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holmesticeTitle: The Case of the Two Apparitions
Recipient:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
burnt_hearts
Author:trickybonmot
Characters/Pairings: John Watson/Sherlock Holmes (BBC)
Rating: explicit
Warnings: dubious consent, unhappy/ambiguous ending
Summary: In an effort to alleviate the stress of John's family life, Sherlock takes him along to investigate the (probably) fictitious haunting of an old country house. However, the mystery turns out to be deeper than Sherlock could have guessed, as some paranormal events are not so easily explained after all.
Notes: I couldn't quite manage your more specific request, but I threw your prompt into a blender, and this came out! The names Stoner and Stoke Moran are references to the Speckled Band. I thought I was going to do something cooler with these than what I actually managed to do. Also, I can only offer my sincere hand-waving toward all issues of peerage, genealogy, and inheritance.
Also on AO3: "The Case of the Two Apparitions"
“It’s a woman by the name of Lady Evelyn Stoner. Convinced her house is haunted.”
“Stoner? Are you serious?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Your sense of humor is startling in its originality.”
John smiles blearily. “Sorry. Must be the sleep deprivation.” He gazes out the train window, the grey daylight highlighting the dark circles under his eyes. “So, haunted house. You usually turn down the paranormal freak cases. Something special about this one?”
“It does possess one or two features of interest,” Sherlock says. “Also—“ He stops himself.
“Also what?” Sounds cranky. It’ll get worse if Sherlock doesn’t answer.
“Also I thought…well. You could use a weekend away.”
John grimaces and rubs a hand over his face. “You’re not wrong,” he says. “I just hope you’ve got Mary convinced you really need me. She’ll be livid if she thinks I’ve left her alone with the baby to take a pleasure trip.”
“Well, actually—“
“Oh, Christ, it was her idea, wasn’t it?”
Sherlock shrugs. “Not entirely. But she was…supportive.”
John’s frown deepens. He likes to be needed.
“She’ll be glad to see you tomorrow night.”
“I know.” He sighs, looks out the window again. “I know. But god, I’m tired. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I didn’t expect it to be so…” He trails off. Sherlock doesn’t press him. No doubt he expected the arrival of his offspring to smooth out the bumps in his relationship with Mary. No doubt he expected a bundle of joy. But Mary is more than a bit depressed, and Livy is a crier.
“It’ll get better,” Sherlock says. “At twelve weeks they start smiling at you.”
“Be nice to have her acknowledge my existence,” John says. Then, “Sherlock, have you been reading baby books?”
“Websites,” Sherlock admits. John chuckles.
“You know what’s weird?” he says after a while. “Sometimes she laughs in her sleep. Like just the physical reflex, I think. Even though she’s never done it awake before. She gets this creepy little smile on. It’s weird. But it’s cute.”
“Charming,” Sherlock says.
***
They get off the train in Woking, then hire a car and drive to an old country estate called Stoke Moran, a vast 18th-century manse crouched among brooding autumnal gardens.
Lady Stoner meets them in a high-ceilinged parlour, the walls lined with books that have clearly been chosen for their appearance rather than their contents. The house is furnished in historical style, but not terribly well kept up. Lady Stoner is the only member of the family still in residence. According to Sherlock’s research, her husband divorced her, and her son and two daughters have finished their education and moved very far away.
“It’s not that I actually believe in ghosts,” she says. “But there is a history of unnatural deaths in this house.”
“Yes,” Sherlock says. “I read about that. Two healthy young women frightened to death. Quite a feat, even in the eighteen-hundreds.”
“Laugh all you like,” she says. “It was never explained. Of course I’d be just as happy to believe that someone is simply playing a trick on me, but the police have been no help in finding out who, or how.”
Sherlock opens his mouth to say something cutting about relying on local law enforcement not to be complete idiots, but John breaks in.
“You said you saw ghostly figures of some sort, Lady Stoner. Can you tell us more about them? What they looked like, where you saw them?”
“Usually it’s a yong woman,” she says, turning to him. “I’ve seen her several times in different places, wearing a sort of tattered gown. I’ve heard wailing, also—a woman wailing.”
“Usually, but not always, this figure?” Sherlock asks. “What else?”
She hesitates slightly before replying. “I saw a man, once, about, oh, two weeks ago. I only saw him from the back. Dressed in—I don’t know, plain clothes, but old-fashioned looking. He was going up the back stairs, to the old servants’ quarters. I followed him up, but he—he vanished.”
“Did you recognize either of these figures? Were they familiar to you at all?”
She hesitates a moment before answering. “No, I—I don’t think so.”
“When you say he vanished,” John asks, “you mean he got away somehow?”
“No. He…he disappeared. Like smoke. I was just a few feet away. I saw it happen.”
Sherlock regards her sharply. “Now that is interesting,” he says. “I’ll check the servants’ quarters first. John, you go and have a look around the grounds, see if you can spot anything unusual. Especially those boarded-up outbuildings we saw on the way in.”
***
Three fruitless hours later, Sherlock is ready to shout with frustration. The servants’ quarters have yielded no clues whatsoever. In fact, there’s no sign that anyone has been in these rooms for well over a year, not even to dust. Everything is musty, mothballed, undisturbed.
