Disclaimer : Sherlock belongs to MM. Conan Doyle, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and a few others – I'd strongly advise collective baby-sitting in his case.
A/N : For IShoudBeOverThis, in due gratitude for being the writer she is.
Love ON A-Z
1. A for Afghanistan
Damn Mycroft Holmes to Inferno's ninth and lowest ring, the Home Office of traitors. Let him take a dive with his olympic IQ and high-ranking informants — and his warped brotherly concern, now clocking in at the worst possible time.
Thus John Watson's unspoken thoughts as he confronts his lover in the securized basement room where they have been cooped up for a month. Sherlock's shock-still face is belied by his eyes, burning a Bunsen blue, and the slightly higher pitch of his voice. « Liar. You said you would be stationed in Damascus ! »
John tries to keep his own voice at attention and fails. The month has taken its toll on him, summoning the hard dreams of before 221B — appropriately, it seems, since 221B is no longer their home. Their home is under the naked bulb that pours its thin blanched light on Sherlock's head, making it appear yet gaunter and more elongated, a mundane version of El Greco's saints whom John once saw at the National Gallery. « He would find me in Damascus » John answers with difficulty. What makes it difficult to speak, to look, is that the light is no longer an emblem of what takes place inside Sherlock's head. Say rather a pastiche of their new chiaroscuro existence, monitored from afar by a madman who shooes them ruthlessly from place to place, leaving a trail of loss in their wake. « He'll comb down anywhere, » says John « any place but this — there — it could be that he won't bother to look for me. » Why is he so reluctant to name names ? Moriarty. Afghanistan. « And find me. » Perhaps because they now know each other's minds by heart, so that names have grown dispensable. Truth, however, cannot be dispensed with. « And burn you. »
Sherlock has begun to pace the room, turning after every fifth or sixth step – even in flight, Sherlock has kept his long stride. « This, then, was your clever plan. Telling me you'd asked for another mobilization so I could focus again with you out of Mother Albion and catch our man. » Sherlock's voice revs up as it always does when he becomes unnerved. « And then — and then — jumping from the frying-pan into the fireline, hoping to come out unsinged once more in... what are the odds ? Two, three, six months ? A year, two years, five years ? You're giving me a poor idea of soldierly tactics, John. »
John is about to answer rather abruptly, but before he can sort out the medley of words clamouring to be named, Sherlock has caught up with him in his stride and is propelling them towards the all-purpose piece of furniture which serves as a couch, bed, typing table or Achilles' tent when one of them flares up under the stress. « All right, let's make it a clever plan. » Couch it is, since Sherlock has tumbled both of them on its lap and is locking John's legs between his for good measure. « You're not going anywhere. On paper, yes, and Mycroft is arranging for you to be reported dead within a reasonable delay. This could work to our advantage. Or not. Thank your precious stars one of us can still work out probabilities. »
John too has learnt to exploit his size handicap unfairly. He slips a hand under Sherlock's mop of hair and bends the young gaunt face to his until their foreheads are touching. « You realize what this means, don't you ? I have no more job, no money, no time out. I'll be here all day, bickering about tea and fresh air, demanding to know what you're about. I'll be sullen, angry, scared, ignorant. I'll be boring. »
And Sherlock, as always, produces the right answer a moment before Mycroft's umbrella knob raps at their door.
« Yes » he smiles « the thought has crossed my mind. But, hell — better bored than burnt. »
2. B for Blogs
Anonymous wrote on 12.08.2010, 7 :34 pm – Hello, dear! Thought I'd have a peep at your diary before I start on my roast pot. Very clever of you to deduce that man's bigamy from his nail cuttings though I really wish you wouldn't leave yours in the kitchen sink !
Sherlock Holmes wrote on 12.08.2010, 7 :36 pm – Mrs Hudson, you are intruding upon my private public space. Stop it.
But surely, dear, that's what the little box with « comment » is for? Or is this another Gentlemen Only sport ?
How did you get here in the first place? Only last month, you believed a laptop was « that oh-la-la dance rich businessmen can order in night-clubs ». Did you pinch John's ?
Dear me, no. The San Francisco police sent me Mr H's old PC after they'd given it a Spring clean-up, good thing too, you'd never guess what he'd stored inside, oh well you would. Then Mrs Turner showed me how to spin a web or whatever it is you young people call it today, and there we are !
