Work Text:
1 January 2014
Hesitancy was not something that John Watson had grown up accustomed to. Solid, steady, dependable were all words used to describe him by those that knew him in passing. From those that had a better idea of who he really was: bloody stubborn, vicious (like a small dog, Murray used to joke, goes right for the soft bits and doesn’t let go), and, above all, collected. He’d stared down enough guns pointed at him, had kept enough people from bleeding out while bullets had sung past his head, to earn the occasional tease of being crazy as hell. But he had always been like that; the army hadn’t brought it out in him. It just gave him the opportunity. It wasn’t in him to be naturally cautious.
The door, plain just like every other one on this floor, was the last obstacle between him and Sherlock. And yet he hesitated. More than just this door separated them. Years, grief, and experience divided the two of them and John felt the weight of it all pulling on his shoulders, weighing down his hand. They had now spent more time apart then they had together. Could it be said they even still knew one another?
He shook his head, flexed his fingers. He knew Sherlock. This was a man whom he had killed for, cared for, mourned for. If it could not be said that they shared a future together, they did still share a past. John needed this. Needed to see Sherlock living and breathing in front of him. Needed answers. Needed to reach out and touch Sherlock’s shoulder and feel muscles bunch and flex under his hand. Needed Sherlock to understand what he did to John, if it was possible to make the bastard understand anything.
He swallowed around the thick, sticky lump in his throat and slowly raised his fist. His knuckles rapping against the wood shattered the quiet of the hallway, the opening salvo in a battle he felt he had been fighting for years.
13 January 2013
Chicago was a terrible, cold little place. The wind got everywhere: crept in between cracks in windows, slithered under tightly clasped coats, and curled angrily around joints. God, it was hateful.
Sherlock shifted on the sofa, hand pressed against his side in an attempt to quell the sharp pain of recently stitched together skin pulling. The cushions, if they could be called that, offered little comfort. No matter how often he changed position, the wound in his side clamoured angrily for his attention. It was impossible to think when every movement reminded him of a thousand aches and pains. Hateful, distracting, useless. He gritted his teeth and took a slow, deep breath, forcing himself to focus on what he had been saying. Where was he? Ah, yes. The shop.
“Obvious, of course. The entire thing was a front for a drug lab. The old woman they had working the front end was a nice touch. People tend to feel sorry for the elderly or excuse odd behaviors or smells.” He sniffed. “Cat urine. Brilliant, really. Overpowers other smells, keeps people from lingering too long. Not that many people would want to linger in a store that sells odds and ends from the 1970s. Honestly how the local police force couldn’t tell that something was wrong about a shop that had nothing new in it past 1977 and yet still stayed open I will never understand. My god, I thought Lestrade’s people were dullards, but they look like geniuses in comparison.”
He stopped. Usually this was the part where John jumped in and berated him for insulting Lestrade. A quick glance around the dingy hotel confirmed what he already knew, but somehow kept forgetting. He was alone and had been for over a year now.
Breathing deep, he closed his eyes and worked his frigid fingers under his shirt collar. The metal of John’s ID tag was warm under his fingers. He pulled it free from under his shirt and worried it back and forth between his fingers. The indentations and ridges were familiar to him now, an imperfect map of John Watson’s life.
The initials couldn’t depict the way John said his own name--clipped, polite, sure--or the way he had shouted his middle name as a distraction (annoyed or joking? Sherlock could never tell). The stamped letters of John’s blood type failed to capture John’s high pitched giggle as his pulse raced, shoulder brushing against Sherlock’s in shared camaraderie. Or why despite John’s apparent atheism (shouts for God letting you live does not negate what Sherlock has observed), RC was emblazoned on the metal disc. All hints, all teases, of what John was but not actually him.
He curled his lip in self-disgust. Sentiment. He missed John. He had no time to miss John. There was work to do. Fascinating, challenging work and here he was wasting time, idly wondering what John was doing right now (it would be six o’clock there, evening, Monday meant takeout, but factoring in variables--had he stayed at Baker Street?--he would at least be having his first post-work tea and would be--no!).
He shook his head and, careless of his injuries, threw himself off the sofa. “You prefer Chamomile on Mondays because Mondays are always a mess at the surgery. Stupid. It won’t calm you, but you drink it anyway as if it can get rid of a day of children wailing and hypochondriacs certain that a case of the sniffles is the next bubonic plague. You’ll sit in your chair for twenty-two minutes before you turn to me and ask about dinner. You always ask about dinner as if I care what we have because you like to include me in such decisions. You think if you do it often enough it will entice me to gladly take part in eating. You are wrong, of course, and none of this helps me by thinking about it right now!”
He staggered and the room tipped and swayed with him. On the other side of the wall, someone thumped an angry fist against the plaster. His next breath, whisper-thin, came through concrete. He clutched John’s ID tag until it bit into his palm and his vision cleared.
