Letters, Resolved (1/14)
Oct. 27th, 2013 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Title - Letters, Resolved (1/14)
Author -
earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters - Sherlock, John
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - The letters have been written, read, and discussed. But that doesn't mean anything's been resolved. Yet.
Author's Note - Here it is! Finally! I hope it is worth the long protracted wait for it and all the teasing I've been doing about it! :-)
This fic is part of the Lettersvese and picks up right where the last part left off. You should read those first for this to make sense. The first one is here.
Thank you to
arctacuda for the beta and
flawedamythyst for the Britpick.
Chapter One
The cabin was devoid of books or television. Or, at least, the living room was. What had Sherlock been doing with all of his time? Well, going slowly insane was, John supposed, the answer to that. And John was following him there, prowling over every inch of the cabin in search of something to do. Everything behind the bedroom door was eerily silent, and John resisted the tempting suspicion that Sherlock had climbed out the bedroom window to escape. Instead, John tried to force himself to remain calm and focus on keeping the fire going so the cabin wouldn’t get unbearably cold and on trying not to think about how hungry he was. He munched on another protein bar and considered that, if Sherlock didn’t agree to leave quickly, they were going to be in real trouble food-wise. John wished he’d stopped to pick up more supplies when he’d realized how close he was to Sherlock, but he’d been so eager to get there, to see him. Plus he had not expected Sherlock to be in such dire shape that he wouldn’t even have a decent amount of something edible in the cabin. John made himself a cup of tea and told himself to think about something else. But the only subject his brain was the least bit interested in was the subject of Sherlock, and John could not stop it from returning inexorably to the topic. He’d hurt Sherlock. He’d devastated Sherlock. Unknowingly. Unthinkingly. He’d caused far more damage than he’d realized, and he had no idea how he was going to fix it. He had no idea if Sherlock was even going to give him the chance.
And how different this was than how John had thought it would go. He thought he’d find Sherlock and be the one accepting apologies. Lovingly, of course, because any fury had long since transformed itself into relief, but still, he had thought it would be Sherlock worrying about fixing things, not the other way around.
And how had he never thought of what a mess he would find Sherlock in? He had known from the letters that Sherlock was a mess, but somehow he had been unable to imagine it. He had thought that Sherlock would snap back into himself upon seeing him, arrogant and untouchable and prickly. Maybe Sherlock hadn’t died on the pavement that day, but the hard outer shell of him had shattered. He was a bundle of aching, exposed vulnerabilities that John had, wrongly, spent precious little time worrying over before when clearly he should have been. He was never going to forgive himself for not worrying more about Sherlock, or about the things about Sherlock he should have been worrying about, not just about whether he ate or slept or was thinking about taking drugs but whether his heart was breaking over him. It had never occurred to John to worry about that.
The sound of the bedroom door opening in the quiet room was so deafeningly loud that John jumped. He looked away from the crackle of the flames in the fireplace.
Sherlock stood in the doorway, still dressed in the suit he’d put on that morning, which felt like it had been a lifetime ago. It had been dark for hours, but the darkness in Siberia in winter came early, so John had no idea what time it really was. He had forced himself to hide his watch in his pack because he’d been looking at it every minute, and that had not been helpful.
Behind Sherlock the bedroom was dark, and John hadn’t bothered to turn on lights in the living room, so the only light was from the fire, and it obscured more than it showed.
“You’re still here,” said Sherlock. His tone was blank, unreadable.
“Of course,” responded John. “I told you: I’m not leaving.”
“And there’s the obvious fact that we’re snowed in.”
“I thought maybe you would leave,” said John.
“We’re snowed in,” said Sherlock, again, and John winced.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked, hating how much he thought he knew the answer.
Sherlock moved into the room, not looking at John. He sat carefully beside John on the sofa, not touching him, and looked thoughtfully into the fire. He was holding John’s letter, John noted. Clutching it, really. It was wrinkled where his fist was clenched around it. John looked from the letter to Sherlock’s profile but could discern nothing.
Sherlock licked his lips and swallowed and said, so softly that John had to tip his head to catch it, “No.”
John took a moment to absorb that. It was something, he thought. It was a start. “Okay,” he said slowly, thinking hard. “Good. I’m glad.” He fell silent, and Sherlock’s gaze remained fixed on the fire, and when John decided Sherlock wasn’t going to say anything else, he ventured, cautiously, “Listen. We need food…”
“I can’t go back to London,” interjected Sherlock firmly, much more steadily than he had told John not to go.
John’s mind balked a little at that. He wanted to ask, What, ever? And then in the same heartbeat realized he didn’t care. If Sherlock could never manage to go back home again then John would stay here in Siberia with him for the rest of their lives. It would be so much better than ever going back to London without him. He said, soothingly, “Okay. That’s fine. We’ll stay here. As long as you want. But I’ll need to go out and get us food.”
Sherlock took a deep, shaky breath. “I missed your terrible cooking.”
John wanted to weep with relief over the wonderfulness of that insult. He forced himself to try to behave normally. “My cooking isn’t terrible.”
“I missed the way you always burn roast chicken you try to make it.”
“Roast chicken is tricky,” John defended himself automatically, closing his eyes because he could hear that his tone was swamped with the weight of how much he’d missed these conversations.
“It isn’t, really,” replied Sherlock, and his voice sounded as heavy with tears as John’s had. “It’s science, John.”
John cleared his throat and opened his eyes and was relieved when his next sentence was much lighter. “Is this your way of requesting I roast a chicken for us tomorrow?”
Sherlock looked at him, and John hadn’t expected it, and the force of all that attention nearly knocked him sideways. “I don’t want to stay here,” he said helplessly. “I can’t go back to London, and I don’t want to stay here, and—”
“All right,” said John, calmly, because he thought Sherlock needed calm steadiness desperately right now. Sherlock’s wildness had always forced John into evenness in reaction, and John fell easily back into the old habit. “We’ll go somewhere else, then. Can I make a suggestion for someplace warm?” John thought of Afghanistan and hastily added, “Tropical? The Caribbean?”