The last room at the end of the hall is just like every other servants’ bedroom: two old, narrow bedsteads without mattresses, one spindly chair, one cheaply built wooden chest, not locked, one small window admitting a feeble beam of overcast daylight, and an intact layer of ancient dust. He’s just turning to go back downstairs when, under his heel, a floorboard shifts and rattles in a very particular way. Crouching down to look, he finds that it has indeed been loosened, probably so that something can be hidden underneath it.
Taking out his pocket knife, he uses the tip to pry up the loose floorboard. Beneath, he finds a small bundle of papers. Letters, from the look of them—or notes, actually. They’re not formally addressed in any way.
Dearest Roddy, reads the first in the stack,
I cannot get away from Lady P any earlier than nine o’clock. Then I shall go round behind the carriage house. I have a bottle of Madeira if you would care to join me for a drink.
With affection,
Laurie
Some sort of assignation. Dull. He goes on to the next note.
Dearest R,
You have been in my thoughts all day. Come to my rooms when our guests have gone.
L
There are ten or twenty more in that vein, evidently spanning a period of some months. From the occasional details, it appears that “Laurie” was one of the aristocratic inhabitants of the house, while “Roddy” was a servant, presumably one of the occupants of this very bedroom. Their homosexual love affair was evidently carried out under the nose of Laurie’s wife. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest that Laurie was engaged when the affair began and married some time in the middle of it.
The notes probably have no bearing on the case, but Sherlock pockets them all the same, as a curiosity. Perhaps John will get a laugh out of them.
As he makes his way back down the hall, a sudden movement at the top of the stairs makes him start. He could swear he heard a footstep. But—no, it was nothing. Dust motes in a sunbeam, the settling of ancient timbers. Shaking off the fancy, he goes in search of John.
***
John’s investigation of the outbuildings has not been particularly fruitful. They go into the village for the evening to collect gossip, and this, at last, produces some leads. There’s a developer, a man called Nigel St. Paul, who would like to acquire Stoke Moran in order to build some blocks of flats. That could be a motive for trying to scare Lady Stoner off. Better yet, there’s a connection between St. Paul and Lady Stoner’s late father. Sherlock resolves to speak to him the next morning.
Lingering in the village also gives John a chance to blow off steam over a few pints of the local brown ale. He doesn’t get entirely smashed, but his high spirits on the walk back to their car are enough to kindle a small spark of pride in Sherlock’s breast. At least he still knows how to show John a good time.
Lady Stoner is waiting for them when they return later that night..
“I want to show you something,” she says.
She leads them—Sherlock alert, John at least keeping up appearances—to a disused storeroom on the ground floor. It’s filled with old furniture and decorative items, some of which could no doubt get Lady Stoner a TV appearance on the Antiques Roadshow, despite (or perhaps because of) their ornate ugliness. Under the light of a single bare bulb, Lady Stoner begins flipping through a stack of paintings leaned up against one wall, revealing a parade of dismal landscapes and forbidding forebears.
“You asked me if I recognized either of the apparitions,” she says as she searches. “I didn’t remember this until you asked, but, actually, there was something familiar about the man I saw. He reminded me of a portrait we used to have hanging in the drawing room. Ah, here we are.”
She hefts a large frame, carved and gilded, from the stack. The canvas shows a stocky, broad-shouldered young aristocrat in mid-Victorian military garb. It’s not an especially handsome face, but the artist has captured a certain rather captivating self-assurance, a chilly fineness about the eyes and mouth that suggests a knowing and secretive nature. It’s a good picture. Arresting.
“Second Burmese War,” John says, pointing to a silver medal on a striped ribbon. “And this one’s from the Indian Rebellion, I’d guess.”
Sherlock stares at John open-mouthed. Even if he hadn’t deleted most of British military history, he’s fairly certain this is more obscure than the solar system. Lady Stoner, beside him, is equally amazed.
“What?” John asks. “My dad was a collector.”
“Well, you’re right,” Lady Stoner says, recovering her composure first. “My mother saw to it that all these old paintings were documented. You’re looking at Laurence Stoner, Third Viscount Hinsdale. He did serve in India and the Far East, and then he came back here and got married. He was my great-grandfather. There’s always been a whiff of scandal about him, but I don’t have any more detail than that.”
A whiff of scandal. Laurie. Sherlock exhales.
“The person I saw--the ghost, or whatever it was--he was a bit older than in this picture. Maybe in his forties. But I think the face was the same.”
“Why was the portrait taken down?” Sherlock asks.
“It was—well. Mum had it taken down. She said she always felt like it was looking at her.”
There really is something about the eyes. Wouldn’t mind him looking at me. A fleeting thought, which he banishes quickly.
“That could be relevant,” John says, filling the silence. “If someone knew you had a creepy feeling about this picture, it would be good material for trying to scare you.”
“Yes,” Sherlock says. Then, more sharply, “Yes. Well, it may have some bearing. We have some leads we’ll be looking into tomorrow morning. May we be shown to our rooms, please?”
***
In the dark, in a strange house, alone, Sherlock is as prone as anyone to wandering thoughts. He’s already googled the developer and all of his friends. He’s already considered the case of the two women frightened to death and come up with several possible explanations. He’s already re-read the stack of notes he found upstairs. Now, in the quiet of the wee hours, with nothing to occupy him, he has little choice but to lie down and try to sleep.