20 June 2013
They couldn’t just leave it be, couldn’t just let him actually mourn his best friend’s death in peace. No, bloody papers had to come sniffing around, nipping at his heels like a pack of rabid wolves. Poke and prod at him hard enough and let’s see what he does this time. Yell at a reporter? Punch another police officer? Wouldn’t they just love to see him take a swing at someone. Insinuating that he and Sherlock had been lovers hadn’t worked for them. (He had long since given up on fighting the rumours and what did it matter anyway now? He had loved Sherlock. Didn’t matter what form it took because the end result was the same: a hollow ache somewhere under his ribs that lingered. Smaller than it once was, but still there.) But they were still trying to see if they could get him to break.
And now this: claiming he knew about Sherlock being a criminal mastermind, had helped him even, and calling his mobile at all hours of the day and night. They couldn’t get the reaction they wanted, so now they were just going to drive him around the bend. The calls never came when he could actually snatch his phone up and answer, as though the person on the other end of the line knew his schedule right down to when he was mostly likely at the shops or working at the surgery or deep asleep. Every time he flicked on his phone after leaving work, he had to grit his teeth in annoyance at seeing yet another missed call and message with nothing but silence on the other end.
He pulled out his notebook and jotted down the number. Another code he didn’t recognize. Different from the other ones. The first he had bothered to write down, now over a month past, came from Berlin. The next, a week later, Paris. Then Istanbul. Then Moscow. He had tried, of course, to return the phone calls, but each was met with no answer or what he gathered was a standard stock response of the phone number no longer being in service.
He had no doubt that they were related in some fashion to the anniversary of Sherlock’s death, even if they seemed to be coming from all over the place. There were ways to fool caller IDs, ways to reroute phone calls, and his paranoia was ramped up by the constant niggling feeling of being watched crawling up and down his spine. He couldn’t say for certain who was doing it, but the next time someone called, he would be ready for it.
He didn’t bother trying to track the number itself. Every dead phone line or unanswered call had taught him that the person on the other end wasn’t stupid; they didn’t want to be found and time spent trying to track down a burner phone was just time wasted. But he typed in the long distance code and noted it on the growing list. Saturday, 4:56 AM, Shanghai.
At some point, the person on the other end had to slip up. He switched his schedule around at the surgery so whoever was watching him would have to be forced to adapt, then he switched it again. He stopped frequenting the grocers down the street and started having food delivered or he randomly ducked into shops to pick up odds and ends, rather than wait until he had a full list. If someone wanted to keep tabs on him, he took every opportunity to make it difficult on them.
It was a Thursday evening when the call finally came, nearly a month after the last one. He had managed to switch most of his schedule around that week so it was the opposite of what he worked, so when his mobile buzzed, he snatched it up. He didn’t recognize the number. No surprise there.
Before it could go to voicemail, he answered. Silence greeted him on the other end.
“Berlin, Paris, Istanbul, Moscow, Shanghai.” He rattled off each city, rapid fire. “If you are playing, stop it. If you want something, then fine. No more games. You know where to find me.”
A sharp inhale of breath echoed across the line.
20 June 2013
Stupid. Stupid. He knew the entire time he was doing it that each phone call was courting disaster and yet he still called John over and over again. When had he become so sentimental, so weak, that a few sleepless nights here and there had made him think it was perfectly fine to call John? The first time could have been chalked up to delirium. A frozen night spent in Berlin, fever-ridden, exhausted, ribs aching-- of course it was a perfect formula for disaster. The predictability of was pathetic. It was only sheer dumb luck that John hadn’t picked up the phone and that Sherlock hadn’t mumbled some nonsense as a message.
The first time could have been forgiven or at least ignored as some weakness that only reared its ugly head and was dealt with. But to do it again and again when he knew that John’s ignorance of Sherlock’s existence was the only thing keeping John alive? Sheer stupidity.
And here, sitting on a balcony under a hot Miami sun that never seemed to warm his aching joints, he had done it again. He had thought he was being so clever about it. After all, he knew John’s habits, his schedules, could have mapped out his sleeping patterns with at least a fair bit of reliability. It was a bit more difficult now that they were no longer living in the same flat, but certain variables were always true: cold months marked more disruptions in his sleep as his shoulder bothered him more, meant the likelihood of waking multiple times in the night went up unless he overcame his stubbornness and took something for the pain. This time of year he worked more at the clinic as various colleagues fled to nicer locales for the chance of sunburnt skin and warm beaches. The was an element of guesswork involved, but he prided himself on knowing John quite well.
His pride blinded him. He hadn’t thought John would answer his phone. John, who despite all his protests about texting, absolutely hated conversing over a phone. John would never take a call mid-shift, had even yelled at him for texting him while he was trying to work. But something had changed the pattern, something had made him answer and now it was obvious what caused that change. The one thing he could not factor in, the one thing that he always failed to account for: John’s stubbornness.
John’s voice, tinny over the bad connection and nearly drowned out by the sounds of traffic in the street below him, was a balm on a wound Sherlock did not know he had. Even as John, cold and angry, railed at him over the line, Sherlock could feel each muscle in his neck and shoulders slowly loosen, warming him in a way that no amount of standing in the hot Florida sun could. He was no longer sitting on some dirty little balcony, cushioned only by a towel; he was sprawled on the sofa, listening to John yell at him from the kitchen.