He heard Sherlock exhale slowly, eyes still sharp on him. “A holiday?” He sounded skeptical.
“Call it what you like,” replied John, “but Christ knows we both need a holiday.”
Sherlock was silent for a moment, and then he nodded. When he spoke again his tone was brisk, and he sounded much more like his old self. “Were you followed here?”
John shook his head. “I was careful.”
“But Mycroft is thorough. He’ll have noticed you left the country.”
“He knew I was coming after you. I let him follow me to Argentina. Then I picked up a fake identity.”
“Where?” asked Sherlock, sounding curious that John had even thought to do such a thing.
“From the same bloke who gave you yours. Charming fellow,” drawled John, sarcastically, because the wanker had pulled a knife on John immediately upon seeing him and it had only been a great deal of money that had changed his mind about that.
Sherlock rolled his eyes in disgust, and John felt like they’d achieved much more normality between them in the span of a few sentences than he would ever have guessed. “If he told you, he’ll tell Mycroft’s men, and neither of us is safe. We should get new identities.”
Not wanting to upset Sherlock now that he finally seemed more like himself, John considered before saying, “Fine. If you want, we’ll do that. But can I ask: What’s the harm in telling Mycroft you’re okay? He’s worried about you.”
Sherlock snorted. “No, he’s not.”
“You’re his brother. Of course he is.”
“He seemed worried to you, did he?”
“Yes. Not in the way normal people would be worried, but, you know, neither of you is especially normal in how you express—” John cut himself off, thinking maybe they shouldn’t get back into the minefield of Sherlock’s emotions. “Anyway, he wasn’t worried, he was sad. He thought you were dead.”
“He was supposed to.”
“Well. Well done, I guess.”
Sherlock regarded him for a moment. “But you didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Didn’t think I was dead.”
John looked evenly back. “I thought that once before. Turns out it was a huge mistake. I try not to make the same mistake twice.”
“I can’t deal with Mycroft,” said Sherlock, after a moment.
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t bother us,” John promised.
Sherlock looked at him, and the air was suddenly thick with tension, and John realized abruptly everything that was hanging in the balance.
“Do you trust me?” he asked, terrified of the answer.
Sherlock looked at him for a few more silent moments. And then he said, “Yes. Okay. Yes.” And then he stood up and went into the bedroom.
John hesitated, and then pulled out his mobile and turned it on. It picked up a weak signal and downloaded an obscene number of texts and voicemails. John ignored all of them, crafting a single text to Mycroft. Sherlock is okay. He needs some time. If you bother us, I will post every state secret I know to the blog. John waited until it sent, then turned his mobile back off. He looked toward the bedroom. The door was open, which John took as an invitation. Or, at least, not a barrier.
He stood and slowly walked over to the doorway, wanting to make sure Sherlock heard him. Sherlock had turned a lamp on and was sitting up in bed, fingers steepled to his lips. John wanted to know what he was thinking about.
Sherlock looked over at him, his eyebrows raised expectantly.
“How much pain are you in?” John asked.
“A curious question coming from the person who destroyed all of my pain medication,” remarked Sherlock, sarcastically.
“Of course I kept some. I’m not heartless. There was just no need for you to have an entire pharmacy.”
Sherlock was silent for a beat. Then he said, “I’m fine. But I think I would feel much better if I had a cigarette.”
“Outside,” said John, mildly.
“Hmph,” responded Sherlock and went back to his thinking.
It was so normal—so normal—that John wondered if he was dreaming. Or if he’d dreamed the six months before this. And he didn’t want it, necessarily, to be that normal, to go back to exactly the way it had been. He had spent six months wishing that he’d let Sherlock know how he’d felt about him. And Sherlock had apparently spent the whole of their acquaintance regretting his inability to express how he felt. John was loath to let them fall back into their old patterns, to ignore all the lessons they’d learned.
John walked into the room, leaned over the bed, and smoothed a hand over Sherlock’s head before pressing a kiss into Sherlock’s thicket of overgrown hair. He felt Sherlock hold his breath in surprised reaction to this, and John left his lips pressed against Sherlock and closed his eyes and thanked the same God, if He existed, who had let him live in Afghanistan, for the miracle of this second chance with Sherlock. He promised that God not to waste it the way he’d wasted it the first time around.
“I love you,” said John, before he straightened and left the room. He could sense Sherlock’s stunned astonishment behind him, and John thought that was fine. Sherlock might not say it back to him yet, but eventually they would get there. Eventually Sherlock would believe him. Eventually they would both take the momentousness of those words for granted, a statement as incontrovertible as the color of the sky.
John stretched out on the sofa, looked into the fire, and listened to the quiet sounds of Sherlock thinking in the other room. He eventually fell asleep with a smile on his face.
***
Sherlock let John choose the destination. John chose Anguilla because it was the first one alphabetically and John didn’t want to think much harder than that. Sherlock went along willingly but was tense for the course of the entire journey. They used their fake passports upon Sherlock’s insistence, and Sherlock’s jumpiness made John think that he was happy Mycroft was probably tracking them. Sherlock had said he was going after Moriarty’s network, and certainly Sherlock had been nearly killed by them in Argentina; John had no desire to face them. Well, not true. He’d gladly beat up whoever had put a hand on and a bullet in Sherlock, but not while he was trying to keep Sherlock calm.
John rented them a car. Sherlock, uncharacteristically, was disinclined to drive and ceded the keys to John. John drove and drove and drove, as far as the island would let him, and Sherlock stayed silent, gaze never leaving the flatness of the island going past the car windows.
John parked the car in the parking lot of the hotel he’d booked them and was pleased when it was as isolated as it had promised online. Sherlock looked about them with keen curiosity, following John inside, and John was relieved that he seemed interested in the place. John gave his fake name and a fake credit card and was given the key to the two-bedroom villa he’d rented. Sherlock followed him out over the grounds of the hotel, walking past clusters of villas until finally there was only one left, isolated, perched at the edge of the long white-sand beach. It was a lovely little place, with to-die-for views of the ocean under a dazzling blue sky, but what John thought Sherlock would appreciate was how exposed it was. Impossible to sneak up along that beach that provided no cover. There were no other people around, and they would spot anyone who tried to approach immediately.
