I need your help. +41. -119.
John gets the text message at 8:41 on a Saturday morning. He reads it six times before he realizes he's still holding his mug inches from his lips, inhaling the steam with every breath. When he sets the cup down, his hand shakes so slightly he almost doesn't even notice it.
X
I need your help, the text says. John reads it again and again at the airport, his feet propped up on his old army issue backpack and his ears pricked for the boarding announcement. The gibberish bit at the end of the text isn't gibberish at all, not that John ever thought it was. They're coordinates.
"Now boarding section D, flight 896 to New York," calls a bored female voice over the loudspeaker. John looks up from the mobile, switches it off. He grabs his backpack and falls in at the back of the queue.
X
He's exhausted when he finally gets off the plane in Arizona, and the long drive through the desert doesn't help. The landscape is bleak and monotone, a Clint Eastwood film come to life. John squints out at the rugged mountains, the glaring sun outfighting even his sunglasses, as he drives the inconspicuous but fast little car he rented at the airport.
The road takes him out to the edge of a salt flat that seems to stretch on forever, the antithesis of a lake, shimmering in the unbearable sunshine. John stops the car along the edge of the road right where the GPS tells him to and shuts off the engine. He sits behind the wheel for a moment, squinting out at the desert as though he expects someone to ride out over one of those rolling, sandy hills with a dark horse and a Stetson.
There's an swept-clean kind of quiet out there in that American wild, and even with the dull roar of the wind rushing through the valley it still spooks John in a way that feels distantly familiar. He can't sit in the car any longer, so he climbs out- supposedly to stretch his legs- and tries calling the unlisted number that sent that text. His signal isn't great, but it doesn't matter. The number's been shut off. "We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed," and all that.
He paces in front of the car for awhile, then stares out at the shimmering whiteness of the salt flat until his eyes burn. Then he climbs back into the car, puts all the windows down, and falls asleep stretched out across the back seat.
X
The noises register somewhere, because he recognizes them in hindsight: the purr of an engine and the squeal of breaks, the sound of gravel under tires. But he's still muzzy from the eleven hours spent in the air (and the eight spent in various airports along the way) and it takes him a long time, too long, to place the metallic tap-tap-tap against the side of the car.
"Watson?" A rough voice, American, probably a smoker.
John opens his eyes slowly, the blazing sun making his vision swim, and looks up into a pair of narrowed ice-blue eyes fringed with deep crow's feet and tanned skin. An unintelligible noise leaves his dry throat as he struggles towards wakefulness. He smacks his lips, clears his throat, tries again. "Have we met?"
A shark's smile stretches the American's thin lips. "No," he says, his tone waking John up more thoroughly than he would have believed possible only moments ago, "but we've been expecting you."
We. As in, more than one. There's just enough time for that fact to register before the door at John's feet swings open and he's dragged out into the blazing Arizona sunlight and slammed against the dusty ground hard enough that the taste of iron blossoms in his mouth. It's entire possible that he should be panicking right now...but he isn't. He feels fine. In fact, there's a ridiculous smiling curving one side of his mouth, because when was the last time he found himself staring Death in the face with nothing but the press of his gun against his spine for reassurance? That, more than anything else, seems like confirmation to the thought that's been rattling around in his mind: there's only one person in the world who would've sent that text.
When the fighting starts, it feels like coming home.
These men are goons, hired guns that value their own lives more than the job, and they aren't prepared. John knows he's a small bloke, knows what he must look like to men who've spent their entire adult lives literally looking down at everyone else. He knows how to play his appearance to his advantage. The thugs expect submission from him, and playing 'possum puts them off their guard. Then it's a simple matter of a few well-placed kicks to groins and shins and sternums, and he's on his feet with his gun in his hand and his heart pumping so hard he can feel it in his throat. His muscles sing as he pistol whips one man, and the roar of the wind is lost entirely for a moment in the crack of noise he creates as he spins, points, pulls the trigger. Crack, crack, crack. Three bodies slump bonelessly to the ground.