In the silence that followed John’s tirade, without permission, one damning word leapt from Sherlock’s mouth: “John.”
Jerking his head back in surprise at his own stupidity, he ended the phone call before he could hear John’s response. He flung the mobile away; it smacked against the glass door, even as the sharp sound of an incoming call rang again and again and again.
28 July 2013
John knew several things:
One, Sherlock was alive. It took a while to move past that one thought. In the moments after receiving what was now emblazoned in his mind as The Call, he stood frozen. A dull roar filled his ears, drowning out all other sound, and by the time he had come back to himself, Sherlock was no longer on the other end of the line. In the days that followed, he had argued with himself. Sherlock was dead. He had seen him die, had touched him the last moments and seen the blank, empty stare on his best friend’s face. But he also knew that voice and nearly every incarnation of the way Sherlock said his name and his ears were not lying to him. That had been Sherlock’s voice and it wasn’t a recording. Too quick of a response, too real to be faked. So after the initial shock of it, John had repeated aloud to himself “Sherlock’s alive” until the tremor left his hand. Which led him to the next item on the list.
Two, he had no idea where Sherlock was. Oh, he had guesses, his clever little list of cities around the globe told him where Sherlock had been, but none of it told him why or when to expect the next phone call. He put aside the argument going on in his head about why Sherlock didn’t tell him that he was alive or why he had taken to calling John’s mobile at all hours of the day and night without ever saying a word or why this time was different. There was no time to waste worrying about whether or not Sherlock had been hurt or what might have kept him from staying on the line (and God, that first night he had nightmares of darkened rooms and Sherlock crying out for help and John not being able to find him); he needed to find Sherlock. Obviously, that was the entire point of the phone calls. Sherlock needed help but couldn’t, for whatever reason, let John know what was going on. And that is when John went to Mycroft.
Three, Mycroft had no bloody idea where Sherlock was either.
“What the hell do you mean you don’t know where he is?”
Mycroft tilted his head down and looked up at him from his desk, as if raised voices were beneath him. “John, my brother is, at the best of times, uncooperative. While he did initially ask for my monetary assistance, he has since spent his time evading any surveillance I have put on him.” He raised his hand to cut off John’s shout before it could begin. “And no, I do not have endless resources to keep tracking him down despite your and Sherlock’s continued belief that I am somehow omnipotent.”
John was becoming well acquainted with the numbers one through ten. “Fine. Do you know what he is up to?”
“Of course.”
The Holmeses and their stupid, bloody, infuriating eyebrows. “Well?”
Mycroft sighed. “As I understand it, my brother fancies himself a bit of an avenging angel.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Surely it had occurred to you by now that Sherlock did not jump off of a roof for the sheer delight in seeing what would happen. Not even he is that cruel or dramatic. He did it in a misguided attempt to protect you.” The last came out with what John had come to know as the Mycroftian brand of disdain mixed with bafflement.
“Me? Who the hell is he protecting me from?”
“Moriarty, of course.”
He went still, breath caught in his throat. He shook his head. “No. You told me he was dead. You promised me he was dead.” It was the only thing that had kept him going at all in the months that followed Sherlock’s death. If Moriarty had somehow survived all of that, it would have meant that Sherlock had died for nothing.
“Don’t be stupid, John. It insults us both. He is dead; I saw to the disposal of his remains myself, but there are men who linger, who remain loyal to him, and those men, should they discover that Sherlock is alive, would be quite delighted to destroy him and anyone close to him.”
John swallowed. “Is he in danger?”
“I would imagine so, but he has always enjoyed danger.”
“Am I?”
Mycroft studied him for a moment, then turned back to his paperwork. “That remains to be seen.”
5 November 2013
There were rituals, little things that he had taken to doing to keep him from dialing John’s number at every payphone or hotel. They proved little more than a plaster on a gunshot wound, but they still had to be observed. He would not allow himself anymore slip ups. Each time put them both in danger and were little more than useless gestures that brought him comfort for a brief time before he felt the need to reach out again. And so he came up with rituals to keep them both safe.
When he could afford a hotel room, he checked into one. The first step was to fool his mind into a sense of comfort and familiarity. Forgetting that the walls were the same pathetic, drab shade of brown and white that all cheap chain hotels prefer, he sat in the one chair provided, knees tucked up under his chin, and set about layering his memories over the room. His skull took up residence next to the bed. The bullet holes above the telly, which was turned to a local station. Inane chatter filled the room, substituting for Mrs. Hudson’s own brand of terrible television that was a constant background noise while she cleaned and cooked. Smells were an issue. Impossible to replicate the exact smell of Baker Street, not without John himself there in the room with him or his own lab experiments cluttering the table. He had to make do with smells that triggered basic memories: an open bottle of beer (not John’s preferred brand, impossible to find here, but it would have to suffice), a bag of crisps, and an approximation of John’s favorite sandwich.
