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holmestice2014-12-21 09:00 pm
holmesticemods) wrote in holmestice2014-12-21 09:00 pm
Fic for blue_eyed_1987: You and Me and Him
Title: You and Me and Him
Recipient:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blue_eyed_1987
Author:fleetwood_mouse
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson/Mary Morstan, John Watson/Mary Morstan
Rating: M
Warnings: Sexual content, drug use, angst, abuse of punctuation.
Note: Thanks to Ariane DeVere and her invaluable episode transcripts! I believe any quotes I borrowed are verbatim (but some are out of order and some are made up for the purposes of this story).
Summary: “Is John with you?” she says, and Sherlock’s heart stops. Finally, he sees.
“Is John with you?” she says, and Sherlock’s heart stops. Finally, he sees.
“Is John here?”
He sees John fumbling in the pocket of his jacket. He sees John knocking back his wine in one gulp, letting out a shaky breath. He sees John for the first time in two years, and it’s seismic the way this feeling rattles through his chest, drops the bottom out of his stomach, steals his breath. The new lines on John face, the golden crown of his head. The way the air shimmers and curls around him, the way the room narrows down to a pinprick, the noise dying away in Sherlock’s ears.
But John isn’t alone—John may be the only thing that matters, but John isn’t alone. John is having dinner with a woman, here, in this display of extravagance and opulence. John is on an important date, and John is steeling himself and meeting her eyes; John is beginning to speak and the expression on his face is deadly sincere, and Sherlock’s feet are moving before he knows what he’s doing, dragging him around to get a look at her, to assure himself that this cannot be happening, not now.
I’m best thing that could have happened to you, she says, and her nose screws up with laughter and from ten paces away Sherlock can read the yes in her eyes. There’s something welling up inside him, something dropping away, something that can’t be explained by London or the cocaine or John’s proximity, and it flushes his skin pink, twists his guts cold. He wishes he could wipe it away with this ridiculous moustache.
His palms sweat, his fingers twitch, and—independent of any conscious thought—his lips begin to move. He sees that there is something blooming in John’s eyes, bruise-dark and fathoms deep, something beyond Sherlock’s imagining.
John?, she says, and oh God. You’re…
This thing in John’s eyes is trembling through every line of his form, emotion rising up from him like heat from summer asphalt and Sherlock can’t read it, can’t make any sense of it because what he’s seeing on John’s face is everything at once, is every moment of these last two years, every second of anger or loneliness or despair, and it’s a calculus Sherlock hasn’t accounted for. In any case, it’s suddenly, brilliantly clear that something has gone very wrong.
Do you have any idea what you’ve done to him? she says. Her voice is trembling and there’s the rattle of John’s fist on the table, the vibrating glassware, and Sherlock should recognise it as a warning shot. It registers too late, this warning, and he doesn’t react, doesn’t fight the drag of John’s fingers at his neck, the wave of John’s body bearing him down, the floor rising up to crack against his spine. His hands move reflexively to his throat (for what little good it does against John’s anger), and he leaves them there, limp and idle. As his airflow trickles to a stop, he traces his thumbs across the backs of John’s hand, traces patterns in the blackening edges of his vision and watches the bob of her head behind John’s shoulder.
But how?, he thinks, how on earth—and the din of asphyxiation is rolling in his ears like aftershocks, and he sees that her dark eyes are wide with concern. She tugs at John’s shoulders and John’s fingers tighten reflexively around Sherlock’s throat, and then something in John crumples—the crown of his head folds against the breast of Sherlock’s suit jacket and he curls in on himself, loose-limbed and hot and shaking.
Come on, she says out of the corner of her mouth, and as they sort themselves out, she bows her head to the waiter, embarrassed and apologetic, but there’s a mischievous glee that surrounds her like faerie glow. Still, all Sherlock can see is the flush of anger in John’s cheeks, the shock and hurt vibrating through his veins, and Sherlock knows with dreadful certainty that he is out of his depth, that this is something he is not prepared to navigate.
Her name is Mary and she is a cat lover and a nurse at John’s clinic and a former—no, this is unnecessary because she is irrelevant, she is completely irrelevant, an accessory to John’s life like the ones before, and they will be rid of her soon enough. Sherlock is back in London now, and he’s given John a taste of the fight he wants and so John is going to get on top of his ridiculous anger and forgive Sherlock and things are going to go back to the way they were.
Sit, Mary says, and, Here, you look half-starved. Steam rises hot from the chips and from John, glaring at her, accusatory and betrayed.
Go on, then, she says, and, John, low and warning, when Sherlock’s mouth gets the best of him. And, Oh, he would have needed a confidante.
Her eyes flash with mirth and it spurs something in Sherlock, a little flicker of recognition that knocks the words loose, exaggerating the telling to seek her approval. It’s the puzzle for her, too, not this messy and mass of emotions; it’s the thrill and the call, the rising night and the echo of footfalls in the street. That’s because—he realises with a sick thread of shock—she’s his replacement, an imitation, a stand-in. John chose her for this express purpose, and now he intends to marry her.
Sherlock doesn’t let this revelation register, doesn’t let it slow him down; he just presses on with his explanation until finally, from across the table, there are John’s hands at his neck again, stealing his breath, close enough to kiss. Time stops, Sherlock’s heart stops, everything stops and he waits for Mary to drag them apart. She doesn’t disappoint.
Here, she says, and presses a wad of napkins into his hands. Her eyes are on his lips, and when Sherlock darts his tongue out, he tastes blood. He dabs at his mouth and holds his hand there. John won’t meet his eyes, John won’t rise to his jokes; John, it seems, is intent on setting himself against both of them and holding his ground. He can’t side with her while she’s smiling at Sherlock.
But Sherlock knows John—or knew him once, but in any case, he knows that this ice cannot hold. John’s anger is the type to burn hot, to smoulder and rise in licking columns of flame. And if Sherlock can have nothing else, he can still have that.
So he talks in circles and invokes memories, he prods and pokes and shakes pain loose, and it seems he’s still got his touch because yes, just like that, John’s hands are on his collar, John’s face is hurtling towards his and the world goes black and sharp and ringing.
Mary leads him outside by the elbow. He doesn’t need her help, but he’s seeing double so he lets her take his arm, lets her fold his hand in hers. Her gaze, her voice is chiding and patient. Pinch your nose, she says, and Good; just like that.
It irks him that he obeys, but he does. John storms off to hail a cab. Sherlock swallows the blood welling in his throat.
She looks up at him and smiles.
I'll talk him round, she says.
Sherlock watches in wonder as she follows John, clambers into the cab beside him. There’s a whirl of information around her, personality and history and past lives, but Sherlock can’t untangle each fact from the other, can’t work out what she meant by that, what she might possibly want from him.