He needs more sleep, these days, since Serbia, but at the same time, it’s harder to come by. Apparently he’s no longer young.
Stop, he tells himself.
There are things he should have done while he was young, probably. No telling if they’ll ever happen now. Not that it stops some people. He sees again the face of Laurence Fitzwilliam Stoner, his knowing eyes, his whiff of scandal. Before and after his marriage. Not a man much constrained by convention, nor morality. John’s not either, really, but loyal. To a fault.
Stop.
He can’t—not quite. But he does sleep, eventually.
***
Sound of a door clicking shut. Sherlock’s eyes snap open, his heart leaping in his chest. Between him and the door, he can just make out a shadowy figure. He takes a quick mental inventory of the potential improvised weapons in the room. Best option is probably that insipid bronze statuette on top of the dressing table—
“There you are,” John’s voice says, and Sherlock’s adrenaline spike slides away into something almost warm.
Bare footsteps pad across the floor.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” John says, pulling at the knot of his dressing gown. “My dearest.”
And then his dressing gown is on the floor, and John is—naked—yanking up the edge of Sherlock’s bedclothes, and climbing in, and before Sherlock can move or even think (dearest? he is thinking), John’s whole strong, bare body is wrapped around him in his bed.
“I’ve been looking for you,” John says again. “Chilly, isn’t it?” As though to absorb more of Sherlock’s warmth, he burrows and writhes against him in the bed, breathing hotly against his neck and shoulder.
“John, what—“ Sherlock begins, and then John’s mouth covers his and he is drowning, mind spinning futilely as John’s tongue delves enthusiastically toward his back teeth. His heart races, heat rushing suddenly up from somewhere to fill his breast and limbs. Fighting to keep control of his wits, he finally manages to twist out of John’s grasp far enough to pluck out a question from the tornado of his thoughts and give breath to it.
“What about Mary?” he gasps.
“Never heard of her,” John purrs, and then he climbs up—naked!—to straddle Sherlock’s hips, and he takes hold of Sherlock’s hands, and his searing mouth descends again. Sherlock has no idea what’s going on.
“I’ll have you, my beauty,” John growls against his throat. “Good and proper, I will. I’ll have you wailing for it.” He undulates his body so that his hips roll, pressing the naked rod of his erection against Sherlock’s clothed groin. Sherlock twists his hands free, but then isn’t sure what to do with them. John grins wickedly down at him, then kisses him again, hands moving to tuck beneath Sherlock’s back and shoulders.
Somewhere, somewhere far down in the bottom of the back of his mind, Sherlock knows that that grin is not quite right, that those words are wrong, that John would never do this. But all the rest of him is shouting yes, and maybe it’s wrong—more likely than not—but he can always say he didn’t realize. He can say John approached him, John wanted it, John held him down and took what he wanted, and how was Sherlock to know? Sherlock’s not responsible for monitoring John’s mental state. Plausible deniability.
And maybe he’s wrong and this really is what John wants. Intoxicating thought. He wades into that thought, lets it engulf him, sinks down and down and away from all his questions.
“Lovely,” John licks into his ear. Sherlock bites his lip and lets John hook his fingers into the waistband of his pajamas and shove them down and off and away. He bites off a moan as John takes hold of his cock. John looks at him sharply.
“No need to be quiet, my dear,” he says. “You’ll be caterwauling before I’m done with you. Let me hear that lovely voice while I frig you, come on now.”
Frig Sherlock is thinking, but John’s hot hand is on his cock, working in slow, firm strokes, and the thought flutters away. John kisses him, and he moans into the kiss, and John answers with a satisfied chuckle, speeding up his strokes. He licks and nips at Sherlock’s mouth. John wants this. Riding that thought, his breathing grows ragged and he does moan, again, and the sound of his own voice makes his face hot. God, he’s going to come like this, just like this—
But John stops, squeezing him hard, and Sherlock nearly yelps with frustration.
“Turn over,” John says, and it’s John’s voice, so Sherlock does. John flings back the bedclothes, the chill air like a balm on the overheated skin of Sherlock’s legs and buttocks. He refuses to think ahead. If it’s too much he can always stop it.
“Such a beauty,” John breathes. He strokes his palms up the backs of Sherlock’s thighs, a touch that would be soothing if it weren’t so incendiary. Sherlock presses his cock into the mattress, breath stopped in his throat, as John’s thumbs dig into his buttocks, spreading him. Shockingly exposed. His cheeks are blazing, too mortified for words, but John wants this, and Sherlock wants to give it to him.
John gives a grunt of satisfaction, and then he leans down and—god, licks. Sherlock’s hips jerk away. Do people actually —
“Easy,” John says, a little sternly. His strong hands pin Sherlock’s hips in place. “Easy, my love, settle down. I’ll not bite you.” Sherlock digs his toes into the sheet and tries to hold still. John’s breath ghosts over his skin again, and he tenses. When the touch comes again, it is firm enough to at least not be ticklish, and he relaxes somewhat. John lays down a series of long, flat licks that are maybe…almost…nice, if it weren’t so—
And then his hot tongue delves inward, and Sherlock makes a high, desperate sound, flayed open and uncertain but definitely wanting more of that, which is just as well as this is clearly what John intends. It’s the most filthy and ridiculous thing anyone’s ever done to him, and he likes it. He bites the back of his hand for a moment to keep from crying out, until he remembers that John wants to hear him. So he lets himself gasp and moan as John’s tongue fucks him, and John hums encouragement. Sherlock lets himself relax into the attention, a little scrape of voice emerging with each huff of his breath, for John to hear. He’s so hypnotized with it that he scarcely notices the change when John probes him with two fingers, testing, but then John kneels up behind him, and Sherlock does notice that.