Sherlock walked through all of the villa’s rooms. John let him, giving him space, pouring himself a glass of the welcome champagne that had been left chilling in the villa’s lounge area and stepping out onto the wraparound verandah. He perched on the railing and looked out over the ocean. The sun was shining, the temperature was perfect, a light breeze was blowing, and John felt optimistic.
Sherlock stepped onto the verandah and John turned to look at him. Without saying a word, Sherlock walked over and perched on the railing, back against the pole nearest John. He glanced up and down the beach. There were a few guests sunbathing, but they were a fair distance away. Sherlock seemed to dismiss them, turning back to John, and then he visibly relaxed, uncoiling in front of John’s eyes. He smiled, a genuine smile, not one haunted with fear or regret or sorrow, and John thought it was the first one of those he’d seen so far. He found himself smiling in return.
“You’re going to get all suntanned,” remarked Sherlock. “The way you were when we first met.”
“If I don’t accidentally burn myself to a crisp,” John replied good-naturedly.
“Your hair will get bleached by the sun again.” Sherlock sounded delighted at the prospect.
John wanted to ask how long Sherlock intended them to be staying there, but decided he didn’t care. There were worse places to be trapped than a little beach at the edge of a Caribbean island.
He said, lightly, “Maybe I’ll learn how to scuba dive. I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Of course you have. John Watson: adventurer. Had you been born in the fifteenth century, you would have sailed with Columbus.”
“Had you been born in the fifteenth century, you would have told me I was an idiot for going off in a boat to prove something you’d already proven with science.”
“But I would have had to know astronomy to prove that,” rejoined Sherlock.
John laughed. “I’m going to teach you astronomy, I’ve decided.”
“That is a very grand way of saying that you’re going to remind me that the Earth goes ’round the sun, a fact I have never forgotten since you chose to broadcast it to the rest of the population.”
“I’d teach you more than that.”
“I also know the order of the planets. And that there’s some debate about Pluto.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve had some time recently,” said Sherlock, eyes flickering toward the ocean. Then he cleared his throat and forced his gaze back to John and lightness back into his tone. “Anyway, with that we have exhausted your knowledge of astronomy.”
John shrugged and sipped his champagne. “Doesn’t mean we can’t still do some star-gazing.”
“You don’t know the constellations,” said Sherlock, smiling.
“I’m fairly confident of my ability to pick out Orion’s belt, I’ll have you know,” responded John, primly, enjoying the give-and-take of the conversation.
Sherlock leaned his head back against the pole and closed his eyes, basking in the sun. He looked dangerously content, and John thought, with a sort of sad dawning of realization, that it was possibly the first time he’d ever seen Sherlock look so content. “Well, I look forward to the lesson, then.”
John sipped his champagne and looked at the ocean for a moment, then back to Sherlock. He experimentally reached out with his foot, nudging at Sherlock’s leg.
“Mmm?” said Sherlock, not opening his eyes.
John had been pleased that Sherlock hadn’t flinched at the contact. “Don’t fall asleep like that.”
“I don’t just ‘fall asleep’ places, John,” protested Sherlock, sleepily.
“You’re full in the sun; you’ll get all sunburnt and blistered, especially with your complexion.”
“Ever the caretaker,” mumbled Sherlock.
“Of you? Yes. Always.” John nudged at his leg again. “I’m serious. If you’re going to nap, move to the shade.”
Sherlock opened his eyes and looked very gravely at John. “If I napped, what would you do?”
John held his gaze and said, truthfully, “I’d watch over you to make sure no one came anywhere near you.”
Sherlock did not react in any visible way, simply maintained the gaze calmly, and then eventually stood without a word. He walked into the villa, and John looked back out to the ocean and took another sip of his champagne.
“John.”
John turned his head and looked back at Sherlock, who had reappeared in the doorway to the verandah.
Sherlock hesitated, and then said, slowly, looking uncertain, “Thank you. This is…lovely.”
John waited until his throat opened enough for him to manage, “Of course.”
Sherlock nodded once and disappeared back into the villa.
***
Sherlock slept. John ordered them room service and, when Sherlock seemed inclined to sleep through supper, ate by himself on the verandah, keeping careful watch up and down the beach for anything suspicious. John thought that Sherlock probably desperately needed to sleep. He suspected Sherlock had not slept very well for the entire six months he’d been dead. And he knew Sherlock had not slept during the flight, had instead stayed awake, watchful and tense. John knew the abstract of what had been done to Sherlock; the way Sherlock behaved made John shy away from grasping it more concretely, for fear his heart would absolutely break.
When Sherlock finally came back out onto the verandah it was dark and John was frowning up at the stars, trying to pick out constellations.
“Hello,” he said, pleasantly, purposely trying to make sure that Sherlock did not feel self-conscious over his long nap.
Sherlock said nothing. He walked barefoot over to the verandah’s railing and leaned out over it, looking up and down the dark beach. In the far distance, from the direction of the hotel’s restaurant, came faint laughter.
Sherlock turned away from the railing, eyes going now to the remains of the room service tray.
“I’m afraid it’s cold now,” said John. “But there’s some salad there you could have. Or some chocolate cake?” John would settle for Sherlock eating anything at all.
Sherlock made a disinterested noise, but leaned over John and picked up the bottle of wine John had ordered with the meal.
“You didn’t open this,” said Sherlock.
“Seemed silly to sit and drink wine all by myself,” John replied.
Sherlock had taken the corkscrew. John watched him uncork the wine and pour out two glasses, taking one and handing the other one to John. John put a hand on Sherlock’s arm before he could raise the glass to his lips.
“We didn’t toast,” said John. “Bad luck to drink before toasting.”
“What do you want to toast to?” asked Sherlock.
“Happy endings,” John answered firmly.
