French Riviera, 1854
A letter had come—there had been a death in Venice, one quite curious and rather auspicious.
It wasn't much trouble to make the journey; they had been living in the southeast of France, holed away in a tiny and utterly inconspicuous town on the Riviera. Their nights were spent wandering the citrus groves, the beaches; their shadows passed through the sloping tiers of buildings, pale and stuccoed sorbets of melon and orange, perched together on the port before the wide, dark sea as it sparkled under the moonlight, the palms waving in the breeze.
They had been ghosts in Norway, and they were ghosts now, although of an entirely different kind. They would wake together in their tiny rooms as the sun fell through the sky, staring at each other silently as they worked at their bond, passing over it the way a jeweler holds a rare and particular brilliant, making sure to catch the light at every angle, detangling each snag and knot slowly; then they would wash and dress one by one, watching each other by the light of the oil lamp. When night was a certainty, dimmed behind the thick curtains, they would go out.
The streets were often more empty than not, the bells of the basilica signalling the dinner hour. They were ghosts, ghosts because their world was one apart, separated by an inaccessible chasm and unavoidable fact. Perhaps that was their problem, that they had always been ghosts, and had never admitted it, never talked about it, never said a word. Those who weren't could never know, would never believe them, and those who were, were never seen in the daytime. No—ghosts, ghouls, monsters—they were creatures of the night, a tale told to children to get them to stay in their beds. Their kind was realer; more than a shadow on the wall.
Word spread quickly around town about the foreign visitors, and although no one quite seemed to trust them, they were left to their own desires; once Sherlock had managed to solve the rather simple crime of a trussed-up goose and a missing gemstone, their reception was much warmer. Some evenings he would rise early and open their salon to whatever wayward visitor or potential patron might ring, and John would come later, prepare the tea service, and sit quietly as he watched Sherlock work, peeling apart the lowly, sundry drama of pastoral life.
As a mediator between the villagers and the pedestal they had placed his husband on, John was quick to recognize the early signs of his mate in crisis; the furious research, the mania of a case, followed by the long, still silences, the frustration of unfulfillment, so obvious now that he'd seen the worst of it in Norway.
After the newest affairs were parsed out and the latest misplaced jewelry found, he could tell Sherlock was one missing-wife-run-off-with-the-maid case away from tearing his eyes out just to have something interesting happen, for neither aristocrat nor charwoman offered anything to appease his attention, and when he watched Sherlock take audience after audience in their cramped little salon with the heavy curtains drawn, John was rather reminded of a large cat lying supine in the sun, trading an active mind for comfort, feeding from morsels and growing fat under their deficient succor.
Upon the letter's arrival, they needed no prompting to pack up their things and find the first night coach available.
The journey up the coast took the better part of the day, and the two, hemmed into the darkness and the rocking, said little, more comfortable in silence than small talk. Sherlock sat opposite, an intense look of concentration settling over his face as he stared at his mate. John ignored him, slowly flipping through his book until he couldn't stand the feeling any longer; an irritating feeling, like a new bruise being poked at.
"Stop it."
"I believe it was you who told me it was good to practice." His husband muttered.
John frowned. "There's a difference between practicing out of necessity and practicing out of boredom."
Silence—then a feeling along the back of his neck, like hairs rising; a hand gliding over feathers, brushing the quills against their grain.
He shut his book, choosing to ignore the grin on his mate's face.
"Sherlock."
"Please, no interruptions. I'm practicing."
The sensation warmed, a comfortable presence as it spread outwardly; the way it flexed, like a muscle stretching after rest, and then the way it felt, a caress and a reminder at once.
"Sherlock."
It faded at his tone, and he knew that no matter what his mate may claim, he was not immune to holding the feelings of others to consideration.
But they both recognized that it was more than that, more than a minor irritant, more than just something to pass the time while traveling.
"Thank you." He said quietly, returning to his book. Sherlock turned his head and stared out the window.
"He can't go backwards. You'll never have him back the way you did before…"
The ocean was beautiful in the distance, sparkling in and out in magnificent shades of blue, and John still wouldn't let him touch him, hadn't allowed him to since just after Shanghai, nearly fifteen bloody years ago, and even that had been a half-hearted, quickly aborted attempt, one best left forgotten to time.