“Push up a bit, can you?” John says. Probably should have given this some thought after all; bloody neurochemicals clouding his thinking, now, and all he knows is that he’s going to. One at a time he gets his knees up under him. Warm brush of John’s hairy thighs on the backs of his legs. John’s cock lies heavy along his wet crack for a moment, then slides down to nudge behind his balls; then John centers himself and presses in and, oh, Christ, it is a lot, but it’s…doable.
“Easy.” Steadying hand on his sacrum. Slow press inward, and John’s breathing is unsteady with what is, presumably, self-restraint, as he hasn’t gone so deep as to get past the dubious lubrication of his spit. Still, it’s enough to make Sherlock’s heart race with the awareness of just how thoroughly he is at John’s mercy, which is—mostly—good. What John wants—
John thrusts fast and shallowly, and Sherlock ends up slickredhot gasping with it, sweat pricking out along his hairline, still desperate not to think. Then John leans down to reach under Sherlock’s belly, grabs his cock, and things go very fast from there, Sherlock crying out and welling up and coming hard, muscles convulsing around the hot, unfamiliar intrusion in his arse.
“Ngh, this body,” John moans. “He desires you exquisitely.” And then he gasps and grunts and his weight drives Sherlock down almost back onto the bed. John’s cock pulses hard and suddenly wet inside him, pressing just a hair too far, and Sherlock whimpers with heat and confusion and loneliness.
“I was looking for you,” John’s voice breathes again. “For such a long time.” He eases Sherlock down carefully and lies down with him, curled against his back. Sherlock shivers in his arms, uncomforted. “Such a long time. But I’ve found you at last, my Roddy. Now sleep, my sweet one. Sleep.”
The air of his voice in Sherlock’s ear is oddly cold. Sherlock just has time to notice it before his body obeys the command.
***
Sherlock opens his eyes again with the sensation that no time has passed, but his window is bright with early sun, and he is alone. Sore and soiled, he takes a long shower. He remembers what happened and what didn’t happen. He turns the whole thing over in his mind. Psychology could explain it, he imagines—PTSD, stress, psychosis, multiple personalities. That kind of thing. But he keeps seeing in his mind those secretive eyes, that flicker of motion, that figure where no figure should be. That voice that spoke, right at the last. And he never showed John the letters.
John shows all the signs of a bad hangover when he finally gets up. He works his way slowly through a boiled egg and two cups of coffee and gives no indication that he remembers anything unusual about the preceding night. Not that Sherlock expected anything else.
They go into town and trail Nigel St. Paul to a lunch meeting with a red-haired man. They follow the red-haired man until they learn his name, and then they google him and learn that he runs special effects for the local theater. They go to the theater and break in and find a lot of lights and projectors and fogscreen machines that are certainly not required for the company’s current production of Little Women. They go back to Stoke Moran and Sherlock reveals what he, of course, noticed as soon as they arrived: that only the carriage house and the old tack shed are wired for electricity, and that the locations of the female figure seen by Lady Stoner correspond to the effects that could be produced with the suspicious equipment from these two buildings. They present their findings to Lady Stoner.
“That explains the female figure,” she says. “But what about the one on the back stairs?”
Sherlock waves his hand. “A figment of your imagination, most likely. You’d already been primed to see ghosts, and your mind supplied a familiar figure.”
“He did seem quite vivid.”
“Well, the imagination is a powerful thing.”
She frowns at him. Sherlock smiles back.
“Will you be staying the night again?” she asks. “It’s a long trip back to London.”
John opens his mouth, probably to accept, but Sherlock interrupts.
“Ah, no,” he says, “No. Thank you. We couldn’t possibly trouble you any further.” John shoots him an irritated look, but doesn’t press.
***
Some time later, John falls asleep in his seat on the train. Sherlock looks up from his phone when he hears the change in his breathing. Some people become more beautiful when sleeping, but John Watson isn’t one of those, at least as far as Sherlock is concerned. Bereft of animating spirit, his features are slack and plain. He looks older, not younger. On an impulse, Sherlock coughs loudly and jabs John with his elbow. John grunts awake.
“You’ve been smoking,” he mumbles, shifting in his seat and closing his eyes again.
“No I haven’t.”
“Yes you have. I can smell it on you. Didn’t think the case was as boring as all that.”
“It was diverting enough.” Sherlock shrugs.
“Mm. Thanks for taking me out.”
Sherlock only grunts in reply.
They split a cab home from the station. When they get to John’s house, Mary is out on the pavement, walking up and down with Livy fussing in her carrier. Trying to get the baby to fall asleep, Sherlock supposes. As John approaches them, Sherlock sees Livy’s face light up with a huge, toothless smile. John smiles back just as brightly, lifts the baby out of the carrier and hugs her, hugs his wife. Before the cab drives off, Sherlock sees the three of them silhouetted in the yellow light of their doorway as they go inside.