Sherlock lifted his eyebrows in a brief flicker but merely tapped his glass against John’s and took a sip, looking back out in the direction of the ocean as it crashed gently and inexorably against the shore. He’d taken off his suit jacket, but he was still dressed in slim, dark trousers and a white shirt. John was sure the shirt was meant to be as perfectly tailored—as obscenely tailored—as Sherlock’s clothing normally was, but it hung on him instead of hugging him and John’s heart ached a bit.
“Sure you don’t want a bite to eat?” John tried wheedling again.
“Come and give me an astronomy lesson,” said Sherlock, and walked down the verandah steps to the beach.
John, surprised, stood and followed him. Sherlock settled on his back in the sand, his glass of wine propped at his head, and John winced at the state of his clothing.
“You’re going to ruin that shirt,” John remarked.
“There have been keener tragedies, John,” rejoined Sherlock calmly.
John shrugged, thought What the hell? and settled on his back on the sand next to Sherlock, their heads nearly touching. The stars overhead were a crowded carpet, not at all like the sky in London, almost terrifying in their uncountable number. John thought of Sherlock’s letter about Afghanistan, of Sherlock studying a foreign desert sky. John suddenly wanted to crowd that lonely memory out of Sherlock’s head, wanted to make sure that Sherlock only thought good things when he looked at the sky overhead.
“Orion’s belt,” said John, and pointed. “Those three stars, there.”
Sherlock shifted even closer to him and frowned in the direction John was pointing. “Why are they Orion’s belt?”
“Well. They just are. The rest of Orion is somewhere up there.” Sherlock was right; they had already exhausted John’s knowledge of the constellations.
“Who was Orion?” asked Sherlock.
“I don’t know, actually. A hunter, I think. It’s a Greek myth.”
Sherlock was silent next to him for a long time, before saying, finally, “They looked up at all of this and they made up stories.”
“Who did?”
“The ancient Greeks. A hunter in the sky. They didn’t understand it, so they made up a story about a hunter in the sky. And they told everyone, ‘There is his belt.’ And it makes absolutely no sense but now, millennia later, you’re still talking about Orion and his belt. Everything we’ve learned about the stars, all of the truth that we know now, and yet there is still the story about the hunter in the sky.”
John sensed that Sherlock wasn’t talking about constellations or Greek myths at all, but he didn’t want to press the matter unless Sherlock was ready to discuss it. So John stayed silent and the ocean crashed against the shore and Orion’s belt shone overhead, the way it had done for millennia.
“Tell me another constellation,” Sherlock said, eventually.
“That’s it. All I know.”
Sherlock laughed. “You should put that in your blog. Make it even-handed.”
“Oh, you don’t think my blog is even-handed?”
“Do I have to mention ‘spectacularly ignorant’ again?”
“That was one time, Sherlock.”
“‘Hyperactive, rude, arrogant, and a real pain in the behind,’” quoted Sherlock.
“If it upset you so much, you shouldn’t have memorized it,” pointed out John, exasperated.
“I need to know what misconceptions people might have before meeting me.”
“More like you need to know if they know how you really are so that scary fake charm act you have can’t work on them.”
“If it’s charming, it can’t also be scary.”
“No, that’s a special feat only you can manage.” There was a moment of silence. John ventured, carefully, “I’m sorry I didn’t update it. It was just that I had no idea what to say. What could I possibly say…?”
“Of course,” said Sherlock, brusquely. “No, it makes perfect sense.”
John thought he shouldn’t have said anything. He cursed himself silently, staring up at the stars.
Then Sherlock said, “It’s not the best photograph of you.”
John was confused. “Sorry?”
“The one on your blog. Not the best photograph of you.”
John didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing at all.
Next Chapter
Author -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Rating - Teen
Characters - Sherlock, John
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - The letters have been written, read, and discussed. But that doesn't mean anything's been resolved. Yet.
Author's Note - Here it is! Finally! I hope it is worth the long protracted wait for it and all the teasing I've been doing about it! :-)
This fic is part of the Lettersvese and picks up right where the last part left off. You should read those first for this to make sense. The first one is here.
Thank you to
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Chapter One
The cabin was devoid of books or television. Or, at least, the living room was. What had Sherlock been doing with all of his time? Well, going slowly insane was, John supposed, the answer to that. And John was following him there, prowling over every inch of the cabin in search of something to do. Everything behind the bedroom door was eerily silent, and John resisted the tempting suspicion that Sherlock had climbed out the bedroom window to escape. Instead, John tried to force himself to remain calm and focus on keeping the fire going so the cabin wouldn’t get unbearably cold and on trying not to think about how hungry he was. He munched on another protein bar and considered that, if Sherlock didn’t agree to leave quickly, they were going to be in real trouble food-wise. John wished he’d stopped to pick up more supplies when he’d realized how close he was to Sherlock, but he’d been so eager to get there, to see him. Plus he had not expected Sherlock to be in such dire shape that he wouldn’t even have a decent amount of something edible in the cabin. John made himself a cup of tea and told himself to think about something else. But the only subject his brain was the least bit interested in was the subject of Sherlock, and John could not stop it from returning inexorably to the topic. He’d hurt Sherlock. He’d devastated Sherlock. Unknowingly. Unthinkingly. He’d caused far more damage than he’d realized, and he had no idea how he was going to fix it. He had no idea if Sherlock was even going to give him the chance.
And how different this was than how John had thought it would go. He thought he’d find Sherlock and be the one accepting apologies. Lovingly, of course, because any fury had long since transformed itself into relief, but still, he had thought it would be Sherlock worrying about fixing things, not the other way around.
And how had he never thought of what a mess he would find Sherlock in? He had known from the letters that Sherlock was a mess, but somehow he had been unable to imagine it. He had thought that Sherlock would snap back into himself upon seeing him, arrogant and untouchable and prickly. Maybe Sherlock hadn’t died on the pavement that day, but the hard outer shell of him had shattered. He was a bundle of aching, exposed vulnerabilities that John had, wrongly, spent precious little time worrying over before when clearly he should have been. He was never going to forgive himself for not worrying more about Sherlock, or about the things about Sherlock he should have been worrying about, not just about whether he ate or slept or was thinking about taking drugs but whether his heart was breaking over him. It had never occurred to John to worry about that.