There's a moment of grappling as someone scoops him up from behind, bringing his feet off the ground and capturing his arms, but John uses his feet as leverage against the man's thighs and brings his skull up, breaks the man's nose (as evidenced by the hot spray of blood against John's skull), and then shifts his center of balance so that his feet are hitting the ground as the man is flipping over his head, knocking the last remaining henchman to the ground with him where John can shoot them both, two quick double-taps apiece (brain, heart) that are over so quickly the following silence seems unreal by comparison.
John stands for a long moment with his arm still outstretched and the gun still trained on the unmoving bodies at his feet. His breathing is hoarse and ragged, and as he lets his arm relax and sag against him he notes, absently, the sting in his knuckles and the warmth of the gun's barrel against his thigh. He's splattered with blood, some of it his, some of it not. The wind bellows through the valley. Overhead, a single vulture begins to trace slow circles in the sky.
X
He ditches the car once he's within walking distance of the nearest town. He's unconcerned; he'd used one of Sherlock's old throwaway identities for the credit cards, the plane tickets, the rental car. It's easy enough to leave that identity behind in the glove box and move on to the next one. When he checks in at the two-star motel at the edge of town his name is Daniel Harris, and while he might be covered in dust and sunburns, he's not the most conspicuous character the establishment has likely seen. His bloody button-up shirt is buried in the desert, and his T-shirt is drenched in nothing more troubling than sweat and water. He'd had the chance to wash up at a rest stop, using an old creaky pump-spigot. In a movie, some whip-smart young FBI agent would be tracing him right now, hunting him easily. But this is no film, and John's not worried. He won't be caught.
The first order of business at the motel is a shower, which feels like what John imagines heaven must be like. He stands under the warm spray for a long, long time, feeling the tension leave his muscles as the grime and sweat washes from his skin. Adrenaline's left him inappropriately...enthused, and he handles that with grim efficiency (and very little guilt; he's long since stopped trying to understand why death and lust are so intrinsically entwined) before twisting the tap and toweling off.
Post-orgasmic laziness sees him lying across the bed, with the towel still wrapped around his waist, as he taps away at his laptop. He checks everything: his email, his blog, all of his social media sites. Sherlock wouldn't have sent him into an ambush intentionally, which means something went wrong, so he expects some sort of...of something that tells him what he needs to do now. But there's nothing.
He closes the laptop and presses his face into the stiff comforter, heedless of whatever horrifying history the bedspread might have, and lays that way for several long seconds. He's just telling himself to get up and get into bed properly when a knock on the door sends another boost of adrenaline through his system. He sits up and stares at the door. Another knock, and someone calls through the thin wood: "Mr. Harris? It's Ed from the front counter. You left your credit card."
John relaxes minutely and crawls out of bed, rolls his shoulders as he walks to the door. A quick adjustment of his towel; a scan of the room to make sure there's nothing incriminating lying around. He opens the door just a crack.
Ed peers at him owlishly. "Mind if I come in to check the window unit while I'm here?" he asks, trying to budge his way in with his shoulder.
The hairs on the back of John's neck stand up. "There's nothing wrong with the-"
Things move very quickly, then. Ed knocks the door open roughly, slamming it into John and sending him sprawling. John scooches back as Ed peeks furtively behind him and yanks the door closed. He manages to palm his gun just as Ed turns around to leer at him. "Dr. Watson," Ed says slowly, suddenly losing his Southern drawl and sounding as English as the Queen, "you shouldn't have come here. That was a very, very foolish thing to-"
Crack! The first shot misses by a wide margin, namely because it's damn difficult to hit a moving target and Ed started lunging at him the second he noticed John drawing the gun. The second shot goes through the ceiling as they struggle with each other on the floor, each of them hoping their knees and elbows will find purchase in the soft flesh of their opponent.
The third shot will be true, John knows, because he gets the gun pressed right up under Ed's chin. His finger twitches on the trigger, the muscles moving on reflex alone. Ed draws a breath, his eyes taking on the look of a man who knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he's about to die. John meets that look unflinchingly.