Recipient:
burnt_heartsAuthor:
trickybonmot Characters/Pairings: John Watson/Sherlock Holmes (BBC)
Rating: explicit
Warnings: dubious consent, unhappy/ambiguous ending
Summary: In an effort to alleviate the stress of John's family life, Sherlock takes him along to investigate the (probably) fictitious haunting of an old country house. However, the mystery turns out to be deeper than Sherlock could have guessed, as some paranormal events are not so easily explained after all.
Notes: I couldn't quite manage your more specific request, but I threw your prompt into a blender, and this came out! The names Stoner and Stoke Moran are references to the Speckled Band. I thought I was going to do something cooler with these than what I actually managed to do. Also, I can only offer my sincere hand-waving toward all issues of peerage, genealogy, and inheritance.
Also on AO3: "The Case of the Two Apparitions"
“It’s a woman by the name of Lady Evelyn Stoner. Convinced her house is haunted.”
“Stoner? Are you serious?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Your sense of humor is startling in its originality.”
John smiles blearily. “Sorry. Must be the sleep deprivation.” He gazes out the train window, the grey daylight highlighting the dark circles under his eyes. “So, haunted house. You usually turn down the paranormal freak cases. Something special about this one?”
“It does possess one or two features of interest,” Sherlock says. “Also—“ He stops himself.
“Also what?” Sounds cranky. It’ll get worse if Sherlock doesn’t answer.
“Also I thought…well. You could use a weekend away.”
John grimaces and rubs a hand over his face. “You’re not wrong,” he says. “I just hope you’ve got Mary convinced you really need me. She’ll be livid if she thinks I’ve left her alone with the baby to take a pleasure trip.”
“Well, actually—“
“Oh, Christ, it was her idea, wasn’t it?”
Sherlock shrugs. “Not entirely. But she was…supportive.”
John’s frown deepens. He likes to be needed.
“She’ll be glad to see you tomorrow night.”
“I know.” He sighs, looks out the window again. “I know. But god, I’m tired. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I didn’t expect it to be so…” He trails off. Sherlock doesn’t press him. No doubt he expected the arrival of his offspring to smooth out the bumps in his relationship with Mary. No doubt he expected a bundle of joy. But Mary is more than a bit depressed, and Livy is a crier.
“It’ll get better,” Sherlock says. “At twelve weeks they start smiling at you.”
“Be nice to have her acknowledge my existence,” John says. Then, “Sherlock, have you been reading baby books?”
“Websites,” Sherlock admits. John chuckles.
“You know what’s weird?” he says after a while. “Sometimes she laughs in her sleep. Like just the physical reflex, I think. Even though she’s never done it awake before. She gets this creepy little smile on. It’s weird. But it’s cute.”
“Charming,” Sherlock says.
***
They get off the train in Woking, then hire a car and drive to an old country estate called Stoke Moran, a vast 18th-century manse crouched among brooding autumnal gardens.
Lady Stoner meets them in a high-ceilinged parlour, the walls lined with books that have clearly been chosen for their appearance rather than their contents. The house is furnished in historical style, but not terribly well kept up. Lady Stoner is the only member of the family still in residence. According to Sherlock’s research, her husband divorced her, and her son and two daughters have finished their education and moved very far away.
“It’s not that I actually believe in ghosts,” she says. “But there is a history of unnatural deaths in this house.”
“Yes,” Sherlock says. “I read about that. Two healthy young women frightened to death. Quite a feat, even in the eighteen-hundreds.”
“Laugh all you like,” she says. “It was never explained. Of course I’d be just as happy to believe that someone is simply playing a trick on me, but the police have been no help in finding out who, or how.”
Sherlock opens his mouth to say something cutting about relying on local law enforcement not to be complete idiots, but John breaks in.
“You said you saw ghostly figures of some sort, Lady Stoner. Can you tell us more about them? What they looked like, where you saw them?”
“Usually it’s a yong woman,” she says, turning to him. “I’ve seen her several times in different places, wearing a sort of tattered gown. I’ve heard wailing, also—a woman wailing.”
“Usually, but not always, this figure?” Sherlock asks. “What else?”
She hesitates slightly before replying. “I saw a man, once, about, oh, two weeks ago. I only saw him from the back. Dressed in—I don’t know, plain clothes, but old-fashioned looking. He was going up the back stairs, to the old servants’ quarters. I followed him up, but he—he vanished.”
“Did you recognize either of these figures? Were they familiar to you at all?”
She hesitates a moment before answering. “No, I—I don’t think so.”
“When you say he vanished,” John asks, “you mean he got away somehow?”
“No. He…he disappeared. Like smoke. I was just a few feet away. I saw it happen.”
Sherlock regards her sharply. “Now that is interesting,” he says. “I’ll check the servants’ quarters first. John, you go and have a look around the grounds, see if you can spot anything unusual. Especially those boarded-up outbuildings we saw on the way in.”
***
Three fruitless hours later, Sherlock is ready to shout with frustration. The servants’ quarters have yielded no clues whatsoever. In fact, there’s no sign that anyone has been in these rooms for well over a year, not even to dust. Everything is musty, mothballed, undisturbed.