The sound of the bedroom door opening in the quiet room was so deafeningly loud that John jumped. He looked away from the crackle of the flames in the fireplace.
Sherlock stood in the doorway, still dressed in the suit he’d put on that morning, which felt like it had been a lifetime ago. It had been dark for hours, but the darkness in Siberia in winter came early, so John had no idea what time it really was. He had forced himself to hide his watch in his pack because he’d been looking at it every minute, and that had not been helpful.
Behind Sherlock the bedroom was dark, and John hadn’t bothered to turn on lights in the living room, so the only light was from the fire, and it obscured more than it showed.
“You’re still here,” said Sherlock. His tone was blank, unreadable.
“Of course,” responded John. “I told you: I’m not leaving.”
“And there’s the obvious fact that we’re snowed in.”
“I thought maybe you would leave,” said John.
“We’re snowed in,” said Sherlock, again, and John winced.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked, hating how much he thought he knew the answer.
Sherlock moved into the room, not looking at John. He sat carefully beside John on the sofa, not touching him, and looked thoughtfully into the fire. He was holding John’s letter, John noted. Clutching it, really. It was wrinkled where his fist was clenched around it. John looked from the letter to Sherlock’s profile but could discern nothing.
Sherlock licked his lips and swallowed and said, so softly that John had to tip his head to catch it, “No.”
John took a moment to absorb that. It was something, he thought. It was a start. “Okay,” he said slowly, thinking hard. “Good. I’m glad.” He fell silent, and Sherlock’s gaze remained fixed on the fire, and when John decided Sherlock wasn’t going to say anything else, he ventured, cautiously, “Listen. We need food…”
“I can’t go back to London,” interjected Sherlock firmly, much more steadily than he had told John not to go.
John’s mind balked a little at that. He wanted to ask, What, ever? And then in the same heartbeat realized he didn’t care. If Sherlock could never manage to go back home again then John would stay here in Siberia with him for the rest of their lives. It would be so much better than ever going back to London without him. He said, soothingly, “Okay. That’s fine. We’ll stay here. As long as you want. But I’ll need to go out and get us food.”
Sherlock took a deep, shaky breath. “I missed your terrible cooking.”
John wanted to weep with relief over the wonderfulness of that insult. He forced himself to try to behave normally. “My cooking isn’t terrible.”
“I missed the way you always burn roast chicken you try to make it.”
“Roast chicken is tricky,” John defended himself automatically, closing his eyes because he could hear that his tone was swamped with the weight of how much he’d missed these conversations.
“It isn’t, really,” replied Sherlock, and his voice sounded as heavy with tears as John’s had. “It’s science, John.”
John cleared his throat and opened his eyes and was relieved when his next sentence was much lighter. “Is this your way of requesting I roast a chicken for us tomorrow?”
Sherlock looked at him, and John hadn’t expected it, and the force of all that attention nearly knocked him sideways. “I don’t want to stay here,” he said helplessly. “I can’t go back to London, and I don’t want to stay here, and—”
“All right,” said John, calmly, because he thought Sherlock needed calm steadiness desperately right now. Sherlock’s wildness had always forced John into evenness in reaction, and John fell easily back into the old habit. “We’ll go somewhere else, then. Can I make a suggestion for someplace warm?” John thought of Afghanistan and hastily added, “Tropical? The Caribbean?”
He heard Sherlock exhale slowly, eyes still sharp on him. “A holiday?” He sounded skeptical.
“Call it what you like,” replied John, “but Christ knows we both need a holiday.”
Sherlock was silent for a moment, and then he nodded. When he spoke again his tone was brisk, and he sounded much more like his old self. “Were you followed here?”
John shook his head. “I was careful.”
“But Mycroft is thorough. He’ll have noticed you left the country.”
“He knew I was coming after you. I let him follow me to Argentina. Then I picked up a fake identity.”
“Where?” asked Sherlock, sounding curious that John had even thought to do such a thing.
“From the same bloke who gave you yours. Charming fellow,” drawled John, sarcastically, because the wanker had pulled a knife on John immediately upon seeing him and it had only been a great deal of money that had changed his mind about that.
Sherlock rolled his eyes in disgust, and John felt like they’d achieved much more normality between them in the span of a few sentences than he would ever have guessed. “If he told you, he’ll tell Mycroft’s men, and neither of us is safe. We should get new identities.”
Not wanting to upset Sherlock now that he finally seemed more like himself, John considered before saying, “Fine. If you want, we’ll do that. But can I ask: What’s the harm in telling Mycroft you’re okay? He’s worried about you.”
Sherlock snorted. “No, he’s not.”
“You’re his brother. Of course he is.”
“He seemed worried to you, did he?”
“Yes. Not in the way normal people would be worried, but, you know, neither of you is especially normal in how you express—” John cut himself off, thinking maybe they shouldn’t get back into the minefield of Sherlock’s emotions. “Anyway, he wasn’t worried, he was sad. He thought you were dead.”
“He was supposed to.”
“Well. Well done, I guess.”
Sherlock regarded him for a moment. “But you didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Didn’t think I was dead.”
John looked evenly back. “I thought that once before. Turns out it was a huge mistake. I try not to make the same mistake twice.”
“I can’t deal with Mycroft,” said Sherlock, after a moment.
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t bother us,” John promised.
Sherlock looked at him, and the air was suddenly thick with tension, and John realized abruptly everything that was hanging in the balance.
“Do you trust me?” he asked, terrified of the answer.
Sherlock looked at him for a few more silent moments. And then he said, “Yes. Okay. Yes.” And then he stood up and went into the bedroom.
