"Excuse me?" the stranger calls. "Is, is there anyone here? There wasn't a car parked, but I heard the telly…" The voice raises and lowers, like the owner is unable to control the volume.
Reluctantly, John steps from the sitting room to greet the visitor. A floorboard creaks underneath his socked feet. He doesn't say anything, doesn't really know what to say. Pillow marks litter John's cheek, his hair filled with cowlicks galore, so it isn't really a surprise he didn't hear someone break into the house—even if that someone is a scrawny man with half his head shaved and black splotching along the left eye and the sharp cheekbone below it.
John slowly blinks. "Hullo."
The stranger's eyes are impossibly wide, his arms and legs outstretched, his back pressed against the front door. "There's also a bicycle out front," he mumbles. "I don't know why I'm telling you this."
"What do you have there?" John glances at the door, at the limp, broken door knob. "Why are you in my house?"
Lips part, eyes shift, but the stranger offers no answer for John. The door behind him, however, provides one: a series of loud, irritated knocks.
"More company?" asks John.
"I suppose you won't help me," the stranger squeaks.
"I don't even know why you're here, mate."
John can hear wood crack. The stranger slides forward an inch, his heels digging into the floor, his teeth gnashed together. "Please, please, please. I made sure to go down roads the CCTV wouldn't see, and I swear I will help you clean up. Please."
"Okay, okay, keep your voice down."
In one fluid movement, the visitor regains composure and seems to twist as elegant as a ballet dancer. When the front door loses the one thing holding it closed, it flies and rattles. Like dominoes, thud thud thud lands three more men. They land on top of each other, their breaths lost and heads sore. John watches the stranger grab the one at the top of the pile, heaving him up and spinning him until he is light-headed and unable to see the knife coming and slashing across the width of his throat.
John's eyes widen.
The body drops, hands try to push torn flesh back together. The next victim is on his feet when the stranger turns around. They dance almost, the stranger ducking punches and brandishing the knife. It gets caught in an arm, a chest, a stomach, and then the stranger can't pull it out. Though, he doesn't see this as an obstacle. He acquires a tighter grip and pushes deeper, upward, gutting like a fish.
Meanwhile, the third and last one on the floor is slowly getting to his feet. He is dizzy; John can see it in his eyes. John finally helps the late-night visitor, kicking backs of knees and smashing a face into the front door until it closes, until the doorknob is all bloody and even more limp and broken.
By then, the stranger's knife is safe in his hands, the subject of its abuse twitching and attempting to shove intestines back into his body. John can't look.
"Is that one dead?" the stranger asks, waving a red finger at the man John still has by the hair.
John checks his pulse. "No." John wishes he were. He wouldn't want to wake up with a face like this.
"May I borrow your bathtub?"
John shrugs, sighs. "Why not?"
The stranger and John carry the body into the loo, John holding his arms and the stranger holding his ankles. John's hands are red, too, now that he can see in a lit room. His stomach churns.
Water fills the bathtub. John wonders if the man with the busted face will have dreams about drowning.
"Sherlock," the visitor says, as he holds the man's head under the water. "My name is Sherlock Holmes."
"I wouldn't have revealed that, you know. I might turn you in." John sits on the toilet, his hands out in front of him, unable to look away.
"No, you won't." The body stops moving. Sherlock exhales. "Finally."
John wants to know if it's good if a stranger can read him better than his own wife.
They dispose of the bodies.
"I saw this on Breaking Bad," says Sherlock.
It is at this moment when John realizes he's dealing with a kid.
In the morning, it is as if nothing unusual occurred during the night.
John's face is in his hands, his elbows on the kitchen table, listening to the sound of pots and cups bumping together. Sunlight is pooling into the room, through the open blinds. It is morning, and Sherlock is still here.
He's making tea. "Since you're such a God-awful host," he had said to John's unresponsive body at the table. "Tsk, tsk."
It's quiet now. Sherlock sips his tea.
"You have to leave."
"He wakes," announces Sherlock. He sits across from John. "Had any good dreams?"
"I wasn't fucking sleeping."
"And I wasn't actually that curious about your dreams." Sherlock drinks some more.
John shuts his eyes, slowly opens them a moment later. "I'm not entirely sure why you're still here. It's a wonder my wife, mind you, didn't wake up last night." John points a finger at Sherlock. "She would have definitely turned you in."
Sherlock shakes his head. "Your wife isn't here."
"Of course she is," John says with no hesitation.
