Fic: "The Straw Man Fallacy" (Crossover: Sherlock/The Wicker Man), Chapter 3/7
Title: The Straw Man Fallacy
Fandoms: Sherlock/The Wicker Man (1973)
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Other Characters: Lord Summerisle, Miss Rose, Willow MacGregor, Alder MacGregor, Mr. Lennox, The Librarian, other Summerisle villagers and OCs
Rating: NC-17/explicit (eventually)
Summary:
“Mr Holmes, I'm not in the habit of approaching . . . consultants. But you are correct. I have great faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And until recently, I also had faith in the rule of law. Only the second one has wavered. Three years ago my fiancé, Sgt. Neil Howie of the West Highlands Constabulary, went to investigate an anonymous report of a missing child in a remote place called Summerisle. He never communicated with me while he was there, and he never returned.”
Summerisle is not a welcoming place to visitors, but it shows its best face at May Day. For ulterior motives.
“Come along, John. It’s a nice long stroll, and by the time we get there, I’m sure Lord Summerisle will be expecting us.” Sherlock turned up his coat collar against the chill breeze, with a little smile. Mysterious. Cheekbones. Full of that charm he got when he was happily up to his long neck in a good puzzle. Goddammit.
They didn't make it very far up the road to Lord Summerisle's palatial home before being overtaken by a young man driving a horsecart. “I'm to give you a ride,” he said.
“Oh, it's fine, we don't mind the walk,” Sherlock said warily.
“I insist,” said the young man sternly.
Ah, John thought. An offer we can't refuse. An escort.
The driver held out his hand. “Branch Burns. Assistant to his lordship.”
“I'm John Watson,” John said, hoping to get out ahead this time. There was something about Burns's face that was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. “And this is Sherlock Holmes.”
“I know,” said Branch tersely as John and Sherlock climbed into his cart.
There was barely room for three on the little seat, and John, squeezed into the middle, was acutely aware of the press of Sherlock's leg against his own, and how it might be more comfortable if Sherlock were to rest an arm against the back seat instead of constantly fidgeting about to stare at everything they passed so elbows bumped ribs with each twist and turn.
They rode through lush gardens and fields of sprouting vegetables. “Well, the crops look good this year, so far,” John said quietly.
“Appearances can be deceiving,” Sherlock said. They had to guard everything they said in Burns's presence, they knew that. But what harm was there in a little speculation?
“Oh, that's pretty,” John said as they passed through an orchard, apple blossoms as far as the eye could see, luminous in the late-afternoon sun.
“Wait. Stop a moment,” Sherlock said. Before the driver could even actually get the horse to stop, Sherlock had vaulted out of the cart and virtually leapt into the orchard, studiously ignoring the pregnant women who strolled through, stroking branches, letting apple flowers fall through their fingers. He stood there, stiff and vibrating, sniffing the flowery air and seeming to test the breeze with his fingers. When he passed by some low-hanging branches, John was struck by the crazy image of flowers stuck in his hair.
“What is it? What did you see?” John asked as Sherlock climbed back on the cart.
“It's what I didn't see,” he said.
The little road took a curving path to the flat top of the hill, through lush semi-tropical gardens. John couldn't help but gasp a little as he got the first glimpse of Lord Summerisle's estate. That wasn't a manor house, it was a castle.
As if that wasn't enough, Sherlock nudged him at the sight of movement on the grounds, flashes of bright hair and flushed, smooth skin. Up on a hill there was a ring of standing stones, and within it a dozen young women were dancing around a small bonfire, singing a chanting song and taking turns leaping the little blaze, every one of them naked as the day they were born. The song was led and guided by an older fair-haired woman in a white robe. John looked closer and blinked. She looked very different out in the open like this - a pagan priestess with an image of the sun on her breast, with her hair let down from the elaborate style she wore in the schoolroom, completely shed of modest blouse and prim pearls. It was Miss Rose, and she led the girls' dance with an air of power and skill, seeming to weave light with her hands.
“Down, boy,” Sherlock muttered with a smirk.
“I wasn't - I didn't - ” John stammered.
“I can hear you think sometimes, you know. When it's that loud.”
But you can't always hear it right, can you now? John thought.
The house seemed even bigger and grander inside if that was even possible, and as Branch Burns led them in, John gazed up at the decorations in awe. Every available surface of wall was covered: by portraits of nobles and Highland clan chiefs in tartan finery, by windswept landscapes of mountains and sky and sea and forest. In every large enough blank space in between them were weapons: swords and spears and rifles and axes, and a vast display of horns and antlers - more kinds than John had known existed in the world.
Sherlock was admiring a gigantic set of pipes built into the wall above an intricate console of keys and pedals. “Look, John,” he said. “Lord Summerisle has a very large organ.”
“Oh my god,” John snorted. “Are you really twelve years old?”
“It's the soil here,” Sherlock said. “It grows innuendo.”
John found himself wandering to the window again, where the naked girls were still singing and leaping the bonfire one by one in an elaborate formation.
“I take it the sight of healthy human bodies in their natural state does not offend either of you,” said a deep voice from behind them that wasn't Sherlock's, and John nearly jumped out of his skin.