John hesitated, and then pulled out his mobile and turned it on. It picked up a weak signal and downloaded an obscene number of texts and voicemails. John ignored all of them, crafting a single text to Mycroft. Sherlock is okay. He needs some time. If you bother us, I will post every state secret I know to the blog. John waited until it sent, then turned his mobile back off. He looked toward the bedroom. The door was open, which John took as an invitation. Or, at least, not a barrier.
He stood and slowly walked over to the doorway, wanting to make sure Sherlock heard him. Sherlock had turned a lamp on and was sitting up in bed, fingers steepled to his lips. John wanted to know what he was thinking about.
Sherlock looked over at him, his eyebrows raised expectantly.
“How much pain are you in?” John asked.
“A curious question coming from the person who destroyed all of my pain medication,” remarked Sherlock, sarcastically.
“Of course I kept some. I’m not heartless. There was just no need for you to have an entire pharmacy.”
Sherlock was silent for a beat. Then he said, “I’m fine. But I think I would feel much better if I had a cigarette.”
“Outside,” said John, mildly.
“Hmph,” responded Sherlock and went back to his thinking.
It was so normal—so normal—that John wondered if he was dreaming. Or if he’d dreamed the six months before this. And he didn’t want it, necessarily, to be that normal, to go back to exactly the way it had been. He had spent six months wishing that he’d let Sherlock know how he’d felt about him. And Sherlock had apparently spent the whole of their acquaintance regretting his inability to express how he felt. John was loath to let them fall back into their old patterns, to ignore all the lessons they’d learned.
John walked into the room, leaned over the bed, and smoothed a hand over Sherlock’s head before pressing a kiss into Sherlock’s thicket of overgrown hair. He felt Sherlock hold his breath in surprised reaction to this, and John left his lips pressed against Sherlock and closed his eyes and thanked the same God, if He existed, who had let him live in Afghanistan, for the miracle of this second chance with Sherlock. He promised that God not to waste it the way he’d wasted it the first time around.
“I love you,” said John, before he straightened and left the room. He could sense Sherlock’s stunned astonishment behind him, and John thought that was fine. Sherlock might not say it back to him yet, but eventually they would get there. Eventually Sherlock would believe him. Eventually they would both take the momentousness of those words for granted, a statement as incontrovertible as the color of the sky.
John stretched out on the sofa, looked into the fire, and listened to the quiet sounds of Sherlock thinking in the other room. He eventually fell asleep with a smile on his face.
***
Sherlock let John choose the destination. John chose Anguilla because it was the first one alphabetically and John didn’t want to think much harder than that. Sherlock went along willingly but was tense for the course of the entire journey. They used their fake passports upon Sherlock’s insistence, and Sherlock’s jumpiness made John think that he was happy Mycroft was probably tracking them. Sherlock had said he was going after Moriarty’s network, and certainly Sherlock had been nearly killed by them in Argentina; John had no desire to face them. Well, not true. He’d gladly beat up whoever had put a hand on and a bullet in Sherlock, but not while he was trying to keep Sherlock calm.
John rented them a car. Sherlock, uncharacteristically, was disinclined to drive and ceded the keys to John. John drove and drove and drove, as far as the island would let him, and Sherlock stayed silent, gaze never leaving the flatness of the island going past the car windows.
John parked the car in the parking lot of the hotel he’d booked them and was pleased when it was as isolated as it had promised online. Sherlock looked about them with keen curiosity, following John inside, and John was relieved that he seemed interested in the place. John gave his fake name and a fake credit card and was given the key to the two-bedroom villa he’d rented. Sherlock followed him out over the grounds of the hotel, walking past clusters of villas until finally there was only one left, isolated, perched at the edge of the long white-sand beach. It was a lovely little place, with to-die-for views of the ocean under a dazzling blue sky, but what John thought Sherlock would appreciate was how exposed it was. Impossible to sneak up along that beach that provided no cover. There were no other people around, and they would spot anyone who tried to approach immediately.
Sherlock walked through all of the villa’s rooms. John let him, giving him space, pouring himself a glass of the welcome champagne that had been left chilling in the villa’s lounge area and stepping out onto the wraparound verandah. He perched on the railing and looked out over the ocean. The sun was shining, the temperature was perfect, a light breeze was blowing, and John felt optimistic.
Sherlock stepped onto the verandah and John turned to look at him. Without saying a word, Sherlock walked over and perched on the railing, back against the pole nearest John. He glanced up and down the beach. There were a few guests sunbathing, but they were a fair distance away. Sherlock seemed to dismiss them, turning back to John, and then he visibly relaxed, uncoiling in front of John’s eyes. He smiled, a genuine smile, not one haunted with fear or regret or sorrow, and John thought it was the first one of those he’d seen so far. He found himself smiling in return.
“You’re going to get all suntanned,” remarked Sherlock. “The way you were when we first met.”
“If I don’t accidentally burn myself to a crisp,” John replied good-naturedly.
“Your hair will get bleached by the sun again.” Sherlock sounded delighted at the prospect.
John wanted to ask how long Sherlock intended them to be staying there, but decided he didn’t care. There were worse places to be trapped than a little beach at the edge of a Caribbean island.
He said, lightly, “Maybe I’ll learn how to scuba dive. I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Of course you have. John Watson: adventurer. Had you been born in the fifteenth century, you would have sailed with Columbus.”
“Had you been born in the fifteenth century, you would have told me I was an idiot for going off in a boat to prove something you’d already proven with science.”
“But I would have had to know astronomy to prove that,” rejoined Sherlock.
John laughed. “I’m going to teach you astronomy, I’ve decided.”
“That is a very grand way of saying that you’re going to remind me that the Earth goes ’round the sun, a fact I have never forgotten since you chose to broadcast it to the rest of the population.”
“I’d teach you more than that.”
“I also know the order of the planets. And that there’s some debate about Pluto.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve had some time recently,” said Sherlock, eyes flickering toward the ocean. Then he cleared his throat and forced his gaze back to John and lightness back into his tone. “Anyway, with that we have exhausted your knowledge of astronomy.”
John shrugged and sipped his champagne. “Doesn’t mean we can’t still do some star-gazing.”