The next day, she comes to him with fear glinting dark in her eyes, winding in knots around her like that ridiculous handmade scarf, and his ears perk up and he listens. She shows him her texts and her theories, the first hints of a keen mind, real cleverness, and then she catches the scent, follows close on his heels just like John, who—
Sherlock swallows down the thought, the bubbling rise of fear, and chokes the throttle with all his strength. Mary’s arms wrap tighter around his waist, small hands burrowing against the bow of his ribs.
He crashes through the bonfire without a second thought, his eyes wild and unfocused, but he finds John there among the flickering embers, his one fixed point. Kindling crackles around him, the logs falling down around his ears, and but he still hears Mary calling both their names as he drags John clear. John is bleary and limp and unresisting, John is singed and barely responsive, and John hates Sherlock, but John is alive. John is alive because Mary led Sherlock here; she brought him to John just in time, and she might bring John back to him yet.
She fusses over John’s injuries and checks Sherlock's hands for burns and offers to replace his gloves. Hardly a fair trade, she says, and she's not crying, but it's a close thing.
The next day, John comes round and forgives him, and what does it mean that they need to be wired up with explosives before they can manage to say anything to each other, but at least it’s something, and Sherlock could collapse with the relief of it all. He sits down with the two of them and Mrs Hudson and Molly Hooper and, well, somebody of Molly’s, he’s not entirely clear and he doesn’t care. Despite the forced chatter, his heart is so light, his chest so open and easy that he doesn’t quite recognise himself.
Mary smiles at him across the table and he could build up an altar to her, to her light, clever hands and careful teasing, to the miracle of John’s forgiveness—of there being a John left to forgive him. Because it’s not just what happened yesterday—he’s seen it in John’s face, in the trembling line of his jaw in the restaurant, the devastating tension thrumming beneath his skin—Sherlock has seen enough to know that she has saved John more than once.
He smiles back at her and curses his own blindness, and learns to fold napkins for their wedding.
I’m not John, she says, I can tell when you’re fibbing, and he thinks with dread of the speech-writing book on his dresser, of standing up there in front of all those people, what they will see. When he’s around the two of them, his palms are either cold or sweating and his pulse is a notch too high and there’s a strange tickle behind his ribs.
He nods along and listens and chooses invitations, flowers, cummerbunds, namecards. Nothing they could want from him is too much. He pins names on charts and logs RSVPs and watches the the way John’s moods shift beneath his placid surface.
Oh, hi Beth!, she says, and, You need to run him, and exactly how dull does Mary think he is anyway? But he plays along—all three of them play their parts and she sends the two of them out to be themselves together, to find their way back.
John needs something from Sherlock, it’s obvious, John is trying to work his way around new words and the going is slow—these are things he finds difficult. And Sherlock’s not any better, but tries his best to get their first, to intuit John’s words and whether he’s afraid to hear them, what they might change. In the end, he curses himself and turns and runs. They’ll manage this eventually. Or they won’t. Either way.
And then, unexpectedly, a man is bleeding out in the showers—a man who wasn’t actually dead—and all Sherlock can do is watch. The man’s lifeblood is running down the drain like so much bathwater but John knows what to do here, John knows where to press, how to keep it all from trickling away and so Sherlock swallows his fear and puts his hands where John tells him, looks into John’s dark eyes and tries to forget the promises he’s made himself.
That night, John recounts the tale to Mary and she claps her hands and beams at them both and busses John’s cheek. She opens a bottle of red and toasts them and teases them, prods them into admiring words and stuttered, abortive half-truths. When Sherlock’s ears tingle and his tongue loosens, panic rises in his chest and he starts to excuse himself, but when he reaches for his scarf, Mary steps into his space and begins to unbutton his coat.
Sherlock goes perfectly still and looks over her head at John, who is also not moving, not even breathing; waiting for the pin to drop.
Stay, she says, and her eyes are as dark as the lashes above them. We want you to, she says; we want you… And when that doesn't work, she takes his hands in hers and goes up on her toes and, and—
—and laughs at his gaping mouth and flushed cheeks, his gobsmacked gasp, but when she kisses him again, he dips his head down to meet her and she melts into his touch.
My boys, she says and tugs John's wrist, leads them both by the hand. She’s undoing John’s buttons and Sherlock’s at once, her small hands clever like trained pets. John raises one to his lips but he’s looking at Sherlock; John’s eyes are so dark and shifting and deep.
She perches on the edge of the big bed, the one she shares with John, and pats the space beside her.
It's okay, she says, and she guides John's disbelieving hand to the gaps of Sherlock's ribs. And You're allowed, you know, as John swallows back his words and stares like a pilgrim at the sight of his skin against Sherlock’s, watching intently for the spark of life, the moment of transubstantiation, this thing they’ve desired for so long. Sherlock can feel himself trembling; John’s hands are tellingly steady.
Easy now, Mary says, barely a whisper in an ear, low as the evening light.
John kisses him in halting pieces, little sips of wine and honey, and Sherlock lies back and lets himself be kissed. When he brings his hand to the nape of John’s neck and kisses back, John groans as if he’s been stabbed; then, John kisses him in long, surging draughts that steal his composure and leave them both panting. When John pulls back, his eyes are as big and bright and dark as nebulae, and all the contents of his heart are plainly visible on every line of his body, joyous and tortured with wanting.
Mary slips something into John’s hand, pecks Sherlock's lips and laughs when he chases her kiss. She tastes of claret and John and intent—this isn't an impulse, this is planned, premeditated; this is not (Sherlock hopes) an isolated incident. He calls up the facts, tries to analyse, tries to see, but then John’s fingers move inside him and all he can do is breathe around it, let his instincts take over, do what Mary’s hands tell him.
Deep breath, she says, and Sherlock stares down at the seam of their bodies, where he and John are joined. His hands are hot and shaking; hers are cool and stroking sweetly over his biceps, combing serenity through his hair.
John curses in a staggered, stuttering exhale—he's biting his tongue, Sherlock can hear it in his voice—and presses his forehead to Sherlock's chest. It’s unfathomable to see him like this, eyes wonder-wide and wanting, and it makes Sherlock's hollow chest ache, his head loll, his hips jerk and shudder.
Ready, love?, she says, and there is every indication she is talking to Sherlock, and the brightness of the spark inside his chest is enough to eclipse his vocabulary.
He nods and John begins to move and the little air in his lungs is pressed out of him with this fullness, the burn and the stretch of muscle, the burden of detail: every flicker John’s expression, his strained voice, the weight of his muscle and pounding heart.
John is beautiful like this, limbs fluid and skin hot, his praise and astonishment and love become corporeal. There is noise falling from Sherlock’s lips, bitten-off shards of words, names, and John is shuddering against him like an engine, like a heart attack, and Sherlock wraps his legs around John’s hips and feels, lets their pulses line up until all he knows is his own breathing, harsh and ragged and wild.