"No, she isn't," Sherlock says right back. "She would have checked the commotion last night. The car's gone out front, and you were sleeping on the sofa. You normally sleep on the sofa while your wife occupies the bed. You weren't in the bedroom last night. Yes, your wife wasn't here, but you are repulsed at the idea of sleeping in the same bed as her. Seems a bit odd to be affected like this after only a month of marriage." Sherlock raises an eyebrow, his smile incredibly smug. "The bike in the front yard is yours. You—"
"Shut up," John says.
Sherlock presses his lips together, gives John a knowing look, and returns to his tea.
By the afternoon, Sherlock is still here. It's only been a few hours, but John is starting to think Sherlock will never leave. "I need to charge my phone," he says, and somehow pulls out a charger from his coat pocket and plugs it into an outlet.
When Sherlock came, he had been wearing a thick coat with a loose t-shirt and pajama bottoms to match underneath. He was also wearing a pair of warm black slippers, although those have vanished now. He parades around the flat with bare feet, his long toes visible to God and Jesus Christ and John and everybody else in the world.
Mary isn't back yet.
"My wife will be very cross if you're still here when she comes home."
Sherlock digs around in the refrigerator, pulling out a few mince pies and stuffing his face. "You haven't told me your name," he says, mouth full.
"I thought you would have guessed it by now."
"Guilty as charged. I found your birth certificate under the bed." Sherlock wipes his mouth. "John Hamish Watson."
John shakes his head. "Shut up."
"Hamish."
It turns evening, and John finally decides to ask Sherlock why he looks the way he does.
"Your parents were religious, John," Sherlock begins, "I'm sure you know who made me." After no applause, Sherlock continues, "I got in a fight. I was shot. I went to hospital. I escaped. The people at your door were my drug dealers. They weren't the ones who shot me; I know that now after I had… confronted them. They tried to kill me, which they didn't—thanks to you."
John closes his mouth. It was hanging open, making him look like an embarrassing tit. "You were shot?"
"Yes, I was shot. In the head."
John expects something like in the arm, maybe the stomach, the leg, but not the head. He should have known: half of Sherlock's head is shaved, and on closer inspection, he has a small wound on the left side of his forehead and several small stitches at the top of his head. "Curved around my skull, didn't even hit my brain." Sherlock smiles triumphantly.
Sherlock's hair is curly and thick, some even cover the stitches. John has to push these curls aside to get a better look. "What do you want me to say? That it looks badass? Makes you look like an idiot."
Sherlock's smile never fades. "Every time I look in the mirror, I shall see this scar on my forehead as a reminder to never pick up another needle." Sherlock's arms are clear, white. John would have never guessed he was a drug addict.
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-nine."
John wrinkles his nose.
"What?"
"You're a child."
"Would it be different if I had said I was thirty?"
"Are you thirty?"
Sherlock pauses. "No."
"Then it doesn't matter."
"I'm not a child," Sherlock says, his bottom lip sticking out in a very childlike manner.
John can't control himself. He smiles, and he smiles big. "Just finish eating all the food in the fridge."
Sherlock does.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out Sherlock cries a lot.
John first hears the sniffles when they were in the bathroom together. Sherlock's back was to John, so he was able to see his shoulders shake and his head bow to tuck his chin into his chest. The man Sherlock held underwater was dead. Was Sherlock grieving for him?
Even when they were disposing of the bodies, Sherlock cried.
He cried when he found out John had his favorite tea already stocked, and he even wept after he consumed a large amount of Jammie Dodgers.
After that incident, John feels obligated to stand close to him and pat his arm, rub his back, do something to comfort him.
"Thank you," Sherlock whispers, wiping away the tears with the tips of his thumbs.
"No… problem…"
Mary comes home.
She doesn't look at Sherlock twice. "How long is he staying?" She's done the shopping, dropping things onto shelves and storing more sweets Sherlock will no doubt consume into the refrigerator and the pantry. Sherlock is in the sitting room, arms wrapped around his legs, as he watches a documentary about elephants on Netflix.
John stands next to Mary, arms over his chest. "I don't know. He just… showed up last night. Recovering drug addict. I have no idea if he's gone through withdrawal yet."
"Good thing you're a doctor then." Mary smiles sweetly. He hates Mary more now than he ever has before.
"Yes, good."
That night, after Mary has closed the bedroom door, John is left with Sherlock, who is still perched on the sofa. His eyes are glued to the television screen, watching something about bees. John is standing by him, unsure, confused. "You're still here…" John drifts off, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Yes." Sherlock blinks. "Oh, I forgot. You sleep on the sofa." Sherlock shuts down Netflix, turns off the telly, and gets up. "Forgive me." With his threadbare t-shirt and bare feet, Sherlock disappears. John sinks into the sofa and curls into a ball.