The last room at the end of the hall is just like every other servants’ bedroom: two old, narrow bedsteads without mattresses, one spindly chair, one cheaply built wooden chest, not locked, one small window admitting a feeble beam of overcast daylight, and an intact layer of ancient dust. He’s just turning to go back downstairs when, under his heel, a floorboard shifts and rattles in a very particular way. Crouching down to look, he finds that it has indeed been loosened, probably so that something can be hidden underneath it.
Taking out his pocket knife, he uses the tip to pry up the loose floorboard. Beneath, he finds a small bundle of papers. Letters, from the look of them—or notes, actually. They’re not formally addressed in any way.
Dearest Roddy, reads the first in the stack,
I cannot get away from Lady P any earlier than nine o’clock. Then I shall go round behind the carriage house. I have a bottle of Madeira if you would care to join me for a drink.
With affection,
Laurie
Some sort of assignation. Dull. He goes on to the next note.
Dearest R,
You have been in my thoughts all day. Come to my rooms when our guests have gone.
L
There are ten or twenty more in that vein, evidently spanning a period of some months. From the occasional details, it appears that “Laurie” was one of the aristocratic inhabitants of the house, while “Roddy” was a servant, presumably one of the occupants of this very bedroom. Their homosexual love affair was evidently carried out under the nose of Laurie’s wife. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest that Laurie was engaged when the affair began and married some time in the middle of it.
The notes probably have no bearing on the case, but Sherlock pockets them all the same, as a curiosity. Perhaps John will get a laugh out of them.
As he makes his way back down the hall, a sudden movement at the top of the stairs makes him start. He could swear he heard a footstep. But—no, it was nothing. Dust motes in a sunbeam, the settling of ancient timbers. Shaking off the fancy, he goes in search of John.
***
John’s investigation of the outbuildings has not been particularly fruitful. They go into the village for the evening to collect gossip, and this, at last, produces some leads. There’s a developer, a man called Nigel St. Paul, who would like to acquire Stoke Moran in order to build some blocks of flats. That could be a motive for trying to scare Lady Stoner off. Better yet, there’s a connection between St. Paul and Lady Stoner’s late father. Sherlock resolves to speak to him the next morning.
Lingering in the village also gives John a chance to blow off steam over a few pints of the local brown ale. He doesn’t get entirely smashed, but his high spirits on the walk back to their car are enough to kindle a small spark of pride in Sherlock’s breast. At least he still knows how to show John a good time.
Lady Stoner is waiting for them when they return later that night..
“I want to show you something,” she says.
She leads them—Sherlock alert, John at least keeping up appearances—to a disused storeroom on the ground floor. It’s filled with old furniture and decorative items, some of which could no doubt get Lady Stoner a TV appearance on the Antiques Roadshow, despite (or perhaps because of) their ornate ugliness. Under the light of a single bare bulb, Lady Stoner begins flipping through a stack of paintings leaned up against one wall, revealing a parade of dismal landscapes and forbidding forebears.
“You asked me if I recognized either of the apparitions,” she says as she searches. “I didn’t remember this until you asked, but, actually, there was something familiar about the man I saw. He reminded me of a portrait we used to have hanging in the drawing room. Ah, here we are.”
She hefts a large frame, carved and gilded, from the stack. The canvas shows a stocky, broad-shouldered young aristocrat in mid-Victorian military garb. It’s not an especially handsome face, but the artist has captured a certain rather captivating self-assurance, a chilly fineness about the eyes and mouth that suggests a knowing and secretive nature. It’s a good picture. Arresting.
“Second Burmese War,” John says, pointing to a silver medal on a striped ribbon. “And this one’s from the Indian Rebellion, I’d guess.”
Sherlock stares at John open-mouthed. Even if he hadn’t deleted most of British military history, he’s fairly certain this is more obscure than the solar system. Lady Stoner, beside him, is equally amazed.
“What?” John asks. “My dad was a collector.”
“Well, you’re right,” Lady Stoner says, recovering her composure first. “My mother saw to it that all these old paintings were documented. You’re looking at Laurence Stoner, Third Viscount Hinsdale. He did serve in India and the Far East, and then he came back here and got married. He was my great-grandfather. There’s always been a whiff of scandal about him, but I don’t have any more detail than that.”
A whiff of scandal. Laurie. Sherlock exhales.
“The person I saw--the ghost, or whatever it was--he was a bit older than in this picture. Maybe in his forties. But I think the face was the same.”
“Why was the portrait taken down?” Sherlock asks.
“It was—well. Mum had it taken down. She said she always felt like it was looking at her.”
There really is something about the eyes. Wouldn’t mind him looking at me. A fleeting thought, which he banishes quickly.
“That could be relevant,” John says, filling the silence. “If someone knew you had a creepy feeling about this picture, it would be good material for trying to scare you.”
“Yes,” Sherlock says. Then, more sharply, “Yes. Well, it may have some bearing. We have some leads we’ll be looking into tomorrow morning. May we be shown to our rooms, please?”
***
In the dark, in a strange house, alone, Sherlock is as prone as anyone to wandering thoughts. He’s already googled the developer and all of his friends. He’s already considered the case of the two women frightened to death and come up with several possible explanations. He’s already re-read the stack of notes he found upstairs. Now, in the quiet of the wee hours, with nothing to occupy him, he has little choice but to lie down and try to sleep.
He needs more sleep, these days, since Serbia, but at the same time, it’s harder to come by. Apparently he’s no longer young.
Stop, he tells himself.