Lord Summerisle rose out of the big leather chair by the fire and approached them, gracefully. He had thick brown hair with patches of grey, deep dark brown eyes, and several inches of height over Sherlock. There was a lean sort of strength about him in his deceivingly homely tweed jacket. A fearful symmetry, John thought.
“No, of course not,” John said. “I'm a doctor. It's good to see healthy ones.”
“Why would it offend us?” Sherlock asked.
Lord Summerisle smiled indulgently. “On the rare occasion that we have visitors, there have been a few incidents where certain sensibilities were upset. Some find it difficult to adjust to our ways. But of course nudity is the safest and most practical costume for jumping bonfires.”
“No doubt,” Sherlock said, with the tone of someone who did doubt it. “Anything in particular they're hoping to achieve?”
“Parthenogenesis. They're hoping to receive the blessing of the god of the fire, and so to conceive.”
Sherlock gave this a moment of focused thought, rather more than John thought it deserved. “Parthenogenesis has been observed in a few much simpler species, but the offspring are always female. If this method actually worked reliably, I'd expect to see a much more widely skewed gender balance among the population here.”
“Oh, that's a relief, you're a scientist,” Lord Summerisle smiled. “Are you a religious man, Mr. Holmes?” he asked, circling Sherlock slowly.
“No,” Sherlock said firmly. “But the subject sometimes interests me. There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion, and it's fascinating to see the leaps some spiritual minds make. Claiming that the mere existence of aesthetically-pleasing plant genitals are suggestive of the existence of a benevolent god, for example.”
“So you aren't about to rain down Old Testament wrath upon us,” Summerisle said, grinning.
“Hardly,” Sherlock said. “But at least you admit to remembering someone who did. Or who tried. For all the good that it did him.”
Lord Summerisle moved over to the piano and started picking out the notes of their song, watching the girls. His deep brown eyes noted Sherlock watching his fingers. “Are you a musician?”
Sherlock nodded. “I play the violin; I find it helps me think.”
“He's really good,” John blurted.
Summerisle smiled and kept playing. “I have my grandmother's Guarneri still. Perhaps if you need help thinking, we could have a tune of you.”
Sherlock blinked. “I think I'm thinking just fine, Lord Summerisle.”
“Are you representing the law, Mr. Holmes?” Summerisle said, stilling his hand and standing up straight.
“Call me Sherlock, I'm bored with archaic pretence. I'm representing the fiancee of the late Sgt Howie. She was the one who engaged my services.”
“Ah yes, your services,” Summerisle said with a little leer. He was standing way too close to Sherlock for John's comfort. “The great detective and his faithful chronicler. I'm not completely oblivious to celebrities of the mainland. You must suspect us all of covering up a murder, mustn't you?”
“I do,” Sherlock said. John flinched. “But I'm always curious to hear about the circumstances. You have a fascinating little fiefdom here,” Sherlock said, flickering his hands around him to indicate the whole of Summerisle. “I'm open to the possibility that you acted to remove a perceived threat.”
“Well, yes and no, Mr. Holmes,” Lord Summerisle said. “Come, walk with me. You too, Dr. Watson.” He led them down a hallway and out a low door, onto a terraced garden lush with growth. “Fine old name, Holmes,” he said. “'Dweller by the holly tree.' You should come and visit us at Yuletide - we grow spectacular garlands.
“My great-grandfather came here for the remoteness of the isle and the healthy qualities of its air,” Lord Summerisle went on, “and for the cheap labour its residents could provide, I admit. He was a scientist and agronomist who loved the rich volcanic soil of the island, and the warm gulf streams from the sea that made the climate milder and the growing season longer than you'd expect in this latitude. It proved perfect for the new strains of fruits and vegetables that he'd developed. And with typical mid-Victorian zeal, he made the land fertile, with a potent mix of science and magic.”
“And the . . . religious nonconformism?”
“It was a way of maintaining the loyalty of the islanders. The Christian God - well, he left them to struggle and starve, didn't he? But now, the joyous old gods, the gods of the fields and the forest and the sky and the sea, of the harvest and hunt, of love and desire - combined with the new fertility provided by science, those gods proved themselves worthy of the people's love.”
“Hmm,” Sherlock said, bending down to examine the soil between stones on the garden path.
“And what my great-grandfather began out of expediency, my grandfather and my father after him continued out of love. And so I was raised - to honour the old gods and the music and pageantry of their worship. To love nature, and sometimes to fear it. To celebrate it, and show gratitude, and appease it when necessary.”
John gave a little gasp at this, as if Lord Summerisle had confessed something, but Sherlock seemed to barely register it at all.
“How were the crops last year?” Sherlock asked suddenly.
“Ah,” Summerisle said a little sadly. “Not what we would have hoped for. It wasn't a catastrophic failure, but I fear it bodes ill for the season ahead.”
“You need to prevent another disaster like the one a few years ago. Your power base is threatened.”
“The faith of my people is not so weak as all that, Sherlock,” he said with a crafty smile.
“But your island's economy might be.”
“We've branched out into greater crop diversity in recent years,” Lord Summerisle said. “I'm not so worried as I might once have been. Monoculture is very risky, and I want my people to have self-sufficiency. There is little we need that we have to import.”
“Except fresh blood?” Sherlock said.