John groans and rolls off him, and Sherlock barely has time to register disappointment before Mary’s hands are on him and then John’s too, rolling him over until he is spooned against John’s chest, ensconced between his knees and Mary is swinging her legs over his hips. Her eyes narrow with concentration as she guides herself down. Sherlock can feel it, feel every slow second of give, every fraction of an inch and it’s so different to John—John who is holding him with steady hands, breathing hard against the nape of his neck, heartbeat pounding against Sherlock’s back. Whispering filth and encouragement and endearments, running his palms up and down Sherlock’s thighs, stroking and squeezing and probing as if he doesn’t quite believe, as if he still expects this to be snatched away from him.
Mary works her thighs and braces herself, leans down over Sherlock’s shoulder to kiss John. Her hair tickles against his cheek, her perfume winding round him in dizzying, calligraphic loops—Clair de la Lune. He leans in and bites her, sinks his teeth in where neck meets shoulder and she makes a sound that’s half groan, half laugh, and her muscles tense involuntarily around him. Just like that, he can’t see anything—his vision catches fire and his body is an animal, his body is a process, and he clings to Mary and shakes and shakes like he’s never going to stop.
The next thing he knows, John’s lips are soft on his shoulder and Mary is nudging him over, curling her thigh up between his and easing him back into the circle of John’s arms.
She presses her cheek into the thin skin over his pulse. Sleep now, she says, think later, and like always, Sherlock obeys. She’s too warm against him and John is snoring lightly in his ear and yet Sherlock doesn’t have a single objection to doing this every night for the rest of his life.
I do, she says, two weeks later, and Sherlock watches from the altar, just an arm's length away from John. She kisses John and Sherlock feels the blood gathering in his groin, Pavlovian and biological and very nearly logical, actually. Because it’s the way she kissed John the night before—he recognises it—and the night before that; it's the way he’s allowed to kiss John and he’s allowed to kiss Mary and it’s only natural that his body remembers. It’s her and John and Sherlock, it's the three of them (no matter what that killjoy big-brotherly tickle in the back of his mind might say).
The people cheer and she drops her hands from his shoulders. As they turn to make their procession out the door, John catches Sherlock's eye—John is always aware of him, always seeking him out—and John blushes and smiles and is not quite brave enough to wink.
But, it turns out, John is brave enough to find Sholto, to track him down in his hermitage and invite him here to beam up at him in front of everyone and God. Sherlock watches them and the wine goes sour in his mouth. Sholto wears his wounds like a pair of shackles, but John looks into his scarred face like he sees the sun and stars.
Neither of us was the first, you know she says, and touches his shoulder and laughs. It's no comfort whatsoever, of course—how could it be when she’s the one with the claim on John?
Sherlock pushes the thought away because he has a claim too, now—he has left his affection tattooed on John's bared throat, the dark shape of his fingertips on John's hips, the small of his back. He has felt John move inside him, he has worked John's body open and cleaved sweetly to him, he has kissed the gasps from John's lips and the sweat from his brow. Their blood has mingled, they have breathed deep from each other's lungs, they have come back to life for each other and he is part of John's world in a way that cannot be erased— this is a fact and he is certain of it.
But I chose this wine, she says. And, Just some toast, please—nervous stomach. And, Had to lose so much weight to get into this dress.
And a thousand other things he didn’t see until it's too late.
Sherlock’s stomach turns. His tongue is too thick in his mouth, his words clumsy and inadequate. He watches Mary and John listening to him, watches the meaning sink in. There is shock on both of their faces, and not a little bit of fear.
I’m not panicking, Mary says, and it’s a lie but a necessary one. She gets up to dance with John, her slim waist a promise between them, and Sherlock stands there to the side, seeing the future, seeing the three of them—the vision rises up before him like an ocean horizon and washes over him like waves. He very nearly manages to stay until the end of the song. Very nearly.
Silence is the result, foreseeable but wretched, long weeks of nothing, no one. He never should have left early—he'd known John would be furious, John would be hurt—but there's no longer any point in drawing this out, not now. Rip the plaster off and be done with it. Maintain some semblance of control. Save yourself the pain. Don’t get involved.
Sherlock throws away the swans and the opera houses, deletes everything he’s ever learnt about Antigua. He eats the ginger biscuits that must come from Mrs Hudson and smokes cigarettes down to the filter until his fingertips are stained yellow. He sits on the roof and reads about phosphates, about refeeding syndrome, about people rescued from the brink of starvation. When confronted with food, their greedy stomachs betray them and they eat and eat until their systems fail from the reinstitution of nutrition.
He thought he had gorged himself—it had certainly felt that way at the time—but if this feeling is any indication, he could have managed so much more.
Call him, she’ll say. Over breakfast in the morning, when John passes her the milk. When he turns on the telly and keeps watching his phone for a text. When he pulls the covers up around his ears and rolls over on his stomach with a sigh.
Or just drop by, she’ll say, tracing her pink nails up the gold hair on John’s thighs. You miss him, she’ll say. I miss him. And her fingers will tickle, curling back behind John’s testicles, and John’s mouth will go thin and angry and blank, and he’ll drag her up face-to-face and pull out all the stops to make her forget, make her leave this alone. Their Mary with her good-natured prodding, her not-always-subtle direction.
Sherlock tries not to think about it because John won't call, no matter what Mary says. John won’t call because John loved first and John loves hard and John is too proud to indulge his fear of being left behind again, of being discarded. John won’t call and Sherlock might not see John again, and it is necessary to reconcile himself to these facts. It will be difficult because Mary will fight for Sherlock—she always does. Mary, for whatever reason, seems to want him in John's life.
And it will be difficult because it feels like this—how can anything feel like this?—and Sherlock has no idea how he's going to stand it. But he's chosen his path and difficult has never stopped Sherlock Holmes.
In the meantime, there's Janine. Janine, who turns out to be a bit dull—not quite as dull as everyone else, happily, but ultimately insufficient as a distraction. Most people are, though. Anyway, Sherlock knows to look elsewhere for his distraction, the kind that numbs and thrills, and he only has to seek to find it. And then he has his elysium, his lethe, flowing brisk and silver-quick through his veins, and now he can sleep when he likes and wake when he likes and yet John’s face floats before his eyes so often that he can’t even muster real surprise when he wakes up and really sees him there.
His Janine—she has her uses. She’s a natural performer, just like Sherlock, and she catches the wick of John's jealousy. Sherlock sees her feel it too, sees her bask in it, and something in her smile eggs him on. He imagines the four of them and a Sunday dinner—Sherlock and Janine, fingers intertwined, seated across from John and Mary—and he smiles up at John as if this is a perfectly reasonable idea. He watches it sink in, observes the tension of John’s shoulders, the flush of anger. The subtle map of twitches across his face. And this, he thinks, is something he can have. It will be enough.
He fills John in on the Magnussen case and talks him around (the thrill of the chase, the two of us against the rest of the world) and then he wraps his coat around himself and goes out to do his shopping. He feels naked; no matter where he goes, he can feel the flicker of Magnussen's shark eyes. It leaves his throat tight, his blood cold.