He dreams of cold sweat and elephants sitting on his chest, but it's only Sherlock. Sometime during the night, he returns to the sitting room and drapes himself over John, bony elbows and prominent hips and cold toes and all. Sherlock is a large blanket, very comfortable. John plays with his hair for a bit before he goes back to sleep. If Sherlock asks, John will say he wanted to check his stitches. He's a doctor, a good doctor, who can see tiny stitches even in the dark. Peach fuzz is already growing. It's soft.
In the morning, Sherlock is gone. Mary is eating toast in the kitchen. John doesn't greet her, only edges past to pour a cup of coffee. "Door knob's new," she says.
"What?" John concentrates on his coffee.
"Someone replaced the door knob. It's different."
"If you say so."
Sherlock is outside, long legs stretched on the front porch steps. His big coat is wrapped around his body, the slippers on his large feet. He's smoking a cigarette.
John sits next to him. "You're still here."
"Worried I was gone?"
John shakes his head. "Don't you have… a home?"
"I lived with my brother. He wouldn't want to see me like this."
John shrugs. "Sounds like he would have seen you strung out on drugs, though."
"Yes."
John drinks his coffee. Sherlock lights up another cigarette.
Sherlock is on the porch as John goes to work. "Cycling to work?" Sherlock asks.
John doesn't say anything.
"You shower there, too? Must be worse than I thought."
Sherlock smells like body odor and an ash tray. John hops onto his bicycle, not meeting Sherlock's eyes.
"I was about to ask if you've been cycling to work for a while, but I'm presuming you've always walked like that."
John turns to Sherlock. He's smiling, his ankles crossed, a cigarette between two fingers, waiting for either confirmation or denial. John doesn't respond. Silence is an answer. Sherlock begins to laugh. John can hear it for miles.
John catches himself staring at the clock more times than he would like to admit. "Come on, John," he sighs.
His last patient comes in the five minutes John has left of the work day. He is wearing a suit, a bright red tie. It reminds John of blood. "How can I help you? Sit down." John glances at the clock, then down at his hands.
"I don't have an appointment," the man says, but sits down anyway. "I wanted to ask you a few questions, Dr. Watson."
"I don't see why not."
The man narrows his eyes.
John smiles. "What about?"
"A missing man. White. Six feet tall. It's been brought to my attention he may have half his head shaved."
John blinks, tilting his head. "Why would half his head be shaved? Is that… in now, among the kids?"
The man's lips purse. He isn't amused. "He's hardly a kid, Dr. Watson. I've heard he was shot in the head, thus why his head is shaved. Do you happen to know anything about that?"
"Well, I reckon he'd probably be six feet under, if you know what I mean." John taps his chin. "Have you looked there?"
John watches the man breathe slowly in, then exhale through his parted lips. John tries not to seem thrilled. "Will it appease you to know I have checked cemeteries? Digging up fresh graves is, apparently, disrespectful, but it would make the most sense to toss a loud-mouth, recently shot drug addict into someone else's grave rather than procure a new one."
John tuts. "A drug addict, too? He must be dead."
"I think he might have killed someone." The man is looking off to the side, so John allows himself a brief moment of panic. Sherlock had lied then, when it came to dodging all the CCTVs on his way to John's flat. Why did Sherlock even come to his flat? Why not the neighbors?
"You should go to the authorities if he's killed someone." Good comeback.
"What makes you think I'm not with the authorities?"
John chews on the inside of his cheek. "Maybe your tie? It's way too bright, for one."
The man stands, ignoring John's jab at his clothing. He hands over a small business card, setting it on John's desk. "Call me when you happen to… remember where Sherlock Holmes has gone."
He leaves. John touches the card, debates on tossing it. Before he rips it in two, he sees the name "Mycroft Holmes" and proceeds to frown and tape the halves back together. "Fucking Christ."
Mary is already home by the time John arrives. "Not good, not good," John chants, slipping in through the front door. Mary is laughing. "Definitely not good." John rubs his eyes.
She and Sherlock are at the kitchen table, cups of tea and a plate of uneaten chocolate chip cookies between them. "Oh, John!" Mary says when John comes in. "You should see this trick Sherlock does! It's simply… interesting." Mary turns in her chair, staring at Sherlock and smiling with her red lips and piercing eyes. "Show him, dear. Tell him what you told me."