In a sense, he didn't mind; the bond was still untouched, as strong as it ever was, and that was what was important. John still maintained it, kept it open. John wanted it—that was what mattered. He could operate off thousands of memories of them together, bare fingers, bare hands, the heightened sensitivity, the breath that wasn't breath.
And yet…John wouldn't allow it. He knew it was because of the great transgression, the Norway fiasco, when he had reacted without thinking, imagining John, wanting her to be John, John, who had stopped talking to him, who had nothing of himself that he wanted to share anymore, who had turned away and let their bond trickle to next to nothing, leaving him no choice but to seal it off in a dramatic, impulsive act of cauterization. It had been like being handcuffed to a brick wall; the words had stopped coming, and the praise, and the appreciation, no more smiles, no laughter, all the brightness washing out of the world – John had not been the only one to suffer. He had suffered too, in his own way.
This was their punishment then: a stalemate. John did not want to go forward. He wanted to withhold something he had complete control over, without ceding any ground. Sherlock understood, and had reacted in a way that many who knew him wouldn't have ever believed: he obeyed.
After John had found him in Shanghai, he had done what he had promised to do, and quit the poppy blood, the dark smoky dens, the hiding and the concealment in a life of shadow and guilt. They had wandered the continent, and he had tried. He had persisted in initiating contact, if only to see where the boundaries lay; he tried in tiny apartments, in appartements, forest dachas, in flat fields under the stars, and each time John had allowed it to progress, then suddenly stopped completely, each time more baffling than the next because Sherlock knew he wanted to continue. He was certain.
He didn't think it was intentional, but he also knew John was no fool lacking the finer points of introspection; John was aware of the issue. His gloves had stayed on for the better part of a decade—he knew, without a doubt.
Mostly, it hadn't mattered. It really hadn't. John had stayed, and his presence was something Sherlock would sacrifice many things for. Their relationship had needed far more attention elsewhere, and by the time his body had caught up to them, they already hadn't slept together in nearly a decade. If he was honest, he could pinpoint their last time together down to the hour, in that lonely manse in Norway, but it was an event he was rather ashamed of, ashamed of the way they had used each other, selfishly, without love.
He was happy enough with how things were, sex be damned. If it meant not snapping their tenuous peace, if it meant they might not go forward but they certainly weren't going backwards, then so be it.
He could wait.
Contrada dell'unione, Venice, Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia
The body had been found just past dawn. The Jewish quarter was on high alert—there had already been four before this, found on the outskirts in alleyways, rooftops, slumped against the sottoportegos. They feared they were the natural suspects; Spanish, Italian, Ashkenazi, Roman, it made no difference. The were the other, foreign, outsiders.
The scene had been partitioned on either end by members of the night watch. The guard was merely a precaution, for the surrounding canals and streets of the ghetto were empty. Citizens peered tentatively out from windows and balconies, hesitant to be the first the question eye of the city fell on.
Sherlock ignored them. Let them watch, or hide, it was no business of his, for he'd already had an idea of the true culprit since the first report, and they were no Jew nor Christian, nor even member of the human race.
Completely exsanguinated. Almost five litres of blood in all. They were young, then, or greedy, or both. Either way they were dangerous. The general populace of Venezia would dwindle, one by one, until none were left, that was to be sure. It had happened before, in little-missed miserable communes, in ruined mountain villas, in the lost colonies of the new continent, gone as soon as they were established.
John was speaking with the attending doctor, who had quickly thrown a cloak over his nightclothes after he was called from his bed. As the old man stooped to motion to the bloody, gaping hole where the man's throat had once been, indicating the direction of the slice that had led to his untimely demise, their eyes met. Their bond trilled with a faint, warbling tremor. For a moment, everything was as it had been: himself and John, hounds scenting blood in the air. He hungered then, for the night, for its secrets, the unknown quantities it was hiding from them.
The game was on.
Sherlock narrowed his eyes then stood, straightening up to scan the surrounding rooftops.
"Where is the nearest canal?"
A small crowd had clustered on one side of the Ponte delle Guglie, dark figures leaning over the railing. A triumphant shout sounded. and a call went out to raise the nets that filtered the sea green Lido waters.
There it was: the straight razor, the small bowl to funnel the blood, the stained rags that cleaned the aftermath, all bundled together in a wet tangle. Sloppy. He was almost disappointed.