“You don’t know the constellations,” said Sherlock, smiling.
“I’m fairly confident of my ability to pick out Orion’s belt, I’ll have you know,” responded John, primly, enjoying the give-and-take of the conversation.
Sherlock leaned his head back against the pole and closed his eyes, basking in the sun. He looked dangerously content, and John thought, with a sort of sad dawning of realization, that it was possibly the first time he’d ever seen Sherlock look so content. “Well, I look forward to the lesson, then.”
John sipped his champagne and looked at the ocean for a moment, then back to Sherlock. He experimentally reached out with his foot, nudging at Sherlock’s leg.
“Mmm?” said Sherlock, not opening his eyes.
John had been pleased that Sherlock hadn’t flinched at the contact. “Don’t fall asleep like that.”
“I don’t just ‘fall asleep’ places, John,” protested Sherlock, sleepily.
“You’re full in the sun; you’ll get all sunburnt and blistered, especially with your complexion.”
“Ever the caretaker,” mumbled Sherlock.
“Of you? Yes. Always.” John nudged at his leg again. “I’m serious. If you’re going to nap, move to the shade.”
Sherlock opened his eyes and looked very gravely at John. “If I napped, what would you do?”
John held his gaze and said, truthfully, “I’d watch over you to make sure no one came anywhere near you.”
Sherlock did not react in any visible way, simply maintained the gaze calmly, and then eventually stood without a word. He walked into the villa, and John looked back out to the ocean and took another sip of his champagne.
“John.”
John turned his head and looked back at Sherlock, who had reappeared in the doorway to the verandah.
Sherlock hesitated, and then said, slowly, looking uncertain, “Thank you. This is…lovely.”
John waited until his throat opened enough for him to manage, “Of course.”
Sherlock nodded once and disappeared back into the villa.
***
Sherlock slept. John ordered them room service and, when Sherlock seemed inclined to sleep through supper, ate by himself on the verandah, keeping careful watch up and down the beach for anything suspicious. John thought that Sherlock probably desperately needed to sleep. He suspected Sherlock had not slept very well for the entire six months he’d been dead. And he knew Sherlock had not slept during the flight, had instead stayed awake, watchful and tense. John knew the abstract of what had been done to Sherlock; the way Sherlock behaved made John shy away from grasping it more concretely, for fear his heart would absolutely break.
When Sherlock finally came back out onto the verandah it was dark and John was frowning up at the stars, trying to pick out constellations.
“Hello,” he said, pleasantly, purposely trying to make sure that Sherlock did not feel self-conscious over his long nap.
Sherlock said nothing. He walked barefoot over to the verandah’s railing and leaned out over it, looking up and down the dark beach. In the far distance, from the direction of the hotel’s restaurant, came faint laughter.
Sherlock turned away from the railing, eyes going now to the remains of the room service tray.
“I’m afraid it’s cold now,” said John. “But there’s some salad there you could have. Or some chocolate cake?” John would settle for Sherlock eating anything at all.
Sherlock made a disinterested noise, but leaned over John and picked up the bottle of wine John had ordered with the meal.
“You didn’t open this,” said Sherlock.
“Seemed silly to sit and drink wine all by myself,” John replied.
Sherlock had taken the corkscrew. John watched him uncork the wine and pour out two glasses, taking one and handing the other one to John. John put a hand on Sherlock’s arm before he could raise the glass to his lips.
“We didn’t toast,” said John. “Bad luck to drink before toasting.”
“What do you want to toast to?” asked Sherlock.
“Happy endings,” John answered firmly.
Sherlock lifted his eyebrows in a brief flicker but merely tapped his glass against John’s and took a sip, looking back out in the direction of the ocean as it crashed gently and inexorably against the shore. He’d taken off his suit jacket, but he was still dressed in slim, dark trousers and a white shirt. John was sure the shirt was meant to be as perfectly tailored—as obscenely tailored—as Sherlock’s clothing normally was, but it hung on him instead of hugging him and John’s heart ached a bit.
“Sure you don’t want a bite to eat?” John tried wheedling again.
“Come and give me an astronomy lesson,” said Sherlock, and walked down the verandah steps to the beach.
John, surprised, stood and followed him. Sherlock settled on his back in the sand, his glass of wine propped at his head, and John winced at the state of his clothing.
“You’re going to ruin that shirt,” John remarked.
“There have been keener tragedies, John,” rejoined Sherlock calmly.
John shrugged, thought What the hell? and settled on his back on the sand next to Sherlock, their heads nearly touching. The stars overhead were a crowded carpet, not at all like the sky in London, almost terrifying in their uncountable number. John thought of Sherlock’s letter about Afghanistan, of Sherlock studying a foreign desert sky. John suddenly wanted to crowd that lonely memory out of Sherlock’s head, wanted to make sure that Sherlock only thought good things when he looked at the sky overhead.
“Orion’s belt,” said John, and pointed. “Those three stars, there.”
Sherlock shifted even closer to him and frowned in the direction John was pointing. “Why are they Orion’s belt?”
“Well. They just are. The rest of Orion is somewhere up there.” Sherlock was right; they had already exhausted John’s knowledge of the constellations.
“Who was Orion?” asked Sherlock.
“I don’t know, actually. A hunter, I think. It’s a Greek myth.”
Sherlock was silent next to him for a long time, before saying, finally, “They looked up at all of this and they made up stories.”
“Who did?”
“The ancient Greeks. A hunter in the sky. They didn’t understand it, so they made up a story about a hunter in the sky. And they told everyone, ‘There is his belt.’ And it makes absolutely no sense but now, millennia later, you’re still talking about Orion and his belt. Everything we’ve learned about the stars, all of the truth that we know now, and yet there is still the story about the hunter in the sky.”
John sensed that Sherlock wasn’t talking about constellations or Greek myths at all, but he didn’t want to press the matter unless Sherlock was ready to discuss it. So John stayed silent and the ocean crashed against the shore and Orion’s belt shone overhead, the way it had done for millennia.