John shivered. Not for the first time, he was realising how isolated they were here. They had even arrived across the water only on Lord Summerisle's sufferance. They had no private, safe communication, no independent transportation, and that idea was starting to make his blood run cold in the crisp April evening. How had he even allowed Sherlock and himself to walk into this situation? Lord Summerisle was civil enough, seemed to be amused rather than enraged by, well, Sherlock being Sherlock, but Sherlock's whole purpose here was to expose a well-kept secret, and really, if worst came to worst, the best they could hope for was someone investigating their disappearance well after the fact. And the person trying to do that simply couldn't be as good at it as Sherlock Holmes.
As if reading his thoughts, Sherlock gave John a little smile and nod. It was meant to be reassuring, and yet it failed. He's overreached before, John thought.
“We don't see new faces nearly often enough,” Lord Summerisle said, and John was hoping he was just getting paranoid and way too eager to interpret his smile as ever so slightly predatory. He and Sherlock were circling each other like wary cats, pretending friendly indifference - and there could be hissing and claws at any moment. “I'm glad to show off our lovely island. Please feel free to investigate wherever you like. You have my permission.”
“Thank you,” Sherlock said, nodding almost respectfully. “And if you don't mind, I'd like to continue with your library.”
“Be my guest,” Lord Summerisle said as he walked them back to the great house, through the parlour and into a huge room lined with walls and walls of heavy wooden bookshelves. Science and literature and agriculture and religion and travel and history; Summerisle was well-read, or at least well-collected.
“Might we borrow a few volumes?” Sherlock asked. “John has been struggling a bit with the lack of internet at the Green Man. He's used to having something to read before bedtime.”
“Yeah,” John said. “I am.”
“Your friend knows your needs well,” Summerisle said. “Of course you may. So you will be spending another night with us, then?”
“You knew we would,” said Sherlock, picking up a book with a pleased little hum. “Oh, this old book on beekeeping. A classic, but badly out of date.”
“Also by a Holmes, I note,” said Lord Summerisle. “A relation of yours?”
“Distantly, yes,” said Sherlock.
“You'd best be getting back to your inn before long,” Summerisle said. “As much as I'm enjoying this visit, I think you probably still have work today. I'll have Branch call ahead and make sure your room is still held.” He nodded at an old-fashioned wall-mount phone and turned away.
“Landlines, nothing but landlines,” John griped under his breath. “Not even any ansaphones. I know they're trying to time-travel to pre-Christian times, but it's like they got stuck in the 1970s.”
“Patience, John. You're getting to know their ways.”
John shook his head at Sherlock. “You like it here!”
“So far I do,” Sherlock admitted. “I'm not bored yet.”
“That isn't reassuring,” John said.
“Why do you need reassurance?” Sherlock snapped.
“Because things are starting to get really, really creepy.”
Sherlock didn't deny it.
***
Dusk was falling as Branch Burns pulled up his horse cart to take them back to the village. Sherlock insisted on sitting in the middle this time, and he was restless - shifting about from side to side, so that his thigh kept brushing John's in the most distracting way, and at least once John took an elbow to the ribs when Sherlock whirled around suddenly to look at something or other, never explaining, never saying a word.
John felt someone ought to, so he found himself trying to make stilted conversation across Sherlock. “So tomorrow's a big day, huh?”
“One of the biggest of the year,” Burns said. “Glad you're staying. You'll see.”
“So it's like . . . mummers, and a bonfire and a maypole and all that?”
“And all that,” Burns said. He wasn't the greatest conversationalist.
“Stop!” Sherlock yelled.
Burns yanked back on the reins, and the horse huffed angrily. Sherlock bolted from the cart and hopped a low hedge, approaching a low stone wall that guarded the approach to the sea. He looked down at the ground for a long moment, with his shoulders hunched and his back turned, then he picked up a stone and threw it across the water. Even over the wind, John thought he could hear Sherlock's triumphant laugh.
“What's he doing?” Burns asked.
“No idea,” John said. “Probably something to help him think.”
The chilling sea wind billowed Sherlock's coat out around him, hiding anything he might be doing, except he really seemed to be getting a lot of enjoyment from throwing rocks into the water. “Come walk with me, John,” he yelled.
“Oh . . . all right?” John looked at Burns questioningly. Burns nodded, but looked very put upon.
When John reached Sherlock, he had a flat, smooth black rock in his hand, about the size of a mobile phone. “Volcanic, just like Lord Summerisle said,” Sherlock said cheerfully. “Igneous gabbro. There are protrusions of this throughout the Hebrides. Your Cuillins on Skye, for example.”
“Did you think Summerisle was making it up?” John asked, utterly baffled.
“Just wanted to make sure,” Sherlock said and walked with him in silence for a few minutes, back and forth along the water. His keen eyes scanned the shoreline on either side - the cliffs above and around them rugged and harsh and riddled with caves.
“You know something you're not telling me,” John said reproachfully. “Lots of things.”
“I'm percolating,” Sherlock snapped as he turned and led John grudgingly back to the horsecart. He said nothing for the rest of the ride back to the Green Man Inn.
John thanked Burns for the ride as Sherlock hopped out and strode on ahead, fast and preoccupied. He wondered if one was supposed to tip kidnappers or strongarm escorts or whatever Burns really was underneath that blank surface. It was a habit by now, sweetening the sting of time spent with Sherlock by those who weren't used to it.