There are things he should have done while he was young, probably. No telling if they’ll ever happen now. Not that it stops some people. He sees again the face of Laurence Fitzwilliam Stoner, his knowing eyes, his whiff of scandal. Before and after his marriage. Not a man much constrained by convention, nor morality. John’s not either, really, but loyal. To a fault.
Stop.
He can’t—not quite. But he does sleep, eventually.
***
Sound of a door clicking shut. Sherlock’s eyes snap open, his heart leaping in his chest. Between him and the door, he can just make out a shadowy figure. He takes a quick mental inventory of the potential improvised weapons in the room. Best option is probably that insipid bronze statuette on top of the dressing table—
“There you are,” John’s voice says, and Sherlock’s adrenaline spike slides away into something almost warm.
Bare footsteps pad across the floor.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” John says, pulling at the knot of his dressing gown. “My dearest.”
And then his dressing gown is on the floor, and John is—naked—yanking up the edge of Sherlock’s bedclothes, and climbing in, and before Sherlock can move or even think (dearest? he is thinking), John’s whole strong, bare body is wrapped around him in his bed.
“I’ve been looking for you,” John says again. “Chilly, isn’t it?” As though to absorb more of Sherlock’s warmth, he burrows and writhes against him in the bed, breathing hotly against his neck and shoulder.
“John, what—“ Sherlock begins, and then John’s mouth covers his and he is drowning, mind spinning futilely as John’s tongue delves enthusiastically toward his back teeth. His heart races, heat rushing suddenly up from somewhere to fill his breast and limbs. Fighting to keep control of his wits, he finally manages to twist out of John’s grasp far enough to pluck out a question from the tornado of his thoughts and give breath to it.
“What about Mary?” he gasps.
“Never heard of her,” John purrs, and then he climbs up—naked!—to straddle Sherlock’s hips, and he takes hold of Sherlock’s hands, and his searing mouth descends again. Sherlock has no idea what’s going on.
“I’ll have you, my beauty,” John growls against his throat. “Good and proper, I will. I’ll have you wailing for it.” He undulates his body so that his hips roll, pressing the naked rod of his erection against Sherlock’s clothed groin. Sherlock twists his hands free, but then isn’t sure what to do with them. John grins wickedly down at him, then kisses him again, hands moving to tuck beneath Sherlock’s back and shoulders.
Somewhere, somewhere far down in the bottom of the back of his mind, Sherlock knows that that grin is not quite right, that those words are wrong, that John would never do this. But all the rest of him is shouting yes, and maybe it’s wrong—more likely than not—but he can always say he didn’t realize. He can say John approached him, John wanted it, John held him down and took what he wanted, and how was Sherlock to know? Sherlock’s not responsible for monitoring John’s mental state. Plausible deniability.
And maybe he’s wrong and this really is what John wants. Intoxicating thought. He wades into that thought, lets it engulf him, sinks down and down and away from all his questions.
“Lovely,” John licks into his ear. Sherlock bites his lip and lets John hook his fingers into the waistband of his pajamas and shove them down and off and away. He bites off a moan as John takes hold of his cock. John looks at him sharply.
“No need to be quiet, my dear,” he says. “You’ll be caterwauling before I’m done with you. Let me hear that lovely voice while I frig you, come on now.”
Frig Sherlock is thinking, but John’s hot hand is on his cock, working in slow, firm strokes, and the thought flutters away. John kisses him, and he moans into the kiss, and John answers with a satisfied chuckle, speeding up his strokes. He licks and nips at Sherlock’s mouth. John wants this. Riding that thought, his breathing grows ragged and he does moan, again, and the sound of his own voice makes his face hot. God, he’s going to come like this, just like this—
But John stops, squeezing him hard, and Sherlock nearly yelps with frustration.
“Turn over,” John says, and it’s John’s voice, so Sherlock does. John flings back the bedclothes, the chill air like a balm on the overheated skin of Sherlock’s legs and buttocks. He refuses to think ahead. If it’s too much he can always stop it.
“Such a beauty,” John breathes. He strokes his palms up the backs of Sherlock’s thighs, a touch that would be soothing if it weren’t so incendiary. Sherlock presses his cock into the mattress, breath stopped in his throat, as John’s thumbs dig into his buttocks, spreading him. Shockingly exposed. His cheeks are blazing, too mortified for words, but John wants this, and Sherlock wants to give it to him.
John gives a grunt of satisfaction, and then he leans down and—god, licks. Sherlock’s hips jerk away. Do people actually —
“Easy,” John says, a little sternly. His strong hands pin Sherlock’s hips in place. “Easy, my love, settle down. I’ll not bite you.” Sherlock digs his toes into the sheet and tries to hold still. John’s breath ghosts over his skin again, and he tenses. When the touch comes again, it is firm enough to at least not be ticklish, and he relaxes somewhat. John lays down a series of long, flat licks that are maybe…almost…nice, if it weren’t so—
And then his hot tongue delves inward, and Sherlock makes a high, desperate sound, flayed open and uncertain but definitely wanting more of that, which is just as well as this is clearly what John intends. It’s the most filthy and ridiculous thing anyone’s ever done to him, and he likes it. He bites the back of his hand for a moment to keep from crying out, until he remembers that John wants to hear him. So he lets himself gasp and moan as John’s tongue fucks him, and John hums encouragement. Sherlock lets himself relax into the attention, a little scrape of voice emerging with each huff of his breath, for John to hear. He’s so hypnotized with it that he scarcely notices the change when John probes him with two fingers, testing, but then John kneels up behind him, and Sherlock does notice that.