Sitting and talking to an empty room wasn’t the same, of course. But for a few minutes, he was able to imagine John tucking into his lunch, nodding along to whatever Sherlock was saying as he ate.
Eventually, he ate the meal (beer untouched; he needed all of his faculties intact), because John chided him about keeping up his strength. It sat heavy in his stomach. Grimacing, he stood and picked up the warm bottle of beer.
The door flung open, the wood splintering under a heavy boot. Sherlock twisted, bottle already leaving his hand. The quick action saved him as it collided with the face of a man just as he raised a gun. The glass smacked hard against the bridge of his nose, spewing beer over him and clouding his vision. The gun fired; the bullet buried itself in the cheap plaster above Sherlock’s head.
Sherlock pounced. A quick jab to his shoulder deadened the man’s fingers briefly and the gun dropped to the floor. The man tangled his fingers in Sherlock’s hair, yanking, pulling, ripping. He ignored the pain and drove the heel of his foot down hard on the man’s toes, followed by a quick rabbit punch to the gut.
After that it was quick work. A strike to the chin sent the man sprawling. Sherlock snaked an arm around his neck and locked his arm tight around his windpipe. The man struggled, messy swipes that left red scratches along Sherlock’s arms and face, awkward jabs with his elbows into Sherlock’s ribs that sparked bright patches of pain. He attempted to throw Sherlock off, heels digging into the carpet and shoving them backwards. Sherlock only tightened his grip, watching as the man’s movements slowed then stopped. He held his grip for a moment longer, the only sound now in the room his own harsh breathing, before rolling the dead weight off of him.
He stood on shaky legs. In the distance, he heard sirens.
25 November 2013
From: [email protected]
Title: Hi!
Vegas really is lovely this time of year! I can’t blevive how warm it is! The Fairmont is gorgeous! They were right about this place. :)
---
From: [email protected]
Title: Re: Hi!
Sorry, not sure who you were trying to reach, but I think you have the wrong email.
---
From: Server Error
Title: Message Returned
---
It could have been nothing. A misplaced email shot off to the wrong account. But something in the phrasing gave him pause. A message bounced back was too much like a disconnected number. He drummed his fingers on the table. The last he had heard from Sherlock had been the fateful call from Miami. It wasn’t a stretch to think that Sherlock was still in the States, still working away, and, if it was Sherlock, John couldn’t afford to ignore him. Not when he reached out to John.
John took another push pin out of the tin on the mantle and pushed it into the map. Mouth pressed into a grim line, he turned back to his laptop and began his search once more. He needed data, anything that could help figure out if it actually was Sherlock in Las Vegas, and if it was, what he was up to.
26 November 2013
“Give my regards to your boss. Kind of him to bail me out of jail. How much of the police force does he have on his payroll?” Sherlock smiled, the taste of copper coating his tongue. Another molar gone. Pity. “Of course, Judge Reynolds is under his employ, so no surprise that my paperwork was handled so quickly. I can’t help but imagine what he has on the judge. The possibilities are nearly endless.” He didn’t hide his sneer. Blackmail was the weapon of cowards and these men worked for the worst of them.
“Shut it.”
There would be no talking these men out of what they were about to do, no goading them until they misstepped. He had been given only twenty minutes alone since he was dragged out of his jail cell; a quick slip of the fingers allowed him to pickpocket a mobile and ensured that he was able to send off a message to John, but it did not save him the beating when they discovered he had destroyed the phone he had stolen and refused to answer their questions. They still weren’t aware of who he really was and that was all that mattered. He could only hope that John was able to understand what he was trying to convey; even now he couldn’t afford to tell John explicitly what he was up to, not with the constant threat hanging over both of their heads.
They weren’t gentle as they dropped him on the ground, leaving him to scramble to his knees. A small ditch yawned in front of him. A desert body dump. Typical. Boring. He ignored the sharp pain of a rock digging into his shin and instead concentrated on dislocating his thumb. Not as easy to do as it looked in the films, but back in Dubai he had had a nasty run in with a loan shark and since then his thumb could pop out of joint with just the right amount of pressure.
He could take one of the men by surprise. The other--well, he would have to be quick. Pain flared across the palm of his hand and down his wrist. In the blanket of darkness, it was easy enough to slip the cuff off. He hunched forward, keeping his freedom concealed against his stomach.
The headlights washed out the face of his would-be executioner as he stepped around the ditch. The burst of light threatened to kill Sherlock’s night vision completely. He squinted.
The gun raised.
He leapt.
26 November 2013
John scrubbed a tired hand across his face and cracked his back. There was no end of potential crime that Sherlock could be involved in around Las Vegas; it was just a matter of tracking down which was important enough for him to ask for help. He bit his lip and stared at the cork board across from him, a mosaic of criminal activity spread out across its surface. Mycroft had been quick to supply him with files of what he knew about Sherlock’s activities, perhaps in an attempt to keep John from doing something foolish like jumping on the next plane to chase down a ghost.
Human trafficking in Moscow.
Gun smuggling in Berlin.
Drug running in Shanghai.