***
In their room that night, John was tense and felt cooped up. He paced, he placed himself stiffly on the bed with a book that was too dry to take him out of himself. Sherlock sat still in the chair by the window, looking out at the garden and the sky and listening to the sounds of chattering voices below. Then he took out a book and began to read, and his concentration seemed absolute.
And then they heard a husky female voice crooning, “Sherlock . . .”
That was all she said. It was Willow, it had to be Willow, on the other side of the door.
She struck out a soft beat with her hand on the wall. It matched the beat of the bodhran downstairs.
The walls were so thin, her voice cut clear through as she sang so softly and seductively.
Sherlock never lifted his head from the books he'd pilfered from Lord Summerisle's private library. He just kept reading.
John heard every word that came out in that voice: tender, seductive, inviting, longing, almost begging. He could almost see her on the other side of the wall; naked, swaying, lovely, caressing herself.
The history of the Highland clans, courtesy of Lord Summerisle, that he'd been reading fell aside as he began to sweat. Blood pooled in his groin and his jeans grew tight; he loosened his collar as the siren song filled him with a terribly embarrassing need he could never confess. Now he was attuned to every word of Willow's song, her promise of touches as gentle as a feather and sun-at-midnight, wonders shown, and her song did what it was meant to; it weaved itself into every thread of his body and made him crave.
But he knew he was not the object of her call. Her spell, even. Sherlock stayed in his chair, reading his book, completely impassive.
John made a tight little movement that made the fabric of his underpants scrape the surface of his swelling cock, and he struggled to calm himself. Just one little whimper caught Sherlock's attention, and he found himself the focus of that gaze that bared everything. “John. This is really affecting you.”
“Um. Yeah.”
“You're in distress,” Sherlock said as he stood up, alarmed. (Of course John glanced at his groin. Saw nothing unusual.)
“Yes,” John said.
“I'll make it stop,” Sherlock said, and he went to the door their room shared with Willow's, and turned the knob before John could stop him.
The door was unlocked and Willow was waiting - standing against the door frame with one curvy hip cocked, her round breasts and firm belly lightly sheened in sweat from her dancing. The smile she gave Sherlock was ravishing, and John squirmed miserably as she touched him, one small hand on his forearm, pushing his rolled-up sleeve higher. The contrast between her nudity and his fully-dressed state was so sexy John had to look away. “Good evening,” she said, the insinuation clear that she had every intention of making it better.
“Are you trying to seduce me?” Sherlock asked. The answer was obvious to him, but he was interested in how she'd phrase her reply.
“Oooh, you're a good detective,” she said with a wink. “You seem like a red-blooded man who wouldn't turn down an honest night's sporting.”
“If you think that, then you're not a very good one,” Sherlock said. He peeled her hand off his chest and placed it back down by her side, paying no attention to her round hips or pert bum or inviting triangular tuft of hair. John shivered and groaned, and he wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed. Something about the idea of Sherlock taking Willow up on her offer, taking her in his arms, letting her undress him . . . God, it made him want to come and vomit at the same time.
“I imagine you aren't turned down very often, are you?” Sherlock said.
“No,” she said, a little edge in her voice. “And you'd be wiser if you didn't. You really should let me have you, and it really should be tonight of all nights.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I'm trying to save you,” Willow said frankly.
Sherlock's head snapped up and his spine straightened. John couldn't see all of his face, but the half of it that was out of the shadows was focused and almost entranced, gears in his brain turning madly.
“You've done this before. And what's in it for you? Oh, of course. You enjoy it. And it's your job. You give the condemned man a last chance.”
“You're a fool not to take it.”
“Maybe I am. But as well as you fit the prevailing standards of beauty in women, you are simply not stirring me at all, I'm sorry to inform you.”
“Not at all?” Willow said, with a coquettish pout.
“Nope,” Sherlock said, popping the P brattishly, and looking at her like a slow child, waiting for the penny to drop.
“Oh!” she said. “Oh, I see! Not the Goddess Aphrodite for you, but the God Eros. Well, no hard feelings then. So to speak. I could suggest Ian, the butcher's son, he's a very well-made lad, and he swings that way...”
“That would hardly suit the purpose of . . . fertility,” Sherlock said, coldly amused.
“It's symbolic,” Willow said.
“Ah!” Sherlock said. “So you've modernised a bit. Glad to hear it. Gerald Gardner's conception of the primordial witch-cult's rites is oppressively heterosexual, although the emphasis on scourging is certainly an intriguing direction to --”
“Who?”
“Never mind,” Sherlock said, smirking a little. “Anyway, thank you for your kind offer, Willow. I do appreciate it.” He slammed the door in her face.
“Oh God, Sherlock,” John said, horrified. But a little fascinated. “What is it with you and women wanting to talk to you while they’re naked?”
“Twice could still be a coincidence,” Sherlock shrugged.
“Figures you’d have that power and not even appreciate it,” John said.
“Come on, John, let’s go for a walk. You need fresh air. Go masturbate in the lavatory quickly, I’ll wait. No, wait! You should do it outside. The rosebushes are looking peaky.”