There you are, right in the middle of your Ikebana class and it would take a nuclear blast for you to miss that so what the hell are you doing on my blog ?
Language, young man. A neat brain is no excuse for a sloppy mouth.
You won't give me a clue, will you ? Can't be the rent, we're the 12th, can't be the vitriol in the tooth-glass, you wouldn't be in a condition to type, can't be OOOOOOH. My sloppy mouth. That's the clue, isn't it ? And it can only mean one thing — that you checked on 221B on your way to the Botany Club, came in while I was showering and spoke to your other tenant before he locked his door and became our resident hunger striker.
I did, and you'd better follow suit. That remark of yours about John and the Sacred Cows of India was quite uncalled for and has seriously ruffled him. Now be a good boy, kiss and make up and I'll see to that milk tomorrow first thing.
Mrs Hudson ! There are twenty-eight visitors logged onto this page, I'll have to oh damn you're doing this on purpose.
That's good deduction, dear.
Dear ?
DEAR ?
Now listen to me, Sherlock Holmes. This pot is due to simmer for another forty minutes and I'm not letting either of you off the hook. Go and apologize to your young man, and do it properly too.
Just did. What do you think took me so long ? No, no, no, for God's sake, don't answer that one.
Properly ?
Sloppily.
Oh.
Oh indeed. Well, Mrs Hudson, congratulations on devising the ingenious concept of blockmail. Just remember – two can play the game. So bring over some of that pot, there's a dear geek, and I'll erase the whole page instead of devoting a new entry to the curious case of The Neighbour's Dog Who No Longer Barked At Night When He Was Given A Certain Sweater To Chew On.
3. C for Contact...
Christmas Eve looming up and one case still unsolved, courtesy of John H. Watson, M. D. Not routinely unsolved, Sherlock thinks, pulling up his scarf against the first dust of snow in Regent's Park, his favorite shortcut. For it is not in the nature of clues to decoy him and John, bless his generous heart, has led Sherlock on a one-track path rather than a wild goose chase. (Black head, white neck – these must be Canadian geese on the frozen lake.)
John is a natural sign-giver. Sherlock saw this from the start and, while indifferent to the charms of literature – though he retains a soft spot for Hamlet who entertained skulls and trusted that the sun doth move –, has recently treated himself to an orgy of John-reading. Watching John's cheekbones speak volumes when he is handing Sherlock a mug of tea and Sherlock's fingers try a swift experiment of their own on the handle a moment before it is released. Probing John's smile and eyes (and war-tempered nerves) when Sherlock's violin chases « Three Blind Mice » well into the night only to stumble on that damn C sharp for the eighth time running. And tuning his own ear to John's string of self-addressed curses when Sherlock is brought home texting merrily away with one hand because some Yard medic is sorting out the little bones in the other. A brother would curse Lestrade, as Sherlock has had occasion to witness, and a friend would curse him (a nice inference, that, pity he cannot – yet – record it in writing).
All the signs are here. But – ay, there's the rub : what next ? (In Regent's Park, the snow is ghosting the grey-green blades of grass at his feet.) Touch him states the obvious, and Sherlock wants to believe that touch might... should... dammit, must be rewarding if only one of them could bring himself to enact payment. So far, neither has. It is ironical, really, that while John's medical practice has made touch a second nature to him, he should babble and recoil like a maiden aunt when circumstances bring them at close quarters. Whereas Sherlock, who doesn't give a damn about people talking, finds it easier to flog a dead body than hold a live man's hand.
It's his own fault, agreed. (Sherlock breathes in the cold clean air as if it could top nicotine for clearing his John-addled mind.) For the past ten years, he has treated his body as another violin, grooming and dismissing it in turn, playing it at times — smiles, tears, pats, punches — to work out the right reaction from a somewhat reluctant public but never for its own sake. When he pumped it full of drugs, it wasn't to give a treat, it was a means to an end. Now his body is putting in a request for its long-due wages. After twenty years or so of humble servicing, his body demands joy for itself and another. And Sherlock doesn't know how to meet the bill.