Sherlock looks frightened. He stares at John, at Mary, then at John again. "He's heard me… before."
Mary sticks out her bottom lip, pouting in the same manner as Sherlock. She's mocking him. "Come on, Sherlock."
He shakes his head, blinking once, twice, three times. John frowns, walks over to Sherlock, and helps him up. "How long has it been since you had a shower? Here, I'll show you there."
"I know where the bathtub is," says Sherlock, which earns him a pinch from John.
"Don't be rude." John ignores Mary on the way to the loo. John shuts the door behind them—silence. "What the fuck did you tell her?"
Sherlock is crying. His eyes are wet. The black spots around his left eye look even worse. They're healing, though, sure to turn yellow in a few days' time. "I don't remember."
"You don't remember? It's only been a few fucking minutes, Sherlock. How do you not bloody remember?"
More tears. John's chest aches. "Look, I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me. I'll just… get you a towel. You need a shower."
Sherlock touches his arm. "Don't leave me."
"I'll be sitting out there, yeah? Not going to leave you." Something tells John Sherlock shouldn't be left alone with Mary. "You need clothes. I don't know what will fit you."
"You have a lot of jumpers. I think I can fit in one of them." Sherlock sniffs, wipes his eyes.
"You've been in my room."
"Sorted out your socks, too. I would be ashamed of myself."
John shakes his head. "You're brilliant, you know that, right? Of course you do." John steps out of the bathroom to check on his jumper supply. "Utterly brilliant."
John tells Sherlock about meeting his brother that night. They're sitting on the sofa, their arms touching. It's warm. Sherlock's hair is damp, combed away from the stitches. "I don't believe him," Sherlock says. "He couldn't possibly have dug up all the fresh graves. Lazy arse."
They're eating popcorn, Sherlock more so than John. He continues to complain, "I wonder what he wants from me. He probably saw me get shot, feels guilty he didn't visit me in hospital."
"Maybe he's worried about you."
Sherlock snorts. "Unlikely! There's something more."
"He loves you?"
"Funny, John."
"He knows you're here. He has to. How does he know?"
Sherlock tosses more popcorn in his mouth, munches. "Tracked my phone? Has a chip implanted in me? Honestly, the list goes on."
John stares at Sherlock, watching him chew. He swallows roughly. "Does seeing you on the CCTV make the list?"
Sherlock is quiet. He doesn't say anything else for the rest of the night. They sleep together, pressed close, Sherlock squeezed between John's body and the back of the sofa. He takes up more space than needed, but John doesn't mind.
John imagines the police barging into his flat and arresting him. It doesn't happen.
The withdrawal kicks in a week after Sherlock first showed up in John's flat with three angry men. John thinks they had started to show a few days prior, but Sherlock knows how to hide them well.
Sherlock wakes up John one night, violently shaking him with tears in his eyes. "John, John, please, I can't sleep."
They stay up the rest of the night, chewing on pastries and watching documentaries on Netflix. They're watching Blackfish right now. "I love whales," Sherlock says, as he brushes crumbs from his mouth and blinks away more tears.
"You don't have to explain anything to me, Sherlock."
"No, I do." Sherlock snivels. "I saw you shopping. I thought you looked really cute. You had your wife with you, and she kept looking at me. Every time I went to the shops, I always managed to see you and her, and you never looked at me, but she did, and she never looked happy."
John meant Sherlock didn't have to explain his fascination with animals, but he doesn't interrupt him.
"You know how I said I thought my drug dealers were the ones who shot me? I know they're not. I know who did shoot me."
John anticipates the answer. He knows, too. "Because you kept looking at me, and she didn't like it?"
"She admitted to it, in the kitchen, when you came home. I didn't remember at first. I only guessed it had been my drug dealers, but now… I sat there with her, and I read her, and I… It came to me. I blurted it out." Sherlock is pale. He looks as if he might fall over. "She's killed so many people, John."
"If I remember correctly, you've killed people, too, Sherlock."
"They were bad."
John presses a firm hand to Sherlock's back. "Mary shot you."
"Mary shot me." Sherlock looks at John. "Why did you marry her?"
"I don't know."
Sherlock's eyes never leave John's face. John doesn't want them to.
"You need to get some rest," John says. "I'll let you have the whole sofa tonight."
Sherlock gives the tiniest shake of his head. "I sleep better with you."
John laughs, defeated, accepting. "I do, too."
They sleep.
John expects something to happen in the upcoming days, maybe in the following week or so.