He fingers the box in his pocket and thinks of John at the restaurant, John on that first night at Angelo’s. John’s smile at his wedding. A flickering fire, Sherlock’s parents warm and dozy on the sofa, Redbeard dreaming at their feet.
He tries the key card and it works. John follows close on his heels.
In the office, he’s incredulous to see Janine lying unconscious on the floor, but no—it’s not for the trite reasons he expects. There’s the smell of violence in the air, blood and fear and... Clair de la Lune, but why here, why would he smell her perfume here?
No, not Mary—somebody else. He flicks through his mental catalogue of scents, scanning for a familiar face, and works his way down the hallway.
John, in the other room, is calling out his disbelief and concern. John wants to call the police. John may not be a natural at burglary—well, that’s fine. Let John be the doctor, then, let John care for poor, senseless Janine; let Sherlock be the detective.
The carpet muffles his footfalls, and from down the hall he can hear Magnussen's voice, ragged and low and full of fear unbecoming a man of his profile. Magnussen’s fear opens up more possibilities, spidering and telescoping ever outward. A coward is a man who has lost his leverage, a coward can be manipulated; ergo, Sherlock can win this.
Or, if it seems advantageous, he could join forces with this other intruder and—
A slip of black, casting a different shadow than he’d expected, petite and feminine—oh, the scent, yes: Lady Smallwood, more resourceful than he’d thought. Striking in her black cap, her black gloves, with her lead-grey pistol cocked and pointed at Magnussen’s pale skull.
She turns at the sound of his voice, but he must have been mistaken or she must not recognise him in the low light because now her gun is pointed at Sherlock. He knows it’s a mistake, knows he’s in no danger, but all the same, a rush of shock freezes his lungs and for a moment, he can’t quite grasp that he does recognise her.
Not someone else. Mary.
“Is John with you?” she says, and Sherlock’s heart stops. Finally, he sees.
“Is John here?”
That steel-trap mind.
The skip codes.
The orphan story.
And a thousand other things he didn’t see until it's too late.
“Oh, Sherlock...”
This is Mary—his Mary, who has always fought for him; Mary who talked John around, tooth and nail; Mary, who has always wanted Sherlock in John’s life.
But whatever the situation—he doesn’t know; his mind is still racing with the influx of signs and conclusions, the rush and roar new data—whatever kind of trouble she’s in, it will be all right. Sherlock can fight for Mary. It can be his turn now. He tries to tell her.
“If you take one more step,” she says, "I swear I will kill you."
Sherlock's first thought is that she sounds almost sad; his second, on its heels, is to wonder how he could possibly know that. He’s never spoken to this woman before; this is not his—
The sound of a car backfiring; a steel fist connecting with his ribs. All this and yet he still refuses to see.
Mary on the back of the motorcycle, arms desperately tight around his waist. Mary and her knitting and her kneading and her jokes, conductor of words he can’t say. Mary, who cleaned his cuts, who saved John’s life, who—
No, he can’t process this, but nor can he afford to keep dwelling. His hard drive is flipping over, grasping wildly at the truth, but if he keeps running up against this wall it’s going to kill him. He needs clarity, he needs sanctuary, he needs—
It’s not like it is in the movies, says Molly, and Sherlock could cry with the relief. You’re almost certainly going to die, so we need to focus.
The sting of her slap grounds him—it’s more real than the pain of his wound, it has to be, because his wound doesn’t make any sense—Mary and her gun, Mary in her veil, Mary astride his thighs, cheeks flushed and pulse thrumming in her throat.
If the bullet had passed through you, says Mycroft...
If the bullet had passed through you, what would you have heard?
Of course, thinks Sherlock. And with great, deliberate effort, he lets himself begin to fall backwards. The ground obliges, rising up to meet him, to plug the bullet inside. Mary’s bullet, which has burrowed through skin and bone and muscle to tear him apart. Which is also the only thing keeping him alive.
Shock is next, setting in like ice and molasses, and he grits his teeth and shakes and shakes like he’s never going to stop. His blood spreads in a pool on Magnussen’s floor, and in his mind palace, his feet pound on the stairs, deeper and darker and ever more loathsome—his last, desperate hope.
Just die, can’t you? says Jim, all rage and flecks of spittle.
There is a hole through me, he thinks. But John would know what to do.
The room is dirty and neglected; its walls are weathered with rage and madness and fear. Jim’s chains are clanking and creaking as he jerks and twists. His face is dirty and caked with spittle.
Buckets and buckets, he says, and Sherlock harnesses his anger, fights out a sob, fights the urge to lay back and die.
In his body, far away, John is lowering his ear to Sherlock’s lips; John’s hands are on his chest, his neck; John is saying his name in the ambulance, cradling Sherlock’s hand in his. Mary is nowhere to be seen, Mary is gone, Mary never existed to begin with.
That wife, says Jim, laughing out a huff of sour breath, and Sherlock knows what he has to do.
The pain is incredible, but he holds steady; he drags himself up, stair by stair, as his bones rearrange themselves beneath his skin. This is for John. John will be safe. John will not be left alone with Mary. John will be protected at all costs.
His blood is brittle and splintering in his veins, his lungs flap uselessly like gutted fish, and his every breath burns. This is for John. He’s managed Serbia and the bonfire and the roof of St. Bart’s, and he will manage this too.
His vision is white and hazy; there’s a fog settling over his mind, spreading through his veins on cool paws of velvet, and he realises with blessed relief that that the pain is fading. Which may mean that he’s dying or it may mean he’s dead or it may simply mean morphine, but any way you look at it, this is over—it’s out of his hands, it’s over.
Hours later, he’s still alive and he knows it because he smells her there, Clair de la Lune, sweet in his nose like rotting meat. It prickles at the base of his spine, waking ancient instincts and race memory, lighting up his nervous system with fear and response. Fight or flight, yes, but he can’t do either; it takes all his willpower to crack open his eyes and confirm what he already knows.
Her face swims in front of his eyes, a mosaic of dark eyes and clouds and white hospital tile.
“You don’t tell him,” she says. When her lips move, her whole image shimmers in time; there's a forest of pain and haze between them. She’s looking down at him, mouth set and cold. She’s here to finish him and he cannot wiggle a finger in his own defence.
And yet he drifts. He can’t help it.
“Sherlock?” she says. "You don’t tell John."
Fine, then. If that’s the game, he has years of practice.
His eyes fall closed and when he has the strength to open them again, Magnussen is standing in her place and Sherlock is terrified.
His skin crawls under Magnussen’s damp touch and he wiggles the finger, he does it, but immediately wishes he hadn’t; falling so far short is more pitiful than failing entirely.
Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut and wills Magnussen to be gone, wills his mind to go blank, and finally, finally he is alone—where is John? Is he safe?
Before he can press the questions, the morphine carries him to another sleep. He surrenders to its relief, but first, he makes himself a vow.
