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The miles are getting longer it seems, the closer I get to you…….Daughtry
No other option. No other option. No other option. No other option.
The mantra echoed through Sherlock’s mind, comforting him as he holed up in student hostels across Western Europe; on a motor bike as he crossed through the lonely seemingly endless Nevada desert in America; sleeping in doorways in Prague in the dead of winter.
Days turned into months. Months into years. It seemed like he was dealing with a hydra: cut off a part of Moriarty’s organization and another cell sprung up elsewhere.
After a while he forgot to feel resentful of Mycroft’s help. Without it Sherlock doubted he would have made it out alive….or still mostly clean.
Even more infuriatingly, overtime he even let go of his hate of his brother. His error in judgment was almost unforgivable. But what was there to do but move forward?.
Truth be told the die had been cast when Sherlock himself had underestimated Moriarty, so assured was he of his own superior intellect his lack of humility had dealt him a near mortal blow.
Sherlock was to blame for not seeing what Moriarty had so clearly seen. Had he been that self-aware he would have known that John would end up in the crosshairs of the madman. In retrospect, he should have recognized that John was in danger; instead he’d let John walk straight into a vest of Semtex.
Mycroft did a reasonable job of keeping him in supplies, local currency and sporadic updates on John.
His homeless network did a far sight better on the latter.
He had watched John mourn: dropping over a stone, his skin as grey as death. He saw him move out of Baker Street and into a pitiful flatsit, going through the motions.
Between calmly taking apart one of the most dangerous and largest crime syndicates ever known to man and anxiously awaiting pictures from random mobile numbers, Sherlock began to turn his finely tuned powers of observation on himself.
The decision to leave John in the dark about Sherlock’s survival haunted him in the darkness when sleep eluded him. There was no other choice.
John.
Sherlock knew John was no longer just a friend. His only friend. Somewhere, maybe when he made up his mind that he’d do anything, anything to keep John safe, maybe then he’d begun to realize his feelings were shifting. Or at least he’d begun correlating the evidence.
John had thought he was amazing when they first met. He’d told John most people told him to ‘piss off’ when he deduced them. That would be the kindest phrasing he’d ever heard. ‘Freak’ was the most common. But he’d long since hardened himself to that particular insult.
Still, regardless of what John thought of his intellect, he hadn’t taken anything off of Sherlock, calling him an idiot on more than one occasion.
One of the most fascinating things about the man: average height, average build, average name, was that John often surprised Sherlock. He would yell at Sherlock when he least expected it, and then praised him when he braced for a verbal onslaught. Sherlock’s mouth turned up in a quick smile. Perhaps that was what was so brilliant about John.
It was unfortunate that the last words spoken face to face had been harsh. Sherlock rehearsed dozens of versions of apologies to John. He expected John would be perturbed, angry even. But he knew John. John was loyal, and felt deeply. Regardless of his initial anger, Sherlock knew he’d come round eventually.
When Sherlock needed to escape the dreary, sometimes filthy and foul smelling places he’d have to kip for the night he would enter his Mind Palace and visit the suite he kept just for his memories of John nudging him to eat. Grumping about always having to make the tea, yet always offering a steaming cup to Sherlock regardless. John grousing when Sherlock used his laptop, Sherlock’s own scant feet away. The look of bliss on John’s face, eyes closed, as Sherlock played one of John’s favorite pieces on the violin. John, hopes so high when he left for a date, and then returning after she’d broken it off.
Sherlock stuffed down a pang of – well, he refused to name it.
Most of those break ups were centered on him, he knew. Too many texts demanding John’s presence during dates. Or too many broken dates because John had to help Sherlock with a case.
“You’re a royal cockblock, you know that right?” John had said one time, but no real heat in his tone.
Sherlock had just hummed his reply and forced the traitorous corner of his mouth to remain passive when it so clearly wished to curl up in a sly smile.
When John began making nightly appearances in Sherlock’s dreams, a few more pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Blue eyes, looking up at him with affection and amusement.
Sherlock dreamed of things that almost happened in his time with John on Baker Street.
Memories he usually kept under tight control somehow managed to bubble up whenever Sherlock found himself flagging, in body, in spirit and invariably when he was desperate for a fix.
Sherlock found himself pushing to close cases more quickly, faster than he had the previous one. He began to live for the look of adulation and amazement in John’s eyes. Not that he would have ever acknowledged that hunger, not even to himself, back then.
In his Mind Palace, Sherlock watched as they would stumble back into the flat and just stop: leaning on the door or the nearest wall, chuckling at nothing in particular.
Occasionally they’d stop so close to one another that Sherlock could inhale the sweet smell of sweat emanating from John and he wanted nothing more than to lick his blogger's neck, beneath his ear which was where he believed the scent would be the strongest…at least the strongest with John fully clothed.