“Push up a bit, can you?” John says. Probably should have given this some thought after all; bloody neurochemicals clouding his thinking, now, and all he knows is that he’s going to. One at a time he gets his knees up under him. Warm brush of John’s hairy thighs on the backs of his legs. John’s cock lies heavy along his wet crack for a moment, then slides down to nudge behind his balls; then John centers himself and presses in and, oh, Christ, it is a lot, but it’s…doable.
“Easy.” Steadying hand on his sacrum. Slow press inward, and John’s breathing is unsteady with what is, presumably, self-restraint, as he hasn’t gone so deep as to get past the dubious lubrication of his spit. Still, it’s enough to make Sherlock’s heart race with the awareness of just how thoroughly he is at John’s mercy, which is—mostly—good. What John wants—
John thrusts fast and shallowly, and Sherlock ends up slickredhot gasping with it, sweat pricking out along his hairline, still desperate not to think. Then John leans down to reach under Sherlock’s belly, grabs his cock, and things go very fast from there, Sherlock crying out and welling up and coming hard, muscles convulsing around the hot, unfamiliar intrusion in his arse.
“Ngh, this body,” John moans. “He desires you exquisitely.” And then he gasps and grunts and his weight drives Sherlock down almost back onto the bed. John’s cock pulses hard and suddenly wet inside him, pressing just a hair too far, and Sherlock whimpers with heat and confusion and loneliness.
“I was looking for you,” John’s voice breathes again. “For such a long time.” He eases Sherlock down carefully and lies down with him, curled against his back. Sherlock shivers in his arms, uncomforted. “Such a long time. But I’ve found you at last, my Roddy. Now sleep, my sweet one. Sleep.”
The air of his voice in Sherlock’s ear is oddly cold. Sherlock just has time to notice it before his body obeys the command.
***
Sherlock opens his eyes again with the sensation that no time has passed, but his window is bright with early sun, and he is alone. Sore and soiled, he takes a long shower. He remembers what happened and what didn’t happen. He turns the whole thing over in his mind. Psychology could explain it, he imagines—PTSD, stress, psychosis, multiple personalities. That kind of thing. But he keeps seeing in his mind those secretive eyes, that flicker of motion, that figure where no figure should be. That voice that spoke, right at the last. And he never showed John the letters.
John shows all the signs of a bad hangover when he finally gets up. He works his way slowly through a boiled egg and two cups of coffee and gives no indication that he remembers anything unusual about the preceding night. Not that Sherlock expected anything else.
They go into town and trail Nigel St. Paul to a lunch meeting with a red-haired man. They follow the red-haired man until they learn his name, and then they google him and learn that he runs special effects for the local theater. They go to the theater and break in and find a lot of lights and projectors and fogscreen machines that are certainly not required for the company’s current production of Little Women. They go back to Stoke Moran and Sherlock reveals what he, of course, noticed as soon as they arrived: that only the carriage house and the old tack shed are wired for electricity, and that the locations of the female figure seen by Lady Stoner correspond to the effects that could be produced with the suspicious equipment from these two buildings. They present their findings to Lady Stoner.
“That explains the female figure,” she says. “But what about the one on the back stairs?”
Sherlock waves his hand. “A figment of your imagination, most likely. You’d already been primed to see ghosts, and your mind supplied a familiar figure.”
“He did seem quite vivid.”
“Well, the imagination is a powerful thing.”
She frowns at him. Sherlock smiles back.
“Will you be staying the night again?” she asks. “It’s a long trip back to London.”
John opens his mouth, probably to accept, but Sherlock interrupts.
“Ah, no,” he says, “No. Thank you. We couldn’t possibly trouble you any further.” John shoots him an irritated look, but doesn’t press.
***
Some time later, John falls asleep in his seat on the train. Sherlock looks up from his phone when he hears the change in his breathing. Some people become more beautiful when sleeping, but John Watson isn’t one of those, at least as far as Sherlock is concerned. Bereft of animating spirit, his features are slack and plain. He looks older, not younger. On an impulse, Sherlock coughs loudly and jabs John with his elbow. John grunts awake.
“You’ve been smoking,” he mumbles, shifting in his seat and closing his eyes again.
“No I haven’t.”
“Yes you have. I can smell it on you. Didn’t think the case was as boring as all that.”
“It was diverting enough.” Sherlock shrugs.
“Mm. Thanks for taking me out.”
Sherlock only grunts in reply.
They split a cab home from the station. When they get to John’s house, Mary is out on the pavement, walking up and down with Livy fussing in her carrier. Trying to get the baby to fall asleep, Sherlock supposes. As John approaches them, Sherlock sees Livy’s face light up with a huge, toothless smile. John smiles back just as brightly, lifts the baby out of the carrier and hugs her, hugs his wife. Before the cab drives off, Sherlock sees the three of them silhouetted in the yellow light of their doorway as they go inside.
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Date: 2016-06-10 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-10 10:47 pm (UTC)One thing: the AO3 version of your fic is italicized consistently throughout. Just fyi.
Thank you again!