When he next wakes, he will stop the drip. He will clear his head. He will make the plan. He has survived and therefore so will John. The two of them against the rest of the world. The way it’s meant to be.
Recipient:
blue_eyed_1987Author:
fleetwood_mouseCharacters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson/Mary Morstan, John Watson/Mary Morstan
Rating: M
Warnings: Sexual content, drug use, angst, abuse of punctuation.
Note: Thanks to Ariane DeVere and her invaluable episode transcripts! I believe any quotes I borrowed are verbatim (but some are out of order and some are made up for the purposes of this story).
Summary: “Is John with you?” she says, and Sherlock’s heart stops. Finally, he sees.
“Is John with you?” she says, and Sherlock’s heart stops. Finally, he sees.
“Is John here?”
He sees John fumbling in the pocket of his jacket. He sees John knocking back his wine in one gulp, letting out a shaky breath. He sees John for the first time in two years, and it’s seismic the way this feeling rattles through his chest, drops the bottom out of his stomach, steals his breath. The new lines on John face, the golden crown of his head. The way the air shimmers and curls around him, the way the room narrows down to a pinprick, the noise dying away in Sherlock’s ears.
But John isn’t alone—John may be the only thing that matters, but John isn’t alone. John is having dinner with a woman, here, in this display of extravagance and opulence. John is on an important date, and John is steeling himself and meeting her eyes; John is beginning to speak and the expression on his face is deadly sincere, and Sherlock’s feet are moving before he knows what he’s doing, dragging him around to get a look at her, to assure himself that this cannot be happening, not now.
I’m best thing that could have happened to you, she says, and her nose screws up with laughter and from ten paces away Sherlock can read the yes in her eyes. There’s something welling up inside him, something dropping away, something that can’t be explained by London or the cocaine or John’s proximity, and it flushes his skin pink, twists his guts cold. He wishes he could wipe it away with this ridiculous moustache.
His palms sweat, his fingers twitch, and—independent of any conscious thought—his lips begin to move. He sees that there is something blooming in John’s eyes, bruise-dark and fathoms deep, something beyond Sherlock’s imagining.
John?, she says, and oh God. You’re…
This thing in John’s eyes is trembling through every line of his form, emotion rising up from him like heat from summer asphalt and Sherlock can’t read it, can’t make any sense of it because what he’s seeing on John’s face is everything at once, is every moment of these last two years, every second of anger or loneliness or despair, and it’s a calculus Sherlock hasn’t accounted for. In any case, it’s suddenly, brilliantly clear that something has gone very wrong.
Do you have any idea what you’ve done to him? she says. Her voice is trembling and there’s the rattle of John’s fist on the table, the vibrating glassware, and Sherlock should recognise it as a warning shot. It registers too late, this warning, and he doesn’t react, doesn’t fight the drag of John’s fingers at his neck, the wave of John’s body bearing him down, the floor rising up to crack against his spine. His hands move reflexively to his throat (for what little good it does against John’s anger), and he leaves them there, limp and idle. As his airflow trickles to a stop, he traces his thumbs across the backs of John’s hand, traces patterns in the blackening edges of his vision and watches the bob of her head behind John’s shoulder.
But how?, he thinks, how on earth—and the din of asphyxiation is rolling in his ears like aftershocks, and he sees that her dark eyes are wide with concern. She tugs at John’s shoulders and John’s fingers tighten reflexively around Sherlock’s throat, and then something in John crumples—the crown of his head folds against the breast of Sherlock’s suit jacket and he curls in on himself, loose-limbed and hot and shaking.
Come on, she says out of the corner of her mouth, and as they sort themselves out, she bows her head to the waiter, embarrassed and apologetic, but there’s a mischievous glee that surrounds her like faerie glow. Still, all Sherlock can see is the flush of anger in John’s cheeks, the shock and hurt vibrating through his veins, and Sherlock knows with dreadful certainty that he is out of his depth, that this is something he is not prepared to navigate.
Her name is Mary and she is a cat lover and a nurse at John’s clinic and a former—no, this is unnecessary because she is irrelevant, she is completely irrelevant, an accessory to John’s life like the ones before, and they will be rid of her soon enough. Sherlock is back in London now, and he’s given John a taste of the fight he wants and so John is going to get on top of his ridiculous anger and forgive Sherlock and things are going to go back to the way they were.
Sit, Mary says, and, Here, you look half-starved. Steam rises hot from the chips and from John, glaring at her, accusatory and betrayed.
Go on, then, she says, and, John, low and warning, when Sherlock’s mouth gets the best of him. And, Oh, he would have needed a confidante.
Her eyes flash with mirth and it spurs something in Sherlock, a little flicker of recognition that knocks the words loose, exaggerating the telling to seek her approval. It’s the puzzle for her, too, not this messy and mass of emotions; it’s the thrill and the call, the rising night and the echo of footfalls in the street. That’s because—he realises with a sick thread of shock—she’s his replacement, an imitation, a stand-in. John chose her for this express purpose, and now he intends to marry her.
Sherlock doesn’t let this revelation register, doesn’t let it slow him down; he just presses on with his explanation until finally, from across the table, there are John’s hands at his neck again, stealing his breath, close enough to kiss. Time stops, Sherlock’s heart stops, everything stops and he waits for Mary to drag them apart. She doesn’t disappoint.
Here, she says, and presses a wad of napkins into his hands. Her eyes are on his lips, and when Sherlock darts his tongue out, he tastes blood. He dabs at his mouth and holds his hand there. John won’t meet his eyes, John won’t rise to his jokes; John, it seems, is intent on setting himself against both of them and holding his ground. He can’t side with her while she’s smiling at Sherlock.
But Sherlock knows John—or knew him once, but in any case, he knows that this ice cannot hold. John’s anger is the type to burn hot, to smoulder and rise in licking columns of flame. And if Sherlock can have nothing else, he can still have that.
So he talks in circles and invokes memories, he prods and pokes and shakes pain loose, and it seems he’s still got his touch because yes, just like that, John’s hands are on his collar, John’s face is hurtling towards his and the world goes black and sharp and ringing.
Mary leads him outside by the elbow. He doesn’t need her help, but he’s seeing double so he lets her take his arm, lets her fold his hand in hers. Her gaze, her voice is chiding and patient. Pinch your nose, she says, and Good; just like that.
It irks him that he obeys, but he does. John storms off to hail a cab. Sherlock swallows the blood welling in his throat.
She looks up at him and smiles.
I'll talk him round, she says.
Sherlock watches in wonder as she follows John, clambers into the cab beside him. There’s a whirl of information around her, personality and history and past lives, but Sherlock can’t untangle each fact from the other, can’t work out what she meant by that, what she might possibly want from him.
The next day, she comes to him with fear glinting dark in her eyes, winding in knots around her like that ridiculous handmade scarf, and his ears perk up and he listens. She shows him her texts and her theories, the first hints of a keen mind, real cleverness, and then she catches the scent, follows close on his heels just like John, who—
Sherlock swallows down the thought, the bubbling rise of fear, and chokes the throttle with all his strength. Mary’s arms wrap tighter around his waist, small hands burrowing against the bow of his ribs.