For the first time ever, he allowed fantasy into his Mind Palace, inviting different endings to their cases rather than John asking him if he wanted a cup of tea, breaking the synchronized breathing between them as well as the locked gazes.
Instead of pulling away, John would move in slowly caught in the same magnetic pull that Sherlock found himself ensnared in. The distance between them would close and Sherlock would finally, finally know what it felt like to be wanted, loved.
People.
People were so stupid.
They always assume there will be time.
They go about their mundane little worlds, working, shopping, watching crap telly and then falling exhausted into their beds at night. Most afraid to take the risk of grabbing onto the one thing that they know will make their lives betters. The risk is too great.
Sherlock used to mock these lemmings. He considered those soft doughy creatures to be so below his level as to not even be worth noting.
He was a risk taker. He thrived on it. Drugs, crime solving, skirmishes with idiot hoodlums. Oh yes: Sherlock Holmes prided himself on being nothing like those too afraid to move, paralyzed in their little worlds.
Yet.
Here he was.
He’d never taken the step that haunted his dreams: closing the gap between he and John instead of letting John slip away. He didn’t know how. He didn’t even really understand that he wanted to until his subconscious showed him the way, months after he’d been on the run…or on the chase, as it were.
~~ooOoo~~
Sherlock was in the outskirts of Moscow when one of his disposal mobiles vibrated in his pocket.
Pulling it out he raised an eyebrow:
‘ 35.7847N, 5.8125W.
Two Days. Le Mirage
Let’s have dinner.’
“How dull,” he muttered. But Tangier would be a nice change of pace. It was bloody freezing in Moscow.
~~ooOoo~~
Irene stepped out of the shadows of the potted palm tree that had almost outgrown its home on the third floor outdoor balcony. “You look pretty good for a dead man,” she purred.
“I could say something very similar about you,” Sherlock returned, keeping his eyes trained on the view, as if they weren’t speaking at all. “You mentioned dinner,” he said.
“Well,” she began. “When I said dinner, I really meant something entirely different.”
“I know,” Sherlock said, now raising his hand up to his sunglass covered eyes, as if still needing to block the sun. “My room is 512. Dinner is being set up as we speak.”
“Will you be….eating?”
Sherlock allowed a small smile to grace his features. “Perhaps.” He walked away.
~~ooOoo~~
Irene knocked within minutes of Sherlock’s own arrival. Wearing a long celadon crepe dress, she lowered the matching gauze wrap she’d had artfully draped over her head in an effort to conceal herself, presumably.
“I’m glad you could make it,” she said, smiling the predatory smile Sherlock had come to expect.
“To what do I owe the command to meet you here?” he asked, still unable to read her tells.
“More to the point,” she purred. “Why did you answer it? How do you know that this isn’t a trap?”
Sherlock chuckled, and moved toward the table where food was laid out, purposely showing her his back. “And if I said I trusted you?”
Her scoff was audible.
Sherlock watched under hooded eyes as The Woman took a turn around the room. He saw her noting the tasteful neutral colored furnishings in the suite’s living area and the colorful artwork on the walls and scattered around on the accent tables. She lit on the arm of the sofa, comfortable in herself as so few women are, at least in Sherlock’s experience.
He reached behind the ice bucket, picking up two champagne flutes nestled in his hand. “Care for a drink?”
She smiled, lips blood red, still her favorite color then. “Of course,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes.
“How do you know it isn’t poisoned?” he asked, deftly unsealing the bottle of champagne.
She moved closer, skimmed her hands over his shoulders. “I guess we’ll both have to take a chance, now won’t we?”
~~ooOoo~~
They ate and spoke of nothing. Sherlock could see her trying to read him, trying to see through the sham of small talk he so expertly threw out to her. He too attempted the same feat: hatefully unsuccessful in the endeavor.
He’d just offered and she’d refused dessert saying she was hoping for something ‘a little more athletic’ on the dessert menu.
Sherlock lowered his eyes cocking his head to the right, elongating his neck, which he’d been assured was one of his best features. “Now why would you be interested in something more ‘athletic’ with me when neither of us have a preference for the opposite sex?”
She leaned forward, eyes flashing, mouth still brilliantly red even after eating. For a moment he thought she might reach across the small expanse of table between them and bite. “Mr. Holmes,” she began. “Variety is the spice of life.” Her mouth curved up even more, and her hand reached out and gently touched his hand. “While it is true my natural predilection is toward the fairer sex, in your case, I’d be delighted to make an exception.”
Sherlock froze, and he watched as her eyes tracked every single facial muscle.
“So,” she said, pulled back fractionally, eyes suddenly colder. “You’re saving yourself, or at least your heart, for him.”
Pulling away, Sherlock sat up straight, all signs of his sham evaporated. “Why did you call me here?”