Not the next day.
Mary's car is out front. That's okay.
The door is unlocked. That's fine, too.
In the hall, Sherlock is on top of Mary, both hands wrapped around his knife and shoving it inside her at various points of importance. That's… well, peculiar.
"What the fuck?"
Mary is still alive. She's putting up a fight, her fingers tight and constricting against Sherlock's throat. Despite this, no damage is being done on her part. John steps around them after locking the front door. "Sherlock, Sherlock."
Sherlock jams his knife into Mary's stomach and twists and twists and twists. "She wants me dead, she wants me dead, she wants me dead. I know, I know, I know."
Mary is speechless. Blood stains her lips. It matches her red lipstick. Her hands grope for purchase on something, anything. John catches the sight of a gun to her right. He kicks it away, grabbing it then. "She came out with this?"
Mary's eyes seem to bulge from her skull. She stares at John, at Sherlock.
"Yes," Sherlock says, pulling out his knife and sitting back on Mary's hips. "She said I was a threat. She can't even defend herself now."
Mary hasn't said a word, and now, John knows why. "Where's her tongue?"
Sherlock smiles. It's manic. John's grip tightens on the gun. "She's my wife, Sherlock."
"I know."
This is when Mary pushes off Sherlock and takes hold of the knife. It slips from her grasp. It's oily with her blood, but she's strong, and she manages to stab it into Sherlock's bicep, then again underneath his left clavicle. Sherlock coughs, squirms. Mary forcefully drags down the blade, but stops, lurching forward and releasing a fountain of blood on Sherlock.
John lowers the gun.
Sherlock is loud. He sobs and rolls and pushes Mary and gasps and panics. Mary is a dead weight on him. John takes her, sets her aside, and sits Sherlock up. "You're bleeding."
"She stabbed me. Obviously." Sherlock goes to rub his face, but John stops him. Sherlock remembers the blood on his hands and rolls his eyes. "Obviously."
John runs his hands along Sherlock's body, seeing the wound in his arm, his chest, and then a larger one in his stomach. "What?"
"She shot me."
"Sherlock." John lowers him onto his back, pushes aside clothing and inspects the gunshot wound. "Shit."
"You're a doctor." Sherlock grabs onto John's hand and pulls him in close.
"Yes, I'm a doctor. You figured that out, right? Or did you watch me cycle to work one day?"
"I can tell you're a doctor by the way you look at me, at the way you touch me. Your hands are so gentle, so careful. John, touch me, I think I'm going to die."
"Jesus, Sherlock, I'm not going to get you off when you're like this." John pats Sherlock's pockets, feeling for a mobile phone. He finds it. The case is pink. John gets blood on it. "Call your brother."
"You call your brother."
"I have a sister."
Sherlock closes his eyes. "Oh."
It's going to be okay.
Mycroft visits Sherlock in hospital this time. Sherlock is awake, a hand of cards held in front of his nose. John is sitting opposite him, cards in his hands, but not as high as Sherlock's. Mycroft knocks on the doorjamb to announce his entry. Neither looks at him. "Go fish," says John. Sherlock scowls and draws from the deck.
"How do you manage to avoid death twice in only a matter of weeks, Sherlock? You must tell the masses. You might become wealthy."
"Piss off, Mycroft. I don't take pride in being a kink for Death."
Mycroft rolls his eyes. "Yes."
"Got a two?" asks John.
"Go fish." Sherlock grins.
John knows it hasn't been long.
He sits with Sherlock every day, reads to him, even brings his laptop so they can watch films together.
When he goes to leave every night, he squeezes Sherlock's hand and lingers a delicate kiss on his brow.
One night, Sherlock quickly angles his chin up, knocking their lips and noses together. It isn't pretty. John laughs. Sherlock does, too. "You're such a great kisser, John Watson."
John kisses Sherlock for real the afternoon he's discharged from hospital. John grabs the lapels of his ridiculous coat and pulls him down and kisses him until he's seeing red, red, red.
John laughs afterward. Sherlock does, too.
The half of Sherlock's head which bears the stitches is growing back nicely. It's brunet, hints of the faintest ginger at the roots. John acts like he doesn't notice.
Sherlock's eye is void of the ugly bruising, and the small scar on his forehead is so light it's as if it's barely there.
"What will the other scars be reminders of?" asks John. He almost doesn't want to attract attention to them. He sees the awful things when Sherlock dresses, when they are in bed together.
It takes Sherlock a minute to reply. "To shut up once in a while."