He crashes through the bonfire without a second thought, his eyes wild and unfocused, but he finds John there among the flickering embers, his one fixed point. Kindling crackles around him, the logs falling down around his ears, and but he still hears Mary calling both their names as he drags John clear. John is bleary and limp and unresisting, John is singed and barely responsive, and John hates Sherlock, but John is alive. John is alive because Mary led Sherlock here; she brought him to John just in time, and she might bring John back to him yet.
She fusses over John’s injuries and checks Sherlock's hands for burns and offers to replace his gloves. Hardly a fair trade, she says, and she's not crying, but it's a close thing.
The next day, John comes round and forgives him, and what does it mean that they need to be wired up with explosives before they can manage to say anything to each other, but at least it’s something, and Sherlock could collapse with the relief of it all. He sits down with the two of them and Mrs Hudson and Molly Hooper and, well, somebody of Molly’s, he’s not entirely clear and he doesn’t care. Despite the forced chatter, his heart is so light, his chest so open and easy that he doesn’t quite recognise himself.
Mary smiles at him across the table and he could build up an altar to her, to her light, clever hands and careful teasing, to the miracle of John’s forgiveness—of there being a John left to forgive him. Because it’s not just what happened yesterday—he’s seen it in John’s face, in the trembling line of his jaw in the restaurant, the devastating tension thrumming beneath his skin—Sherlock has seen enough to know that she has saved John more than once.
He smiles back at her and curses his own blindness, and learns to fold napkins for their wedding.
I’m not John, she says, I can tell when you’re fibbing, and he thinks with dread of the speech-writing book on his dresser, of standing up there in front of all those people, what they will see. When he’s around the two of them, his palms are either cold or sweating and his pulse is a notch too high and there’s a strange tickle behind his ribs.
He nods along and listens and chooses invitations, flowers, cummerbunds, namecards. Nothing they could want from him is too much. He pins names on charts and logs RSVPs and watches the the way John’s moods shift beneath his placid surface.
Oh, hi Beth!, she says, and, You need to run him, and exactly how dull does Mary think he is anyway? But he plays along—all three of them play their parts and she sends the two of them out to be themselves together, to find their way back.
John needs something from Sherlock, it’s obvious, John is trying to work his way around new words and the going is slow—these are things he finds difficult. And Sherlock’s not any better, but tries his best to get their first, to intuit John’s words and whether he’s afraid to hear them, what they might change. In the end, he curses himself and turns and runs. They’ll manage this eventually. Or they won’t. Either way.
And then, unexpectedly, a man is bleeding out in the showers—a man who wasn’t actually dead—and all Sherlock can do is watch. The man’s lifeblood is running down the drain like so much bathwater but John knows what to do here, John knows where to press, how to keep it all from trickling away and so Sherlock swallows his fear and puts his hands where John tells him, looks into John’s dark eyes and tries to forget the promises he’s made himself.
That night, John recounts the tale to Mary and she claps her hands and beams at them both and busses John’s cheek. She opens a bottle of red and toasts them and teases them, prods them into admiring words and stuttered, abortive half-truths. When Sherlock’s ears tingle and his tongue loosens, panic rises in his chest and he starts to excuse himself, but when he reaches for his scarf, Mary steps into his space and begins to unbutton his coat.
Sherlock goes perfectly still and looks over her head at John, who is also not moving, not even breathing; waiting for the pin to drop.
Stay, she says, and her eyes are as dark as the lashes above them. We want you to, she says; we want you… And when that doesn't work, she takes his hands in hers and goes up on her toes and, and—
—and laughs at his gaping mouth and flushed cheeks, his gobsmacked gasp, but when she kisses him again, he dips his head down to meet her and she melts into his touch.
My boys, she says and tugs John's wrist, leads them both by the hand. She’s undoing John’s buttons and Sherlock’s at once, her small hands clever like trained pets. John raises one to his lips but he’s looking at Sherlock; John’s eyes are so dark and shifting and deep.
She perches on the edge of the big bed, the one she shares with John, and pats the space beside her.
It's okay, she says, and she guides John's disbelieving hand to the gaps of Sherlock's ribs. And You're allowed, you know, as John swallows back his words and stares like a pilgrim at the sight of his skin against Sherlock’s, watching intently for the spark of life, the moment of transubstantiation, this thing they’ve desired for so long. Sherlock can feel himself trembling; John’s hands are tellingly steady.
Easy now, Mary says, barely a whisper in an ear, low as the evening light.
John kisses him in halting pieces, little sips of wine and honey, and Sherlock lies back and lets himself be kissed. When he brings his hand to the nape of John’s neck and kisses back, John groans as if he’s been stabbed; then, John kisses him in long, surging draughts that steal his composure and leave them both panting. When John pulls back, his eyes are as big and bright and dark as nebulae, and all the contents of his heart are plainly visible on every line of his body, joyous and tortured with wanting.
Mary slips something into John’s hand, pecks Sherlock's lips and laughs when he chases her kiss. She tastes of claret and John and intent—this isn't an impulse, this is planned, premeditated; this is not (Sherlock hopes) an isolated incident. He calls up the facts, tries to analyse, tries to see, but then John’s fingers move inside him and all he can do is breathe around it, let his instincts take over, do what Mary’s hands tell him.
Deep breath, she says, and Sherlock stares down at the seam of their bodies, where he and John are joined. His hands are hot and shaking; hers are cool and stroking sweetly over his biceps, combing serenity through his hair.
John curses in a staggered, stuttering exhale—he's biting his tongue, Sherlock can hear it in his voice—and presses his forehead to Sherlock's chest. It’s unfathomable to see him like this, eyes wonder-wide and wanting, and it makes Sherlock's hollow chest ache, his head loll, his hips jerk and shudder.
Ready, love?, she says, and there is every indication she is talking to Sherlock, and the brightness of the spark inside his chest is enough to eclipse his vocabulary.
He nods and John begins to move and the little air in his lungs is pressed out of him with this fullness, the burn and the stretch of muscle, the burden of detail: every flicker John’s expression, his strained voice, the weight of his muscle and pounding heart.
John is beautiful like this, limbs fluid and skin hot, his praise and astonishment and love become corporeal. There is noise falling from Sherlock’s lips, bitten-off shards of words, names, and John is shuddering against him like an engine, like a heart attack, and Sherlock wraps his legs around John’s hips and feels, lets their pulses line up until all he knows is his own breathing, harsh and ragged and wild.