4. ... and D for Drunk
Christmas Eve looming up and there must be an answer, Sherlock thinks, stepping out of the Park into Baker Street. The street is its current soft carnival of lighted windows and beribonned fences and instead of crossing to 221B Sherlock finds himself taking a stroll along the happy sight.
Let him admit it : log fire apart, 221B is hardly festive. Mrs Hudson fought the good fight in the previous days, stopping short of golden rings and dancing gentlemen but resolutely sticking holly sprigs wherever she saw a gap, down to Sherlock's pointillist wall decor. Sherlock was not amused. But then, Sherlock was never amused by Christmas and sees no reason for a conversion of the heart. It's not even as if there was a Christmas agenda for their beige-and-brown (and now dark green) environment. John, self-sacrificing fool that he is, will spend the next day force-feeding Harry with eggnogg. Sherlock is expected at Mayfair where Mycroft, glaring peace and good will, will carve a Mycroft-like turkey and make him pull crackers with little Cuthbert and Hypathia. Sherlock shivers and stamps his feet, gazing absently into the grocery window and its heaps of warm-coloured goodies.
And the answer strikes.
The aswer is pot-bellied and gold-topped, with a rosy French label. And what better alibi than Christmas to bring the answer home and drink it up with John ? Granted, John doesn't drink. A bevy of factors in his private and professional lives explain that he should depress Angelo with repeated requests for San Pellegrino when Sherlock and he share a post-case medianoche. But he won't refuse a friendly toast, not if he is the John Watson Sherlock has come to love. And then alcohol will do the trick. Oh, clever, clever ! Yes ! Brain bubbling down brain until metabolism cries Mayday and John is ripping off Sherlock's clothes in a pool of champagne-induced lust and —
Bloody hell. The grocer has just dangled a « CLOSED » sign under his nose.
Sherlock rushes to the supermarket. Twice, because this is a two-bottle problem, and then a third time because a crime expert should remember to cover his track. So he buys pâté, fruit, a mini-Christmas tree, chocolates, fish fingers, a cookery book, candles, a bombe glacée, tinsel, a whole roasted chicken and, as an afterthought, tea. By the time he climbs the stairs at 221B, he's having an incipient hangover. The whole scheme is one dull cliché unworthy of his mind. And the bags hurt his arms.
So it comes as a surprise when he makes it through the door and John drops his book with a look of utter shock on his face before rising from his armchair and crossing the space between them. John is stretching out his hands and smiling that unique smile of his, and somehow the smile makes its way to Sherlock's brain, leaving it high and sparkling. All the bags scatter on the floor so that John's arms are now stretched in thin air, but the next moment Sherlock's body has filled the gap and Sherlock's mouth is investigating the smile, his own arms twined around John's Shetland-clad shoulders and waist. John, true to character, assists the investigation to the best of his capacity until the smile has dissolved in urgent moans and gasps and the case is closed. (So is the door – later.)
The Christmas end of night finds two men birth-naked and laughing before a warm fire and a hot mug of tea. And two bottles of champagne, still full. (The milk carton is empty but this, as Mr Kipling would say, is another story.)
5. E for Estranged
It is the vacant look that goes to his heart, what remains of his heart, blowing on the flame. Moriarty has done a splendid job : there was no better way of burning him.
John stops on the threshold and looks at Sherlock's body sprawled on the couch. The slippers and dressing gown are identical. The pose is identical, and for one split second John's eyes flick to the wall but the wall here is uniform glazed surface, cornering Sherlock. Sherlock's own glazed eyes turn to John as the latter kneels before the couch.
In the winter room, John meets a few people. Some days he comes in to the sound of Lestrade's voice, slow and precise, detailing his latest case. Or there is Mycroft, talking to the nurses, or Mrs Hudson with the skull in her hands. Sherlock lies on the couch and gazes at the wall, the vacant wall.
When John comes, Sherlock looks at John. John raises Sherlock's hands from his lap and wraps them in his own, bending to kiss his cheek. He tells Sherlock « I'll take you home soon » but Sherlock's eyes do not seem to care for the words. They remain attached to John's face, the young rugged features, the close-cropped hair and buzz of voice, and sometimes John thinks – it is up to him to think now – that Sherlock is trying to tie a connection, to infer a truth about John and him. The truth is wrestling John too, but he has learnt self-control in the arid fields of Farah and Nimruz and knows that Sherlock must work his salvation alone, if salvation there be.