TBC
AO3
Chapter 1 on LJ
Chapter 2 on LJ
Fandoms: Sherlock/The Wicker Man (1973)
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Other Characters: Lord Summerisle, Miss Rose, Willow MacGregor, Alder MacGregor, Mr. Lennox, The Librarian, other Summerisle villagers and OCs
Rating: NC-17/explicit (eventually)
Summary:
“Mr Holmes, I'm not in the habit of approaching . . . consultants. But you are correct. I have great faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And until recently, I also had faith in the rule of law. Only the second one has wavered. Three years ago my fiancé, Sgt. Neil Howie of the West Highlands Constabulary, went to investigate an anonymous report of a missing child in a remote place called Summerisle. He never communicated with me while he was there, and he never returned.”
Summerisle is not a welcoming place to visitors, but it shows its best face at May Day. For ulterior motives.
“Come along, John. It’s a nice long stroll, and by the time we get there, I’m sure Lord Summerisle will be expecting us.” Sherlock turned up his coat collar against the chill breeze, with a little smile. Mysterious. Cheekbones. Full of that charm he got when he was happily up to his long neck in a good puzzle. Goddammit.
They didn't make it very far up the road to Lord Summerisle's palatial home before being overtaken by a young man driving a horsecart. “I'm to give you a ride,” he said.
“Oh, it's fine, we don't mind the walk,” Sherlock said warily.
“I insist,” said the young man sternly.
Ah, John thought. An offer we can't refuse. An escort.
The driver held out his hand. “Branch Burns. Assistant to his lordship.”
“I'm John Watson,” John said, hoping to get out ahead this time. There was something about Burns's face that was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. “And this is Sherlock Holmes.”
“I know,” said Branch tersely as John and Sherlock climbed into his cart.
There was barely room for three on the little seat, and John, squeezed into the middle, was acutely aware of the press of Sherlock's leg against his own, and how it might be more comfortable if Sherlock were to rest an arm against the back seat instead of constantly fidgeting about to stare at everything they passed so elbows bumped ribs with each twist and turn.
They rode through lush gardens and fields of sprouting vegetables. “Well, the crops look good this year, so far,” John said quietly.
“Appearances can be deceiving,” Sherlock said. They had to guard everything they said in Burns's presence, they knew that. But what harm was there in a little speculation?
“Oh, that's pretty,” John said as they passed through an orchard, apple blossoms as far as the eye could see, luminous in the late-afternoon sun.
“Wait. Stop a moment,” Sherlock said. Before the driver could even actually get the horse to stop, Sherlock had vaulted out of the cart and virtually leapt into the orchard, studiously ignoring the pregnant women who strolled through, stroking branches, letting apple flowers fall through their fingers. He stood there, stiff and vibrating, sniffing the flowery air and seeming to test the breeze with his fingers. When he passed by some low-hanging branches, John was struck by the crazy image of flowers stuck in his hair.
“What is it? What did you see?” John asked as Sherlock climbed back on the cart.
“It's what I didn't see,” he said.
The little road took a curving path to the flat top of the hill, through lush semi-tropical gardens. John couldn't help but gasp a little as he got the first glimpse of Lord Summerisle's estate. That wasn't a manor house, it was a castle.
As if that wasn't enough, Sherlock nudged him at the sight of movement on the grounds, flashes of bright hair and flushed, smooth skin. Up on a hill there was a ring of standing stones, and within it a dozen young women were dancing around a small bonfire, singing a chanting song and taking turns leaping the little blaze, every one of them naked as the day they were born. The song was led and guided by an older fair-haired woman in a white robe. John looked closer and blinked. She looked very different out in the open like this - a pagan priestess with an image of the sun on her breast, with her hair let down from the elaborate style she wore in the schoolroom, completely shed of modest blouse and prim pearls. It was Miss Rose, and she led the girls' dance with an air of power and skill, seeming to weave light with her hands.
“Down, boy,” Sherlock muttered with a smirk.
“I wasn't - I didn't - ” John stammered.
“I can hear you think sometimes, you know. When it's that loud.”
But you can't always hear it right, can you now? John thought.
The house seemed even bigger and grander inside if that was even possible, and as Branch Burns led them in, John gazed up at the decorations in awe. Every available surface of wall was covered: by portraits of nobles and Highland clan chiefs in tartan finery, by windswept landscapes of mountains and sky and sea and forest. In every large enough blank space in between them were weapons: swords and spears and rifles and axes, and a vast display of horns and antlers - more kinds than John had known existed in the world.
Sherlock was admiring a gigantic set of pipes built into the wall above an intricate console of keys and pedals. “Look, John,” he said. “Lord Summerisle has a very large organ.”
“Oh my god,” John snorted. “Are you really twelve years old?”
“It's the soil here,” Sherlock said. “It grows innuendo.”
John found himself wandering to the window again, where the naked girls were still singing and leaping the bonfire one by one in an elaborate formation.
“I take it the sight of healthy human bodies in their natural state does not offend either of you,” said a deep voice from behind them that wasn't Sherlock's, and John nearly jumped out of his skin.
Lord Summerisle rose out of the big leather chair by the fire and approached them, gracefully. He had thick brown hair with patches of grey, deep dark brown eyes, and several inches of height over Sherlock. There was a lean sort of strength about him in his deceivingly homely tweed jacket. A fearful symmetry, John thought.