John groans and rolls off him, and Sherlock barely has time to register disappointment before Mary’s hands are on him and then John’s too, rolling him over until he is spooned against John’s chest, ensconced between his knees and Mary is swinging her legs over his hips. Her eyes narrow with concentration as she guides herself down. Sherlock can feel it, feel every slow second of give, every fraction of an inch and it’s so different to John—John who is holding him with steady hands, breathing hard against the nape of his neck, heartbeat pounding against Sherlock’s back. Whispering filth and encouragement and endearments, running his palms up and down Sherlock’s thighs, stroking and squeezing and probing as if he doesn’t quite believe, as if he still expects this to be snatched away from him.
Mary works her thighs and braces herself, leans down over Sherlock’s shoulder to kiss John. Her hair tickles against his cheek, her perfume winding round him in dizzying, calligraphic loops—Clair de la Lune. He leans in and bites her, sinks his teeth in where neck meets shoulder and she makes a sound that’s half groan, half laugh, and her muscles tense involuntarily around him. Just like that, he can’t see anything—his vision catches fire and his body is an animal, his body is a process, and he clings to Mary and shakes and shakes like he’s never going to stop.
The next thing he knows, John’s lips are soft on his shoulder and Mary is nudging him over, curling her thigh up between his and easing him back into the circle of John’s arms.
She presses her cheek into the thin skin over his pulse. Sleep now, she says, think later, and like always, Sherlock obeys. She’s too warm against him and John is snoring lightly in his ear and yet Sherlock doesn’t have a single objection to doing this every night for the rest of his life.
I do, she says, two weeks later, and Sherlock watches from the altar, just an arm's length away from John. She kisses John and Sherlock feels the blood gathering in his groin, Pavlovian and biological and very nearly logical, actually. Because it’s the way she kissed John the night before—he recognises it—and the night before that; it's the way he’s allowed to kiss John and he’s allowed to kiss Mary and it’s only natural that his body remembers. It’s her and John and Sherlock, it's the three of them (no matter what that killjoy big-brotherly tickle in the back of his mind might say).
The people cheer and she drops her hands from his shoulders. As they turn to make their procession out the door, John catches Sherlock's eye—John is always aware of him, always seeking him out—and John blushes and smiles and is not quite brave enough to wink.
But, it turns out, John is brave enough to find Sholto, to track him down in his hermitage and invite him here to beam up at him in front of everyone and God. Sherlock watches them and the wine goes sour in his mouth. Sholto wears his wounds like a pair of shackles, but John looks into his scarred face like he sees the sun and stars.
Neither of us was the first, you know she says, and touches his shoulder and laughs. It's no comfort whatsoever, of course—how could it be when she’s the one with the claim on John?
Sherlock pushes the thought away because he has a claim too, now—he has left his affection tattooed on John's bared throat, the dark shape of his fingertips on John's hips, the small of his back. He has felt John move inside him, he has worked John's body open and cleaved sweetly to him, he has kissed the gasps from John's lips and the sweat from his brow. Their blood has mingled, they have breathed deep from each other's lungs, they have come back to life for each other and he is part of John's world in a way that cannot be erased— this is a fact and he is certain of it.
But I chose this wine, she says. And, Just some toast, please—nervous stomach. And, Had to lose so much weight to get into this dress.
And a thousand other things he didn’t see until it's too late.
Sherlock’s stomach turns. His tongue is too thick in his mouth, his words clumsy and inadequate. He watches Mary and John listening to him, watches the meaning sink in. There is shock on both of their faces, and not a little bit of fear.
I’m not panicking, Mary says, and it’s a lie but a necessary one. She gets up to dance with John, her slim waist a promise between them, and Sherlock stands there to the side, seeing the future, seeing the three of them—the vision rises up before him like an ocean horizon and washes over him like waves. He very nearly manages to stay until the end of the song. Very nearly.
Silence is the result, foreseeable but wretched, long weeks of nothing, no one. He never should have left early—he'd known John would be furious, John would be hurt—but there's no longer any point in drawing this out, not now. Rip the plaster off and be done with it. Maintain some semblance of control. Save yourself the pain. Don’t get involved.
Sherlock throws away the swans and the opera houses, deletes everything he’s ever learnt about Antigua. He eats the ginger biscuits that must come from Mrs Hudson and smokes cigarettes down to the filter until his fingertips are stained yellow. He sits on the roof and reads about phosphates, about refeeding syndrome, about people rescued from the brink of starvation. When confronted with food, their greedy stomachs betray them and they eat and eat until their systems fail from the reinstitution of nutrition.
He thought he had gorged himself—it had certainly felt that way at the time—but if this feeling is any indication, he could have managed so much more.
Call him, she’ll say. Over breakfast in the morning, when John passes her the milk. When he turns on the telly and keeps watching his phone for a text. When he pulls the covers up around his ears and rolls over on his stomach with a sigh.
Or just drop by, she’ll say, tracing her pink nails up the gold hair on John’s thighs. You miss him, she’ll say. I miss him. And her fingers will tickle, curling back behind John’s testicles, and John’s mouth will go thin and angry and blank, and he’ll drag her up face-to-face and pull out all the stops to make her forget, make her leave this alone. Their Mary with her good-natured prodding, her not-always-subtle direction.
Sherlock tries not to think about it because John won't call, no matter what Mary says. John won’t call because John loved first and John loves hard and John is too proud to indulge his fear of being left behind again, of being discarded. John won’t call and Sherlock might not see John again, and it is necessary to reconcile himself to these facts. It will be difficult because Mary will fight for Sherlock—she always does. Mary, for whatever reason, seems to want him in John's life.
And it will be difficult because it feels like this—how can anything feel like this?—and Sherlock has no idea how he's going to stand it. But he's chosen his path and difficult has never stopped Sherlock Holmes.
In the meantime, there's Janine. Janine, who turns out to be a bit dull—not quite as dull as everyone else, happily, but ultimately insufficient as a distraction. Most people are, though. Anyway, Sherlock knows to look elsewhere for his distraction, the kind that numbs and thrills, and he only has to seek to find it. And then he has his elysium, his lethe, flowing brisk and silver-quick through his veins, and now he can sleep when he likes and wake when he likes and yet John’s face floats before his eyes so often that he can’t even muster real surprise when he wakes up and really sees him there.
His Janine—she has her uses. She’s a natural performer, just like Sherlock, and she catches the wick of John's jealousy. Sherlock sees her feel it too, sees her bask in it, and something in her smile eggs him on. He imagines the four of them and a Sunday dinner—Sherlock and Janine, fingers intertwined, seated across from John and Mary—and he smiles up at John as if this is a perfectly reasonable idea. He watches it sink in, observes the tension of John’s shoulders, the flush of anger. The subtle map of twitches across his face. And this, he thinks, is something he can have. It will be enough.
He fills John in on the Magnussen case and talks him around (the thrill of the chase, the two of us against the rest of the world) and then he wraps his coat around himself and goes out to do his shopping. He feels naked; no matter where he goes, he can feel the flicker of Magnussen's shark eyes. It leaves his throat tight, his blood cold.