Irene sat back. “I’m not without my own network, darling.” She paused. “And while I know you’re being bankrolled and supplied by your big brother, I thought perhaps you should be receiving an unbiased report on how your ‘intended’ is doing.”
“Unbiased?” Sherlock had to modulate his tone to keep from snapping. “And why would you be unbiased? You have no stake in my happiness. In fact, I’d say you have reason, more than others to desire my misery.”
“Well,” she said, drawing the syllable out. “I can see that my timing is perfect.” She pulls out the latest edition of the Vertu Quest, and unlocks it. “No need watching my fingers. You already know the four digit number that unlocks my phone.”
“I’m flattered,” he said, putting his fingertips together.
“Don’t be,” she said, smiling, her incisors exposed. Irene turned the phone toward him, a picture of a blonde woman. “Do you know her?”
He glanced at the picture and then up at her. “No. Should I?”
“Well, that is fantastic news,” she said, her smile broadening. “Now darling, don’t forget: I did offer you pleasures beyond your dreams and you turned me down.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” he said, voice noncommittal. Sherlock carefully schooled his features but he already knew what it was she had to tell him.”
“Ah,” she said. “You’ve already figured it out.” Using her finger she flipped to another picture. This one was of John kissing the blonde woman. “I did warn you. You know what they say ‘a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.’”
Sherlock maintained his control, yet his heart rate sped up. “I fail to see how this impacts me,” he said.
“Oh darling,” she said, as if consoling a child. “You might fool most everyone, but not me. This isn’t one of John’s many, many girlfriends. This one is serious. This one means to stay. This one picked him up after he watched you bleed out on the grimy London pavement.”
“As it should be,” Sherlock said, pressing his fingertips just a little harder together. “He had to believe in order for the mission to be successful.”
Irene shook her head ruefully. “Well, I hope your ‘mission’ is completed before 15 July. That is when they’re to be married.”
Sherlock pushed back from the table and stood. “This has been quite enlightening,” he said, motioning toward the door. “Thank you for bringing me out of the bowels of Moscow in order to give me further evidence that my plans have succeeded. John is a free man and deserves to be happy. If all goes well, I’ll be there in time to wish him my congratulations.”
She rose slowly, unwinding her body from the chair. She picked up her head scarf from the sofa and then walked to the door.
Leaning in so close Sherlock could smell her perfume and spices they’d consumed with dinner, Irene said, “I’d like to say I’m sorry that I’ve had to relay upsetting news to you Mr. Holmes. But that would be a lie.”
He opened the door, ushered her out, closed the door and locked it for privacy.
~~ooOoo~~
You paid off my network. – SH
It seemed prudent. – MH
Not your decision to make. – SH
Your safety is my concern. Focus was required. – MH
When did you plan on advising me of this not-inconsequential fact? – SH
Why when the job was done, of course. – MH
~~ooOoo~~
The job was done.
John was safe.
Sherlock breathed in the cool June morning air, walking on familiar pavement, home in the city like he’d never been anywhere else: London.
Now. To better understand the situation between John and the blonde woman. Would she allow John to run all over the city in the middle of the night as he worked a case with Sherlock? Or would she demand John be home, tucked up into bed with her by 10pm each night?
Would she take care of John? Would she know that he needed the thrill of cold steel, quickly warming to the flesh in his hand, in order for him to be alive?
After the gut punch of Irene’s ‘news’ and Mycroft’s lack of denial, Sherlock had locked away the half-remembered dreams and fleeting fantasies.
It was as it had always been: sentiment, never a good idea to indulge.
~~ooOoo~~
The black car slid silently alongside and not only was Sherlock not surprised he couldn’t find it within himself to object. The driver trotted opened the door and he slipped in. Mycroft handed him a cotton handkerchief. Sherlock held it up to his still bleeding nose. Mycroft said nothing.
Lost in his head, Sherlock went over the facts as he understood them:
1. John would be dead had he not jumped.
2. John had to be kept in the dark about the fake suicide in order to assure he remained safe
3. Given the state of his nose, John did not agree with number 2. At all.
4. Three years had been, well, three years. Though, a tiny voice in Sherlock’s head murmured: it felt like 30. He quickly quashed the voice.
5. The Woman, damn her, had been right: John had not only moved on, he was flourishing. And more painfully: he was gone.
6. John was getting married in four weeks
“You’ll attend the nuptials, of course,” Mycroft murmured, breaking the silence.
Sherlock jerked back as if Mycroft had slapped him.
“You must, Sherlock.”
“Why must I?” Sherlock snarled, and then winced as pain shot through his upper jaw.
“John will need you there and you’ll attend,” Mycroft said, assured, but his tone gentle.
“I’ve hardly been invited,” Sherlock said, watching as night began to fall the car picking up speed as they seamlessly merged onto the M25.
Sherlock looked out the window, realizing they were driving out of London. No matter. There was nothing for him in London now.