Each painted a picture of violence, greed, and desperation. Somewhere in all that mess was Sherlock, alone, possibly hurt, definitely in danger. He should be there with him. He was capable, wasn’t he? Hadn’t he shown that he could run with Sherlock, could protect him, could offer assistance in anyway that Sherlock needed?
He smacked his knuckles against the desk. Leave it, Watson. Anger wouldn’t get him anywhere right now. He needed to focus. Sherlock contacted him, not Mycroft.
It took some digging. The Fairmont, a recently opened hotel, was the key. Nothing flashy, but respectable, as far as John could see. Known to cater to businessmen, not tourists. Quiet. A bit out of the way from the flash and pomp of the strip.
And not a damn bit of criminal activity around it. He was getting tired of the taste of his own tail in his mouth. There was nothing there. Not a single whiff of violence, but Sherlock (it had to have been Sherlock, there was no other explanation) wouldn’t have just mentioned it in passing.
So it had to be something else, something connected to the hotel, but not the hotel itself. He clicked through another series of links, eyes burning with the effort of focusing on the screen in front of him.
Zoning Commission Gives Go Ahead to Break New Ground
Hotel Set to Open in August
The Last of an Era: Henderson’s Closes Doors After Seventy Years
John stopped. Henderson’s. He had seen that name before. He grabbed his notebook and quickly flipped through his messy notes. There: a local delicatessen situated down the block from the hotel with a colourful history that stretched back to the beginning of Vegas. He had thought it had been torn down after the property had been bought by the board seeking to build The Fairmont, but no. It was still there, just under a new name.
Why bother buying out a little deli down the street if it wasn’t to tear it down? Where was the benefit? According to the previous article, it had been struggling when it had been purchased, so there was no regular customers to pull from. Yet there it was, still in business. He worried his lip between his teeth. It could be nothing, but it didn’t feel like it.
A quick search showed several other businesses in the area had been bought, each under different group names, all clean, all legally owned and operated; some bought out just when it looked like the owners would have to close their doors for good while others were purchased after the owners had to sell under a cloud of disgrace. A few such occurrences would be coincidence, but this many?
He pulled a file over to him and flipped through it. These were not small time operations; they were extensive and highly organized. This would have required more than just Moriarty providing instructions from afar. It was nearly a network of its own. He heard Sherlock’s voice in his head: All those crimes. All those back alley dealings, all that product being moved. Someone has to fund it. Where does all that money go, John?
He froze. Half-way down the page was a note concerning the flow of cash into the drug trade into Miami. A dead end, local police had said. It was a shell company, just a name for a fake front that vanished as soon as the drug trade in Miami dried up. But he recognized the name: it was the same one that had bought half the businesses surrounding the Fairmont hotel. There was a trail there, difficult to trace, but finally it was something he could follow.
It was nearly two in the morning before he found what he was searching for. He switched tabs between four articles, studying each photograph and the people in the background. They were grainy at best, but each featured the same stocky, well-dressed man lurking just off to the side. The final photograph gave him a name. Charles Milverton stared at him, shovel in hand, as he broke ground on the Fairmont Hotel.
He jabbed out a message, worrying his lip between teeth.
27 November 2013
His mobile dinged with a text message.
John ripped down Charles Milverton’s picture from the corkboard and tried to quell the storm raging in his stomach.
1 December 2013
Sherlock’s fingers shook as he lit another cigarette. It was the cold, of course. Nothing more. He took a slow drag from it and hunched his shoulders against the wind.
Idiot, John said. You’ll catch your death out here.
“Yes.”
He dropped the cigarette and ground it under his shoe. He held the last of the smoke in his lungs, imagined it burning him from the inside out.
3 December 2013
From: [email protected]
Title: Re: Hi!
I want to hate you. Your brother said that I was handling the news well. I’m not sure that’s true. If it had been you to tell me, to explain things, I am not sure how I would have handled it. I kind of feel like a bomb waiting to go off. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. All the potential and I have nothing to focus it on.
God, I couldn’t have been any more textbook in my grief. Probably would have seemed dull to you. All that mess. And you were everywhere. Couldn’t walk down the street without seeing your coattails in the distance.
I read this thing on earthquakes and I thought of you. Because that’s you. Devastating. Changing. Terrifying. Awesome in that way that all destructive things are. Do you even understand what you did to me?
I had moved on and now suddenly there you are again. Popping up and giving me bits and pieces, but never everything and I just jumped back into chasing right after you. Aren’t I the fool?
I just don’t know anymore. I loved you. Still do, I guess. Not sure if it even matters to you. Must have at some point.
---
From: Server Error
Title: Message Returned
8 December 2013
From: [email protected]
Title:
Another town, another dollar. These meetings are tedious and useless and I cannot help but think that my time would have been better spent at home. I put out one fire only to have four more take its place.
Sorry. I’m tired and all of these hotels are beginning to look the same. Toronto is just as cold and miserable as Montreal was. I hear Madrid is lovely this time of year, perhaps when I return from this trip we can go on vacation.