“No, of course not,” John said. “I'm a doctor. It's good to see healthy ones.”
“Why would it offend us?” Sherlock asked.
Lord Summerisle smiled indulgently. “On the rare occasion that we have visitors, there have been a few incidents where certain sensibilities were upset. Some find it difficult to adjust to our ways. But of course nudity is the safest and most practical costume for jumping bonfires.”
“No doubt,” Sherlock said, with the tone of someone who did doubt it. “Anything in particular they're hoping to achieve?”
“Parthenogenesis. They're hoping to receive the blessing of the god of the fire, and so to conceive.”
Sherlock gave this a moment of focused thought, rather more than John thought it deserved. “Parthenogenesis has been observed in a few much simpler species, but the offspring are always female. If this method actually worked reliably, I'd expect to see a much more widely skewed gender balance among the population here.”
“Oh, that's a relief, you're a scientist,” Lord Summerisle smiled. “Are you a religious man, Mr. Holmes?” he asked, circling Sherlock slowly.
“No,” Sherlock said firmly. “But the subject sometimes interests me. There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion, and it's fascinating to see the leaps some spiritual minds make. Claiming that the mere existence of aesthetically-pleasing plant genitals are suggestive of the existence of a benevolent god, for example.”
“So you aren't about to rain down Old Testament wrath upon us,” Summerisle said, grinning.
“Hardly,” Sherlock said. “But at least you admit to remembering someone who did. Or who tried. For all the good that it did him.”
Lord Summerisle moved over to the piano and started picking out the notes of their song, watching the girls. His deep brown eyes noted Sherlock watching his fingers. “Are you a musician?”
Sherlock nodded. “I play the violin; I find it helps me think.”
“He's really good,” John blurted.
Summerisle smiled and kept playing. “I have my grandmother's Guarneri still. Perhaps if you need help thinking, we could have a tune of you.”
Sherlock blinked. “I think I'm thinking just fine, Lord Summerisle.”
“Are you representing the law, Mr. Holmes?” Summerisle said, stilling his hand and standing up straight.
“Call me Sherlock, I'm bored with archaic pretence. I'm representing the fiancee of the late Sgt Howie. She was the one who engaged my services.”
“Ah yes, your services,” Summerisle said with a little leer. He was standing way too close to Sherlock for John's comfort. “The great detective and his faithful chronicler. I'm not completely oblivious to celebrities of the mainland. You must suspect us all of covering up a murder, mustn't you?”
“I do,” Sherlock said. John flinched. “But I'm always curious to hear about the circumstances. You have a fascinating little fiefdom here,” Sherlock said, flickering his hands around him to indicate the whole of Summerisle. “I'm open to the possibility that you acted to remove a perceived threat.”
“Well, yes and no, Mr. Holmes,” Lord Summerisle said. “Come, walk with me. You too, Dr. Watson.” He led them down a hallway and out a low door, onto a terraced garden lush with growth. “Fine old name, Holmes,” he said. “'Dweller by the holly tree.' You should come and visit us at Yuletide - we grow spectacular garlands.
“My great-grandfather came here for the remoteness of the isle and the healthy qualities of its air,” Lord Summerisle went on, “and for the cheap labour its residents could provide, I admit. He was a scientist and agronomist who loved the rich volcanic soil of the island, and the warm gulf streams from the sea that made the climate milder and the growing season longer than you'd expect in this latitude. It proved perfect for the new strains of fruits and vegetables that he'd developed. And with typical mid-Victorian zeal, he made the land fertile, with a potent mix of science and magic.”
“And the . . . religious nonconformism?”
“It was a way of maintaining the loyalty of the islanders. The Christian God - well, he left them to struggle and starve, didn't he? But now, the joyous old gods, the gods of the fields and the forest and the sky and the sea, of the harvest and hunt, of love and desire - combined with the new fertility provided by science, those gods proved themselves worthy of the people's love.”
“Hmm,” Sherlock said, bending down to examine the soil between stones on the garden path.
“And what my great-grandfather began out of expediency, my grandfather and my father after him continued out of love. And so I was raised - to honour the old gods and the music and pageantry of their worship. To love nature, and sometimes to fear it. To celebrate it, and show gratitude, and appease it when necessary.”
John gave a little gasp at this, as if Lord Summerisle had confessed something, but Sherlock seemed to barely register it at all.
“How were the crops last year?” Sherlock asked suddenly.
“Ah,” Summerisle said a little sadly. “Not what we would have hoped for. It wasn't a catastrophic failure, but I fear it bodes ill for the season ahead.”
“You need to prevent another disaster like the one a few years ago. Your power base is threatened.”
“The faith of my people is not so weak as all that, Sherlock,” he said with a crafty smile.
“But your island's economy might be.”
“We've branched out into greater crop diversity in recent years,” Lord Summerisle said. “I'm not so worried as I might once have been. Monoculture is very risky, and I want my people to have self-sufficiency. There is little we need that we have to import.”
“Except fresh blood?” Sherlock said.