But the tools meant there was a process being followed, and one that was more or less working. At the very least, whoever it was had avoided capture thus far.
John stood beside him as the captain of the night guard ordered the net lowered again,.
"They won't find anything."
"No," John agreed, as pleasantly as if they'd been chatting about the certainty of a coming storm.
"Did you feel it? Earlier?"
He didn't need to elaborate. As he waited for his mate's answer, a low feeling coiled within him, cold, remnants of fear he'd tried to forget. Not so long ago, he would have said it was a natural response of the human condition, some lowly biological holdover he'd attempted to put behind him, explain away without a second thought. Now, when he had something he cared about losing, he wasn't so sure.
John stared at him for a moment, then looked away.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
The Biblioteca Marciana had stood already for more than three centuries, its horned, whitewashed crown of statues peeking over the horizon at a distance.
John waited beneath one of the arcades, form shadowed by the flickering oil lamps. He sighed, watching boats passing against the night, just past the balustrade, so close he might reach out and touch them. Something within him loved the water, the immediate presence of it, it's depth, the rhythm as it came forward, then back. It was a constant, something he felt lucky to bear witness to, no matter how much time had passed. This water was blue, not quite as clear as the southern seas, where the Aegan, water was so blue you could lose yourself completely, so blue it matched his eyes, there in the night, half-drunk, half-daring you both to jump off the cliffside and surrender to it, because you could, you could survive it, survive him –
"Come along, John."
He snapped out of his thoughts, but Sherlock was already gone, heading back inside. And what else could he do, but follow.
Of all the things he'd assumed they would be doing in Venice, breaking into the library hadn't factored into the list quite yet.
"Did you know, John, that every printer in the Republic must send a copy of their work here? Their manuscript collections are astounding—Greek, Latin, Oriental…they even have a copy of the Iliad from the fifth century somewhere…"
"Fascinating." John answered, watching absentmindedly as Sherlock rifled through the stacks, scanning the unbroken seals on rolls of bundled yellow parchment.
Suddenly, the movement stopped, and Sherlock's curly hair, matted in dust, appeared.
"Are you having a good time?"
"'Am I having a good time?'" John frowned.
"Well, at least we know your ears still work."
"I think that may be the first time you've asked me that in two hundred years."
"Don't exaggerate," Sherlock scowled, "It can't have been over a century yet."
"We can have this conversation later."
"The watch won't even be aware of what's hit them until well into tomorrow morning." He huffed, then, as if to make a point, set all his gathered tomes and sheaves of parchment on the table so hard John imagined it would buckle under the sudden weight. "We'll have this conversation now."
"It can't be somewhere…more private, perhaps?"
"More private? More? John, look around you. We're in a two-story building without any living souls in at least two hundred meters. The only way it'd be more private is if we locked ourselves in the washroom down the hall."
"I just don't think—"
"Think what? You're clearly uncomfortable with this topic of conversation, and yet we cannot move forward unless it's been exorcised from us completely. You're a doctor, what would you do with a gangrenous limb?"
"Not the best metaphor, Sherlock." John frowned, lips pursed. "I don't see our relationship as something I should be rid of."
"You certainly seem to be treating it that way." He responded lowly, unable to keep the slight tremor from his voice. At least, thankfully, it hadn't cracked.
John said nothing in response, and he didn't need to. He felt the low coil rise deep inside him, the nuclear reaction compressing inwards in the brief moment before expansion.
"What is it? What can I do to–to—" To what? Make you love me again? Not be repelled by me when I touch you? "To remedy this situation?"
John sighed, and it was a sound he knew well. It said without speaking: I'm tired, I don't want to talk about it anymore, leave it alone.
"I need…space."
He frowned, that cold feeling curling inside him again. "Space? You've had ten years of it. Surely that would be enough."
"No, not…I don't mean emotional."
The floor began to unravel beneath his feet, slowly, then all at once as he realized–
"You want to leave."
He had not been alone, truly alone, in over three hundred years.
"I don't know." John admitted quietly. "I haven't decided."
Moonlight was streaming in through the windows, reflecting off the waters that slowly lapped in and out. He couldn't remember why they had come here, what they were doing in this foreign place, these foreign words filling him, topping him over easy as a breeze to a feather. He was falling now, down into the darkness, falling as the voice called out:
You'll never have him back the way you did before.
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