---
From: [email protected]
Title: Re:
No more vacations. Just come home.
---
From: [email protected]
Title: Re:
Soon.
16 December 2013
---
The plastic in his hand creaked. John eased his grip and glared at Mycroft. “Moran is one of Moriarty’s men?”
Mycroft handed over the file to John. It was thin, far too thin for a man who was as supposedly dangerous as Moran seemed. “Yes. A highly skilled sniper, trusted by Moriarty implicitly, and tasked with the sole purpose of killing you.”
He flipped open the file and stared at the man intent on putting a bullet in his head. Plain, forgettable. Military cut and wide shoulders, but little to distinguish him from any other white male in his mid-40s. His blandness made him perfect for his role as an assassin. He could pop in and out and never even be noticed damn near anywhere he went. “And Sherlock?”
“Probably destroying a hotel room as we speak as he knows he cannot return to London or it would simply put both of you in more danger.”
“Probably? You’ve lost him again?”
“Sherlock has become very good at disappearing. The last few months should have taught you that.”
It was true. The first few emails, John hadn’t even been sure they were from Sherlock. But they kept coming at regular intervals, replacing the oddly timed phone calls, and each was so specific to name places. He tried always to message back, but up until the most recent one, they always bounced back to his inbox. Sherlock knew he was being watched constantly and even sending a message from the same email more than once was apparently fraught with danger. Infuriating, but John was doing what he could do help his friend from a distance.
He kept track and started to look at news from each city that Sherlock mentioned. Some it was easy to see Sherlock’s handiwork, once he had an idea for what to look for. His name was never mentioned, of course, but major police raids, drug busts, and sudden arrests all painted a picture of Sherlock’s activities. John’s living room looked like the cliche of every conspiracy theorist in a summer blockbuster film, with bits of string connecting police blotters, obituaries, and mug shots. Sherlock had once called Moriarty a spider and strung up in John’s room was proof of how far the web actually went.
“His sudden disappearance after informing me that he had been found out doesn’t bother you even a little bit?”
“He will have gone to ground. Hiding, staying away, is the safest thing for him to do at this point. I have contacts who are looking into the matter and so far they assure me that they have found no evidence that he has been kidnapped or maimed.”
“And that’s comforting? Christ, we have no idea what has happened to him or where this Moran even is.” The paper crinkled in his hand.
“We know that Sherlock is alive because you are still alive. If Moran had him, he would have already handled your execution, quickly and efficiently because you would be nothing more to him than a loose end. No, right now you are bait in a very elaborate trap for my brother.”
John bared his teeth. “Then let’s spring the trap.”
31 December 2013
People underestimated John Watson. They saw his size, the rounded nose, the simple style in which he dressed and chose to interpret the evidence to mean that he was the plain minded type. He didn’t blame people for thinking that. He had always been easy to overlook and standing next to Sherlock, he looked about as intelligent as a slug.
But the fact was he was damn smart. He knew how to survive, knew how to duck and cover, and he knew when to pursue. He memorized Moran’s face and waited. He went about his day as if he knew nothing about Sherlock, even took the time to visit his grave around Christmas, but he always stayed on guard. The hyper-vigilance exhausted him. Nights were filled with jerking awake at every little sound, certain that Moran had grown tired of waiting and had broken into the flat. His days were not much better because with daylight came the constant push of people around him. Every face for a brief moment looked like Moran before resolving into just another harmless passerby. The skin between his shoulderblades itched.
In the end, Moran slipped up, or perhaps he wanted John to see him. It became difficult to tell who was the prey and who was the victim. He appeared in the dairy aisle at John’s favorite shop and smiled as he reached for a jug next to John’s already outstretched hand. It was the closest Moran had ever come to John. He had grown cocky, wanted John to be scared that Moran knew all of his little habits, but just like many people Moran underestimated the strength that made up John Watson.
He had learnt things from Sherlock: how to observe without being observed, how to tail a person, how to pick a lock. He didn’t need to be taught how to fight dirty.
The lock on Moran’s door was easy enough to pick which is what told him exactly what to expect on the other side of the door. His pistol was warm in his hand, his grip steady, as he pushed the door open and stepped inside, gun leading the way. Moran sat in a chair, cigarette pressed between his lips, his own gun pointed at John’s head with a casualness that belied his own competency with it.
“Hey, Johnny-boy, lettin’ all the heat out. Mind closing the door for me?” He stood and put out the cigarette in an overfull ashtray sitting on a side table. Without turning, John hooked his foot around the door and kicked it closed. “Ta. These old flats are draughty in the winter. The walls really are so thin.” The wood underneath his boots creaked as he approached. “So, here to play, are ya? Got your little toy gun and going to shoot me for your best mate? Best make sure you hit me. I’d hate for anyone else to get involved.”
A television flared to life on the other side of the wall. Someone laughed. John licked his lips, shifted his stance, and slowly lowered his gun.