John shivered. Not for the first time, he was realising how isolated they were here. They had even arrived across the water only on Lord Summerisle's sufferance. They had no private, safe communication, no independent transportation, and that idea was starting to make his blood run cold in the crisp April evening. How had he even allowed Sherlock and himself to walk into this situation? Lord Summerisle was civil enough, seemed to be amused rather than enraged by, well, Sherlock being Sherlock, but Sherlock's whole purpose here was to expose a well-kept secret, and really, if worst came to worst, the best they could hope for was someone investigating their disappearance well after the fact. And the person trying to do that simply couldn't be as good at it as Sherlock Holmes.
As if reading his thoughts, Sherlock gave John a little smile and nod. It was meant to be reassuring, and yet it failed. He's overreached before, John thought.
“We don't see new faces nearly often enough,” Lord Summerisle said, and John was hoping he was just getting paranoid and way too eager to interpret his smile as ever so slightly predatory. He and Sherlock were circling each other like wary cats, pretending friendly indifference - and there could be hissing and claws at any moment. “I'm glad to show off our lovely island. Please feel free to investigate wherever you like. You have my permission.”
“Thank you,” Sherlock said, nodding almost respectfully. “And if you don't mind, I'd like to continue with your library.”
“Be my guest,” Lord Summerisle said as he walked them back to the great house, through the parlour and into a huge room lined with walls and walls of heavy wooden bookshelves. Science and literature and agriculture and religion and travel and history; Summerisle was well-read, or at least well-collected.
“Might we borrow a few volumes?” Sherlock asked. “John has been struggling a bit with the lack of internet at the Green Man. He's used to having something to read before bedtime.”
“Yeah,” John said. “I am.”
“Your friend knows your needs well,” Summerisle said. “Of course you may. So you will be spending another night with us, then?”
“You knew we would,” said Sherlock, picking up a book with a pleased little hum. “Oh, this old book on beekeeping. A classic, but badly out of date.”
“Also by a Holmes, I note,” said Lord Summerisle. “A relation of yours?”
“Distantly, yes,” said Sherlock.
“You'd best be getting back to your inn before long,” Summerisle said. “As much as I'm enjoying this visit, I think you probably still have work today. I'll have Branch call ahead and make sure your room is still held.” He nodded at an old-fashioned wall-mount phone and turned away.
“Landlines, nothing but landlines,” John griped under his breath. “Not even any ansaphones. I know they're trying to time-travel to pre-Christian times, but it's like they got stuck in the 1970s.”
“Patience, John. You're getting to know their ways.”
John shook his head at Sherlock. “You like it here!”
“So far I do,” Sherlock admitted. “I'm not bored yet.”
“That isn't reassuring,” John said.
“Why do you need reassurance?” Sherlock snapped.
“Because things are starting to get really, really creepy.”
Sherlock didn't deny it.
***
Dusk was falling as Branch Burns pulled up his horse cart to take them back to the village. Sherlock insisted on sitting in the middle this time, and he was restless - shifting about from side to side, so that his thigh kept brushing John's in the most distracting way, and at least once John took an elbow to the ribs when Sherlock whirled around suddenly to look at something or other, never explaining, never saying a word.
John felt someone ought to, so he found himself trying to make stilted conversation across Sherlock. “So tomorrow's a big day, huh?”
“One of the biggest of the year,” Burns said. “Glad you're staying. You'll see.”
“So it's like . . . mummers, and a bonfire and a maypole and all that?”
“And all that,” Burns said. He wasn't the greatest conversationalist.
“Stop!” Sherlock yelled.
Burns yanked back on the reins, and the horse huffed angrily. Sherlock bolted from the cart and hopped a low hedge, approaching a low stone wall that guarded the approach to the sea. He looked down at the ground for a long moment, with his shoulders hunched and his back turned, then he picked up a stone and threw it across the water. Even over the wind, John thought he could hear Sherlock's triumphant laugh.
“What's he doing?” Burns asked.
“No idea,” John said. “Probably something to help him think.”
The chilling sea wind billowed Sherlock's coat out around him, hiding anything he might be doing, except he really seemed to be getting a lot of enjoyment from throwing rocks into the water. “Come walk with me, John,” he yelled.
“Oh . . . all right?” John looked at Burns questioningly. Burns nodded, but looked very put upon.
When John reached Sherlock, he had a flat, smooth black rock in his hand, about the size of a mobile phone. “Volcanic, just like Lord Summerisle said,” Sherlock said cheerfully. “Igneous gabbro. There are protrusions of this throughout the Hebrides. Your Cuillins on Skye, for example.”
“Did you think Summerisle was making it up?” John asked, utterly baffled.
“Just wanted to make sure,” Sherlock said and walked with him in silence for a few minutes, back and forth along the water. His keen eyes scanned the shoreline on either side - the cliffs above and around them rugged and harsh and riddled with caves.
“You know something you're not telling me,” John said reproachfully. “Lots of things.”
“I'm percolating,” Sherlock snapped as he turned and led John grudgingly back to the horsecart. He said nothing for the rest of the ride back to the Green Man Inn.
John thanked Burns for the ride as Sherlock hopped out and strode on ahead, fast and preoccupied. He wondered if one was supposed to tip kidnappers or strongarm escorts or whatever Burns really was underneath that blank surface. It was a habit by now, sweetening the sting of time spent with Sherlock by those who weren't used to it.