“Tell me another constellation,” Sherlock said, eventually.
“That’s it. All I know.”
Sherlock laughed. “You should put that in your blog. Make it even-handed.”
“Oh, you don’t think my blog is even-handed?”
“Do I have to mention ‘spectacularly ignorant’ again?”
“That was one time, Sherlock.”
“‘Hyperactive, rude, arrogant, and a real pain in the behind,’” quoted Sherlock.
“If it upset you so much, you shouldn’t have memorized it,” pointed out John, exasperated.
“I need to know what misconceptions people might have before meeting me.”
“More like you need to know if they know how you really are so that scary fake charm act you have can’t work on them.”
“If it’s charming, it can’t also be scary.”
“No, that’s a special feat only you can manage.” There was a moment of silence. John ventured, carefully, “I’m sorry I didn’t update it. It was just that I had no idea what to say. What could I possibly say…?”
“Of course,” said Sherlock, brusquely. “No, it makes perfect sense.”
John thought he shouldn’t have said anything. He cursed himself silently, staring up at the stars.
Then Sherlock said, “It’s not the best photograph of you.”
John was confused. “Sorry?”
“The one on your blog. Not the best photograph of you.”
John didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing at all.
Next Chapter
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Date: 2013-10-28 09:49 am (UTC)I am very pleased to see this posted. And even more pleased by the number of chapters :D
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Date: 2013-11-22 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-28 10:58 am (UTC)Oh I’m so glad you’ve continued this story – it’s the best thing seeing them back together! Perhaps not bickering on the previous scale, but doing their best!
”Eventually they would both take the momentousness of those words for granted, a statement as incontrovertible as the color of the sky.”
It’s lovely the way they’re both looking into the future, into the “when this is all over” time and, of course, seeing their future together.
”John stretched out on the sofa, looked into the fire, and listened to the quiet sounds of Sherlock thinking in the other room.”
That’s such a homely thought, it really made me sigh with happiness.
”Sherlock hesitated, and then said, slowly, looking uncertain, “Thank you. This is…lovely.””
Wow . . . Sherlock’s definitely learning some social graces, after all.
”John didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing at all.”
I agree, that sort of peace and contentment I shard to come by.
This is a wonderful start; very much looking forward to more.
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Date: 2013-11-22 04:19 am (UTC)It's important for both of them to not think this is the end. To think, instead, that this is just a speed bump along their route.
I think Sherlock recognizes that John means a lot to him, has always meant a lot to him, and maybe he never quite made that clear, and maybe he needs to start.
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Date: 2013-10-28 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-10-28 02:26 pm (UTC)Lovely to see that you're continuing this, yay!
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Date: 2013-10-29 01:20 am (UTC)I've just re-read John's letter to get back into the swings of things. I've already told you that but this letter is a thing of beauty.
He had no idea if Sherlock was even going to give him the chance.
Of course he is. You write the story and you love happy endings. ;-)
Maybe Sherlock hadn’t died on the pavement that day, but the hard outer shell of him had shattered
What a terrific image, so poetical but so true, in a way.
It had never occurred to John to worry about that.
Poor John, who already worried about so many things and who now feels bad about something he couldn't know.
the only light was from the fire, and it obscured more than it showed.
Also it sets a romantic atmosphere. Good! :D
If Sherlock could never manage to go back home again then John would stay here in Siberia with him for the rest of their lives.
It will be another AU for you: wolf-hunter!Sherlock and John. Not seals hunters because seals are cute. Or maybe they could look for the woolly mammoth you talked about in another of your fics. :D Sherlock will engrave "221B" on the door of the cabin and there will be the skull of a moose on the mantelpiece.
“We’ll go somewhere else, then. Can I make a suggestion for someplace warm?” John thought of Afghanistan and hastily added, “Tropical? The Caribbean?”
The South of France? (She says without absolutely no ulterior motive.)
If you bother us, I will post every state secret I know to the blog.
Oh, John tries his hand at blackmail. How shocking. *lies*
He promised that God not to waste it the way he’d wasted it the first time around.
Translation: saucy times on the horizon. You can't change you mind, YOU PROMISED TO GOD. :D
John chose Anguilla because it was the first one alphabetically and John didn’t want to think much harder than that.
And Angola didn't seem a particularly brilliant idea.
John gave his fake name and a fake credit card and was given the key to the two-bedroom villa he’d rented.
But they won't be needing two bedrooms. ;-)
Had you been born in the fifteenth century, you would have sailed with Columbus.
And he'd have discovered America and invented baseball.
Sherlock opened his eyes and looked very gravely at John. “If I napped, what would you do?”
John held his gaze and said, truthfully, “I’d watch over you to make sure no one came anywhere near you.”
Aww. These lines say so much about their new relationship, about trust and devotion.
“You’re going to ruin that shirt,” John remarked.
“There have been keener tragedies, John,” rejoined Sherlock calmly.
Yes, but only because it's not the purple one. That would be a tragedy.
“The one on your blog. Not the best photograph of you.”
You make us guess that Sherlock spent a long time looking at this photo while he was "dead". So much longing behind these simple words.
Great first chapter! I'm so glad you wrote more for this verse, and such a long sequel on the top of that. I can't wait to see how the relationship will evolve. Sherlock seems so fragile and unsure now, but John can be strong for two. It's definitely worth the long wait, oh yes! :D
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Date: 2013-11-22 05:05 am (UTC)I envision Sherlock as being always hidden behind his armor, and his armor's cracked here, and he can't get his defenses up, and it's terrifying him, poor thing.
John is a habitual worrier, you're right, he will always worry that he's not worrying enough!
Oh, dear God, the Siberia AU...!
Ha! They've already been to the South of France!
Don't push John Watson. He can be scary!
Ha! Yeah, they avoided Angola.
Hee! Invented baseball! Yes!
Sherlock saves the purple shirt for only special occasions.
And yes, Sherlock spent a ton of time staring at that photo of John. It was all he had left, really.
I hope you enjoy the rest of the sequel!
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