“Kick it over here.” Moran smiled. “That’s a good lad. Nice and civil, no need for a mess. We’re the steady types, aren’t we? No need for dramatics or a big fuss. That was always the problem with Jim and your boss. Everything always had to be so big.” He stepped to the side and gestured with his gun to the seat he just vacated. “Come on, then. Have a seat. We’ll just have a nice sit down and chat and wait for Holmes to get here.”
“He’s not in London.”
“Oh, he may not be in London, but he’s close enough. He’ll come running once he knows I have you. May take him a bit to get here and we’ll have fun while we wait, but he’ll come.”
As John moved past, he changed course and bodychecked Moran. Moran wasn’t stupid and had left plenty of room between John and himself, but nonetheless he was still caught off guard by John’s sudden, if awkward assault. In the fumble, John wrapped his hands around Moran’s wrist and bent his arm back, driving his knee up into Moran’s elbow. The gun steadfastly stayed in Moran’s hand and as John struggled with it, Moran swung his other fist around, catching John on the jaw. His teeth snapped together painfully, just barely missing his tongue. Using all his strength, he kept one hand on Moran’s gun arm and drove his elbow into Moran’s throat. He gurgled and dropped the gun.
The next few seconds blurred under the onslaught of rage and fear in John’s veins, dissolving into a series of disconnected moments.
Another blow to his face. Blood filled his mouth.
Crash. Table and ashtray knocked over. Moran on top of him, keeping him pinned to the ground.
Moran’s fingers around his throat. Squeezing.
John shoving his thumbs into Moran’s eyes. Pushing, clawing. A scream of rage. His head smacked against the floorboards. He only pushed harder.
Weight gone. Air. Breathing. Move. Move.
Heavy object in hand, cool, glass. Moran on him again. He swung, ashtray catching Moran on the temple. He swung again. A corner cut into Moran’s cheek. Again. Moran rolled off of him, trying to get to his gun. Again. The glass ashtray cracked in his hand. Again. Bone broke under his onslaught, flesh ripped under sharp jagged corners. Again. Moran went still.
John stood, chest heaving, hands shaking. Through the haze of shock, he stared at the body at his feet and tried to connect what he was seeing to the flashes of actions still fluttering across his vision. Moran’s face coalesced into a pulped mess of flesh and bone, no longer recognizable. The ruined ashtray fell from his fingers; ash clung to his blood-slicked arm and hands.
A dog barked out in the hall. John jerked and staggered over to the kitchen sink. The faucets groaned under his hands as he turned the hot water to full blast. He left bloody fingerprints in his wake, smeared across rusted metal and fake wood. He scrubbed his hands until the flesh was raw, watched the water turn pink and then clear. He swallowed around the bitter taste of adrenaline coating his throat.
Back out into the main room, he knelt next to Moran’s body and searched through his pockets. Keys, chewing gum, a burner phone with nothing on it beyond one text message: Let us know when you want him. Sherlock or him? Useless. Moran was dead and he had nothing to go on. He growled and walked over to the bedroom. The bed was made, precise military corners, not a wrinkle in sight. He ripped open the side table drawer. Nothing. Under the bed. Nothing.
A floorboard creaked under his feet. He looked down and stepped back. An ugly throw rug covered the boards just under him. He flung it away and ran his hands along the wood until he found what he was looking for: a loose board easy enough to pry up with a knife borrowed from the kitchen. He pulled out a stack of papers and photographs rolled up inside an old coffee tin.
Remnants of ash coated the inside of the tin. Moran had been burning the documents after receiving them but hadn’t gotten a chance yet to burn these. He tossed aside the pictures of him going about his day to day business. He already knew that Moran had stalked him for weeks. There. A picture of Sherlock from afar. Hard to tell with the hoodie pulled up over his head, but John knew the way Sherlock carried himself, even when he was pretending to be someone else. Another picture, closer, confirming that it was Sherlock. Another of a ratty, run down hotel and underneath that a flight itinerary to Johannesburg.
Moran had known where Sherlock was this entire time. It had always been about luring him back to London. Moran could have killed Sherlock at any time in the past few weeks. Were Moran’s men just as loyal as Moran himself? Would they still go after Sherlock even if they knew Moran was dead?
With one hand, he dialed Mycroft. “I need your help.”
1 January 2014
He knocked again. A beat, two. He glanced down at the light peeking out from under the doorframe and saw a shadow move closer to the door, easy to spot since he knew to look for it, but the person on the other side of the door managed to mask the sound of their movements. He waited until he heard the thump of what could only be flesh against wood.
John heard the lock slowly turn, the chain rattle against the frame. He stepped back, stance loose and ready for a fight. He knew that the last of Moriarty’s connections in London were gone, but there was still the lingering worry of who had been watching Sherlock this entire time. Mycroft had assured him that they would be safe, but weeks of always being on guard had him overly cautious.
He nearly jumped when the door suddenly flung open, revealing a rumpled, but alive Sherlock. He stared, eyes taking in their fill. John wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Haggard, maybe. Underfed. Bloody, bruised, drug addled. Anything but this. Not Sherlock standing there, face highlighted in the cheap gold of poor hotel lighting, looking perfectly healthy. His shirt was a little wrinkled, the circles around his eyes a bit darker, but no different from how he used to look after waking up from a post-case crash. Every bruise, every cut, every sleepless night for the past two weeks pounded away against John’s skin and Sherlock was fine.