He fingers the box in his pocket and thinks of John at the restaurant, John on that first night at Angelo’s. John’s smile at his wedding. A flickering fire, Sherlock’s parents warm and dozy on the sofa, Redbeard dreaming at their feet.
He tries the key card and it works. John follows close on his heels.
In the office, he’s incredulous to see Janine lying unconscious on the floor, but no—it’s not for the trite reasons he expects. There’s the smell of violence in the air, blood and fear and... Clair de la Lune, but why here, why would he smell her perfume here?
No, not Mary—somebody else. He flicks through his mental catalogue of scents, scanning for a familiar face, and works his way down the hallway.
John, in the other room, is calling out his disbelief and concern. John wants to call the police. John may not be a natural at burglary—well, that’s fine. Let John be the doctor, then, let John care for poor, senseless Janine; let Sherlock be the detective.
The carpet muffles his footfalls, and from down the hall he can hear Magnussen's voice, ragged and low and full of fear unbecoming a man of his profile. Magnussen’s fear opens up more possibilities, spidering and telescoping ever outward. A coward is a man who has lost his leverage, a coward can be manipulated; ergo, Sherlock can win this.
Or, if it seems advantageous, he could join forces with this other intruder and—
A slip of black, casting a different shadow than he’d expected, petite and feminine—oh, the scent, yes: Lady Smallwood, more resourceful than he’d thought. Striking in her black cap, her black gloves, with her lead-grey pistol cocked and pointed at Magnussen’s pale skull.
She turns at the sound of his voice, but he must have been mistaken or she must not recognise him in the low light because now her gun is pointed at Sherlock. He knows it’s a mistake, knows he’s in no danger, but all the same, a rush of shock freezes his lungs and for a moment, he can’t quite grasp that he does recognise her.
Not someone else. Mary.
“Is John with you?” she says, and Sherlock’s heart stops. Finally, he sees.
“Is John here?”
That steel-trap mind.
The skip codes.
The orphan story.
And a thousand other things he didn’t see until it's too late.
“Oh, Sherlock...”
This is Mary—his Mary, who has always fought for him; Mary who talked John around, tooth and nail; Mary, who has always wanted Sherlock in John’s life.
But whatever the situation—he doesn’t know; his mind is still racing with the influx of signs and conclusions, the rush and roar new data—whatever kind of trouble she’s in, it will be all right. Sherlock can fight for Mary. It can be his turn now. He tries to tell her.
“If you take one more step,” she says, "I swear I will kill you."
Sherlock's first thought is that she sounds almost sad; his second, on its heels, is to wonder how he could possibly know that. He’s never spoken to this woman before; this is not his—
The sound of a car backfiring; a steel fist connecting with his ribs. All this and yet he still refuses to see.
Mary on the back of the motorcycle, arms desperately tight around his waist. Mary and her knitting and her kneading and her jokes, conductor of words he can’t say. Mary, who cleaned his cuts, who saved John’s life, who—
No, he can’t process this, but nor can he afford to keep dwelling. His hard drive is flipping over, grasping wildly at the truth, but if he keeps running up against this wall it’s going to kill him. He needs clarity, he needs sanctuary, he needs—
It’s not like it is in the movies, says Molly, and Sherlock could cry with the relief. You’re almost certainly going to die, so we need to focus.
The sting of her slap grounds him—it’s more real than the pain of his wound, it has to be, because his wound doesn’t make any sense—Mary and her gun, Mary in her veil, Mary astride his thighs, cheeks flushed and pulse thrumming in her throat.
If the bullet had passed through you, says Mycroft...
If the bullet had passed through you, what would you have heard?
Of course, thinks Sherlock. And with great, deliberate effort, he lets himself begin to fall backwards. The ground obliges, rising up to meet him, to plug the bullet inside. Mary’s bullet, which has burrowed through skin and bone and muscle to tear him apart. Which is also the only thing keeping him alive.
Shock is next, setting in like ice and molasses, and he grits his teeth and shakes and shakes like he’s never going to stop. His blood spreads in a pool on Magnussen’s floor, and in his mind palace, his feet pound on the stairs, deeper and darker and ever more loathsome—his last, desperate hope.
Just die, can’t you? says Jim, all rage and flecks of spittle.
There is a hole through me, he thinks. But John would know what to do.
The room is dirty and neglected; its walls are weathered with rage and madness and fear. Jim’s chains are clanking and creaking as he jerks and twists. His face is dirty and caked with spittle.
Buckets and buckets, he says, and Sherlock harnesses his anger, fights out a sob, fights the urge to lay back and die.
In his body, far away, John is lowering his ear to Sherlock’s lips; John’s hands are on his chest, his neck; John is saying his name in the ambulance, cradling Sherlock’s hand in his. Mary is nowhere to be seen, Mary is gone, Mary never existed to begin with.
That wife, says Jim, laughing out a huff of sour breath, and Sherlock knows what he has to do.
The pain is incredible, but he holds steady; he drags himself up, stair by stair, as his bones rearrange themselves beneath his skin. This is for John. John will be safe. John will not be left alone with Mary. John will be protected at all costs.
His blood is brittle and splintering in his veins, his lungs flap uselessly like gutted fish, and his every breath burns. This is for John. He’s managed Serbia and the bonfire and the roof of St. Bart’s, and he will manage this too.
His vision is white and hazy; there’s a fog settling over his mind, spreading through his veins on cool paws of velvet, and he realises with blessed relief that that the pain is fading. Which may mean that he’s dying or it may mean he’s dead or it may simply mean morphine, but any way you look at it, this is over—it’s out of his hands, it’s over.
Hours later, he’s still alive and he knows it because he smells her there, Clair de la Lune, sweet in his nose like rotting meat. It prickles at the base of his spine, waking ancient instincts and race memory, lighting up his nervous system with fear and response. Fight or flight, yes, but he can’t do either; it takes all his willpower to crack open his eyes and confirm what he already knows.
Her face swims in front of his eyes, a mosaic of dark eyes and clouds and white hospital tile.
“You don’t tell him,” she says. When her lips move, her whole image shimmers in time; there's a forest of pain and haze between them. She’s looking down at him, mouth set and cold. She’s here to finish him and he cannot wiggle a finger in his own defence.
And yet he drifts. He can’t help it.
“Sherlock?” she says. "You don’t tell John."
Fine, then. If that’s the game, he has years of practice.
His eyes fall closed and when he has the strength to open them again, Magnussen is standing in her place and Sherlock is terrified.
His skin crawls under Magnussen’s damp touch and he wiggles the finger, he does it, but immediately wishes he hadn’t; falling so far short is more pitiful than failing entirely.
Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut and wills Magnussen to be gone, wills his mind to go blank, and finally, finally he is alone—where is John? Is he safe?
Before he can press the questions, the morphine carries him to another sleep. He surrenders to its relief, but first, he makes himself a vow.
When he next wakes, he will stop the drip. He will clear his head. He will make the plan. He has survived and therefore so will John. The two of them against the rest of the world. The way it’s meant to be.