John rises to go, turns around and lashes at the wall with his left hand. The pain is dull and will not do any good but it is all he can do, brand the wall with hope and rage, before he turns from the room and limps out into the vast white hall, the vacant world.
6. F for Father
« You'd have liked him. » Midnight in Sherlock's room, with the half-closed shutters letting in a shimmer of moon. « And he'd have liked you, if only for sticking to a London flat. He was London's official biographer, you know. An urban historian, the best in his field. Mother hated the town, said the barbarians had come up to Mayfair, but Dad loved it. Used to stalk London like a jealous husband, day in day out – in fact, it was the only game he played with his sons. Hm, well, with me. Mycroft was more of an indoor slug. » Sherlock chuckles a little and carries on, his eyes on the ceiling where the street shadows are making their way, sped by the moon. « When I was home from boarding-school, that's when he took me out, hail, rain or shine, and disentangled London for me. Walked me from the maze of lawyers' courts near Westminster to the red-clay Southwark docks and back. Once he showed me the fossils of starfish on the plinth of King James's statue. And we played the game. »
John props himself up on an elbow so he can brush a lock of dark hair out of Sherlock's steady eyes. « What game ? »
« Kim's game. We'd be walking down a street and he would clap a hand on my eyes, without warning, and I had to remember ten things about the street. It could be anything – a broken window or a lion-shaped door-knocker, the uneven pavement under our feet, the smell of elderflower from a garden we had just passed. If I could make it, we went to Fortnum and Mason's for tea. »
« Sounds really great. »
« Mmm. He was a voyeur and a scholar and a realist. The tales he told me about London – they were not fairy tales, so he kept them outdoors. Once he pointed to a church where they had entombed a parrot alive out of superstition. And then, the Black Death and the Great Fire of 1666, and Jack the Ripper. I was enthralled. I... » Sherlock's voice trails off into the penumbra and John takes it upon himself to have the last word. « You cared. »
Silence answers the word, then – « Caring was no good. Can you tell why ? »
Yes he can. The science of deduction may not be John's forte but his profession has taught him that the human body yields its own hints and clues willingly enough. His lover's body is no exception : John's fingers answer for him, tracing feathery lines on Sherlock's pallid skin, nearly opaline at the dead of night. Leukemia, one genetic evil among others, and Dr. Watson prays angrily that it may lie dormant in Holmes's son till Doomsday.
Sherlock's eyes still follow the horizontal shadows, too blurred and fast to be identified.
« Mother kept saying that I should take a decent job for his sake. Harped on and on, how I owed it to him, he'd had such great hopes for me. Clever mother, knowing better than to speak for herself. »
« That doesn't make it a lie. »
« Doesn't it ? Sometimes I wish it did. »
Sherlock shifts on the bed so that he faces John and John can stare at his lover's tell-tale face, unguarded at last. He acts, then, since Sherlock will never make the gesture on his own. Clapping a hand to Sherlock's shoulder, he rolls him over towards him and moves up the hand, slipping his fingers under the dark tumble of hair. Sherlock's face is burrowed against his chest when John's mouth bends to his ear. He waits for the last shadow to pass, then speaks. « Trust me. He's not disappointed. »
7. G for Good Impressions
« A part-time practice in Soho. I see. » says Lady Holmes, and rings for tea.
« Found yourself a dick, Johnny Boy ? » says Harry, and laughs resonantly.
« That's a nice tie you have » says Lady Holmes, then adds « Harrods ? »
« I'll bet he's TOP value » says Harry — before she winks and nods.
« Isn't the Army your true calling ? » says Lady Holmes, and stares.
« What's he doing with my fucking phone ? » says Harry, and glares.
« Boys must sow their wild oats » says Lady Holmes, all stoical charm.
« Thought you'd go for the stocky type » says Harry, flexing an arm.
« We keep Christmas a family affair » says Lady Holmes, and pats a corgi.
« You told him about my constipation trouble? » Bang goes Harry's sherry.
[...]
« A high-functioning sodomite, Mother » says Sherlock, glancing at the clock.
« No. The difference is, I'm loved » says John, and stands up to kiss Sherlock.
To be continued...