The slow sound of applause from the doorway stops him. "Bravo, Dr. Watson," Mycroft Holmes drawls. "Well done. You've put on quite a show."
Something cold settles in John's stomach. He swallows hard and looks at Ed sharply. "Move and I'll kill you," he says coldly, using a small jab of the barrel into Ed's throat for emphasis. Then he looks over his shoulder as if to affirm what his ears simply can't believe.
It's true, though; there's Mycroft and his damned umbrella, leaning against the door jamb and looking at him impassively. "Is that really quite necessary?" he asks, though he doesn't sound as though he really cares. "You've bested the boy. Let him up."
"So you can have him kill me?"
Mycroft's laugh has always grated John's nerves (it's nothing like Sherlock's laugh, which is rare and rich and honest), and it bothers him no less now. "John, please. If I truly wanted you dead, I'd have done it already. Let the boy up."
John does so, however reluctantly, if only because he doesn't like the way Mycroft's eyes are lighting up as he watches John straddle a man in just a towel. So he climbs to his feet and recovers his modesty somewhat, all the while glancing between the two of them warily.
Ed doesn't try anything untoward, though. He scrambles to his feet and runs to Mycroft like a wayward cub to a lioness. Mycroft finds the action amusing, apparently, because he quirks an eyebrow and looks Ed over carefully before pronouncing, in the most imperious and obnoxious tone John has ever heard, "Leave us." He turns back to John once Ed is gone and shoots him a tight smile. "What are you doing here, Dr. Watson?"
"Meeting up with an old friend," John says, his chin raised defiantly. Mycroft doesn't say anything to that, just stares at him like he can see into his soul, and whole minutes tick by before John relents and growls, "Where is he?"
"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Mycroft answers, inspecting his fingernails.
"Your brother." John's blood is boiling; he knows Mycroft knows, has known this whole time, and the thought makes him furious. "Where is he?"
Mycroft laughs again and lets out a sigh, smiling at John almost wistfully. "Shall I answer that technically or philosophically?" His umbrella swings in a half-circle, loops back the other way. "If you're referring to his corpse, I presume it's still in his coffin. But if we're discussing his soul? Ah, now that's a question. One never truly knows, does one? Not until it's too late to tell the rest of us."
"I could help you figure it out," John says threateningly, pointing his gun at Mycroft, but it's an empty gesture and they both know it. He lowers the gun again and grits his teeth. "He texted me. Sherlock. I didn't know the number, but I know it was him."
"Sherlock is dead, John," Mycroft says solemnly, and the words shouldn't pierce his heart, not after all this time, but they do. "You saw it happen. You were there to hear his last words. He is gone, John, and I'm sorry that someone has played this cruel joke on you- truly sorry, I cannot begin to express it- but the facts remain. There is nothing left of my brother but the grave-site you've visited once a month, every month, for the last two and a half years."
"You're lying," John answers quickly, but even he can hear the doubt creeping into his voice.
Mycroft's look is two parts pity and one part smug acknowledgment of John's weakening resolve. "You know I'm not."
The gun is clattering against John's thigh, his hand shaking horribly. He opens his mouth to deny it once more- just once more, and then he'll give Sherlock up again- but he's interrupted by his mobile.
Bariiiiing. Bariiiiing. Bariiiiing.
"Don't answer that," Mycroft commands hastily, his eyes flitting to the phone and narrowing.
John's heart is thrumming in his chest. He presses the speaker button and croaks: "Hello?"
"Whatever you do," Sherlock says, and it's him, it's him, it's actually him, "don't let Mycroft get away."
Mycroft. John glances at the doorway, having forgotten the man was even there. And now it's too late; the door is standing open, and any trace of him or his friend has vanished. "He's gone. Sherlock, what's going on?"
"There's no time to explain right now. John, do you trust me?"
John closes his eyes. "Always."
"Good. Then do exactly as I say."