***
In their room that night, John was tense and felt cooped up. He paced, he placed himself stiffly on the bed with a book that was too dry to take him out of himself. Sherlock sat still in the chair by the window, looking out at the garden and the sky and listening to the sounds of chattering voices below. Then he took out a book and began to read, and his concentration seemed absolute.
And then they heard a husky female voice crooning, “Sherlock . . .”
That was all she said. It was Willow, it had to be Willow, on the other side of the door.
She struck out a soft beat with her hand on the wall. It matched the beat of the bodhran downstairs.
The walls were so thin, her voice cut clear through as she sang so softly and seductively.
Sherlock never lifted his head from the books he'd pilfered from Lord Summerisle's private library. He just kept reading.
John heard every word that came out in that voice: tender, seductive, inviting, longing, almost begging. He could almost see her on the other side of the wall; naked, swaying, lovely, caressing herself.
The history of the Highland clans, courtesy of Lord Summerisle, that he'd been reading fell aside as he began to sweat. Blood pooled in his groin and his jeans grew tight; he loosened his collar as the siren song filled him with a terribly embarrassing need he could never confess. Now he was attuned to every word of Willow's song, her promise of touches as gentle as a feather and sun-at-midnight, wonders shown, and her song did what it was meant to; it weaved itself into every thread of his body and made him crave.
But he knew he was not the object of her call. Her spell, even. Sherlock stayed in his chair, reading his book, completely impassive.
John made a tight little movement that made the fabric of his underpants scrape the surface of his swelling cock, and he struggled to calm himself. Just one little whimper caught Sherlock's attention, and he found himself the focus of that gaze that bared everything. “John. This is really affecting you.”
“Um. Yeah.”
“You're in distress,” Sherlock said as he stood up, alarmed. (Of course John glanced at his groin. Saw nothing unusual.)
“Yes,” John said.
“I'll make it stop,” Sherlock said, and he went to the door their room shared with Willow's, and turned the knob before John could stop him.
The door was unlocked and Willow was waiting - standing against the door frame with one curvy hip cocked, her round breasts and firm belly lightly sheened in sweat from her dancing. The smile she gave Sherlock was ravishing, and John squirmed miserably as she touched him, one small hand on his forearm, pushing his rolled-up sleeve higher. The contrast between her nudity and his fully-dressed state was so sexy John had to look away. “Good evening,” she said, the insinuation clear that she had every intention of making it better.
“Are you trying to seduce me?” Sherlock asked. The answer was obvious to him, but he was interested in how she'd phrase her reply.
“Oooh, you're a good detective,” she said with a wink. “You seem like a red-blooded man who wouldn't turn down an honest night's sporting.”
“If you think that, then you're not a very good one,” Sherlock said. He peeled her hand off his chest and placed it back down by her side, paying no attention to her round hips or pert bum or inviting triangular tuft of hair. John shivered and groaned, and he wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed. Something about the idea of Sherlock taking Willow up on her offer, taking her in his arms, letting her undress him . . . God, it made him want to come and vomit at the same time.
“I imagine you aren't turned down very often, are you?” Sherlock said.
“No,” she said, a little edge in her voice. “And you'd be wiser if you didn't. You really should let me have you, and it really should be tonight of all nights.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I'm trying to save you,” Willow said frankly.
Sherlock's head snapped up and his spine straightened. John couldn't see all of his face, but the half of it that was out of the shadows was focused and almost entranced, gears in his brain turning madly.
“You've done this before. And what's in it for you? Oh, of course. You enjoy it. And it's your job. You give the condemned man a last chance.”
“You're a fool not to take it.”
“Maybe I am. But as well as you fit the prevailing standards of beauty in women, you are simply not stirring me at all, I'm sorry to inform you.”
“Not at all?” Willow said, with a coquettish pout.
“Nope,” Sherlock said, popping the P brattishly, and looking at her like a slow child, waiting for the penny to drop.
“Oh!” she said. “Oh, I see! Not the Goddess Aphrodite for you, but the God Eros. Well, no hard feelings then. So to speak. I could suggest Ian, the butcher's son, he's a very well-made lad, and he swings that way...”
“That would hardly suit the purpose of . . . fertility,” Sherlock said, coldly amused.
“It's symbolic,” Willow said.
“Ah!” Sherlock said. “So you've modernised a bit. Glad to hear it. Gerald Gardner's conception of the primordial witch-cult's rites is oppressively heterosexual, although the emphasis on scourging is certainly an intriguing direction to --”
“Who?”
“Never mind,” Sherlock said, smirking a little. “Anyway, thank you for your kind offer, Willow. I do appreciate it.” He slammed the door in her face.
“Oh God, Sherlock,” John said, horrified. But a little fascinated. “What is it with you and women wanting to talk to you while they’re naked?”
“Twice could still be a coincidence,” Sherlock shrugged.
“Figures you’d have that power and not even appreciate it,” John said.
“Come on, John, let’s go for a walk. You need fresh air. Go masturbate in the lavatory quickly, I’ll wait. No, wait! You should do it outside. The rosebushes are looking peaky.”
TBC
AO3
Chapter 1 on LJ
Chapter 2 on LJ