smell of fear or the rapid beating of his heart. The Sentinel stepped away from his post saying a quick word to his companion.
As a last ditch attempt to drive his interest off, John concentrated with all his might on blending in, being nothing to see. He thought bland thoughts so hard his brain hurt with it. The Sentinel stopped in his tracks, shook his head, then returned to his post. It worked. Thank God, it worked.
A moment later Mother opened her door and slipped into the driver’s seat again with a gusty sigh. “I was expecting Harry to be scared, but not you,” she said. “What’s gotten int-“
She got the full brunt of John’s furious projecting, and then, like a miracle, she went quiet, as if she’d forgotten entirely what she was planning on saying to him. Instead she started fishing through her purse. John relaxed by degrees.
A flicker of movement. John saw his little lizard, trying to blend with the mauve fabric of the seat back. Unnatural. And he got the faint sense of reluctance from it, as though it disapproved of his actions. As if it, too, thought he should turn himself in. For a moment he considered getting out and walking up to those two Sentinels and admitting he was a Guide. It was the law after all. But once he’d done that, there was no taking it back. The thought made him feel sick.
Not yet, he told it. One day - just not yet.
The spirit guide stilled and seemed to vanish. It’s reluctance disappeared with it. John let out the deep breath he was holding. One day, he’d turn himself in. When he was older. When he was ready. When his other options stopped being better. When he’d found a Sentinel he was willing to bond with. And not a moment before.
Chapter 1