For a moment, Sherlock’s eyes widened in surprise, before he reached forward and snatched John’s arm, hauling him into the hotel room. The door snapped shut, cocooning the two of them in the cramped entryway of Sherlock’s hotel room. The grip on John’s arm tightened as Sherlock pulled him closer still. His fingers flew to John’s jaw, tracing the dark bruise there. Rapid, little puffs of air pushed their way past Sherlock’s lips as he took in every little nick, bruise, wrinkle, and grey hair. Little room remained between the two of them and in the small space, John could finally feel Sherlock real and alive against him.
“John, you can’t be here. It’s not safe. Moriarty’s people--”
“Moran’s dead.”
Sherlock stopped, every little motion arrested as he stared at John. His fingers bit into John’s arm. “Did he hurt you? Are you all right?”
John laughed. It sounded thin and bitter even to his own ears. “Did he hurt me? Fucking Christ, Sherlock.”
He should’ve been relieved. Happy that Sherlock was healthy, that he hadn’t spent the past two years terrified and on the run, pursued by shadows at every turn. Instead his pulse pounded away in his neck, thudded in his ears. His fingers twitched. Cloying, gut-churning rage scrambled up his throat, tore sharp claws into his chest. He shook off Sherlock’s grip.
“John, it was too dangerous. I didn’t expect you to follow me.”
“No. You wouldn’t.” He twisted, pushing Sherlock away so he could get further into the room. It was small, but clean, decorated in the standard fare of hotel rooms everywhere. A half-finished sandwich lay discarded on the table. The telly blared some asinine talk show. Christ, he’d been sitting around watching telly, having a sit down meal while John had been tearing across town, anxious, desperate, and worried. Played like a fool, again.
“You’re angry. Of course, you’re angry. You have to know that I did all of this to protect you. There were men--”
Sherlock’s hand came to rest on his shoulder and something in John ignited. He spun, nerves raw and biting under his skin. Sherlock’s shirt crumpled in his fist as he pulled him close and swung; the sharp pain of his knuckles connecting against Sherlock’s cheek traveled up his arm, shocking both John and Sherlock at the anger behind it. Under the force of John’s fist, Sherlock staggered back, arms flailing and grabbing hold of John to pull him down with him. Sherlock let out a huff as John smacked into him, the two of them a tangle of fumbling and struggling limbs coming to rest on the bed.
John sat up, straddling Sherlock, and held on tightly to the collar of Sherlock’s shirt. The fabric stretched in his grip as he shook him. “No, you don’t get to talk right now. It’s my turn. Do you understand that? You don’t get to make excuses. I know. I know everything. And it doesn’t make it okay. None of it. Two years, you fucking wanker. Two fucking years of me feeling like I had failed my best friend and here you are like it was nothing. You selfish prick, did you even once think about me? Was I that much of a burden to you?” Sherlock’s face contorted, mouth open and ready to reply. John ignored him, giving his rage and hurt free rein. “Shut up. Just shut up. You ran off like it was nothing. Didn’t I prove myself? Did I mean so little to you?”
Sherlock’s head thumped against the mattress as John shook him, though he made no sound of protest at the treatment. Through his rage, John could feel tears threatening to gather in the corners of his eyes. He let go of Sherlock and swiped at his eyes, feeling the fight seep out of him to leave him bone tired and weary.
“The worst part--the absolutely worst part of it is that I am so bloody grateful that you are alive, I am not even sure if I care about the rest.” He pressed his fingers against his eyes until he saw stars outlined against the inside of his eyelids and counted in his head, each breath shaky and waterlogged.
“John?”
He opened his eyes. Sherlock was studying him, trying to gauge if it was safe to speak; he propped himself up on his elbows when John gave him a sharp nod. A livid bruise was already starting to blossom across his cheekbone and John felt its twin throb across his knuckles. His shirt was ruined, the collar stretched and torn, revealing a swatch of pale skin and the glint of metal. With shaking hands, John tugged the shirt out of the way, pulling at the chain. His ID tag felt hot against his palm, warmed by being pressed against Sherlock’s chest this entire time. He closed his fist around it and sagged until his forehead came to rest against Sherlock’s.
In the silence, they breathed, soaking up each other’s presence. Sherlock settled back down on the bed and pulled John with him, shifting and tugging until John was tucked up under his chin. “I am sorry.”
John nodded against his skin. “Yeah. I know. Doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you.”
Sherlock tensed. Unable to move away, he dropped his hands from where they rested against John’s back, giving him ample room to draw back.
John sat up until his face hovered over Sherlock’s. He licked his lips and then pressed them against Sherlock’s cheek, his nose, his mouth. Sherlock hummed and gripped John’s nape, smashing their mouths together, a furious mash of teeth and slick and heat wrapped in homecoming.
John pulled back. “I don’t forgive you. Come home anyway.”