I make it through security, through the pat down and the scanner and the metal detector, with relative ease. I've been doing this for nearly nine months now; entering the prison has become routine. I learned early on to leave my mobile at the desk and my cross necklace on the nightstand in my tiny white-walled bedsit. This part is easy.
Once I'm inside the compound, I cross the yard with brilliant sunshine on my back and a grimace on my face. I can't keep my eyes from wandering to the tower, hunting fruitlessly for the tell-tale glint of a sniper rifle's barrel. Stupid, I know. I don't need to be afraid of the officers here. But- call it instinct, call it a lesson that I'm reminded of every time I pull off my shirt and look at the ruined, twisted flesh of my right shoulder- I'm wary of snipers.
The chapel, if you can call it that, is a small off-white room near the rec hall. A green metal lectern acts as my pulpit; the "pews" are rows of dull steel chairs, bolted to the ground. I set up at the front of the room slowly, unpacking the pages that will act as my guide during the sermon and queuing up a PowerPoint on the room's ancient computer. People shuffle in, and I wait for them to settle. I don't start right away. I scan their faces: some new, some old.
Whatever it is I'm looking for, I don't find it. These people look like me. Gray. Spent. I look down at the pages and begin, my mind thousands of miles away.
x
The next week, I'm delivering my sermon with the sort of passionless monotone that I always loathed on Sundays at my little church growing up. The words on the page before me are bleary, unimportant. I could spew this drivel in my sleep.
Bored, I look up at the people in the room again, hoping to see…I don't know what. There are some unfamiliar faces, but that's nothing unusual. This is a prison. Inmates come and go. My eyes wander to the back of the room.
There's a man leaning on the wall near the doorway, pale arms folded over a slim chest. He wasn't there before; I would have noticed him. I know I would have because he is, frankly speaking, beautiful. Even in the standard issue blue-gray jumpsuit that all the inmates wear (and which hangs from his skinny body, the fabric bunched loosely around his hips) he's stunning. Sharp, elegant features. Dark curls that I would assume were artfully, intentionally mussed had I seen him in the street. Slender fingers, the sort that seem specially made for making music. When he meets my eyes I lose track of the words that are tumbling from my mouth entirely. His eyes are pale, the irises so light they're almost silver, and they're brilliant. We hold eye contact for too long, much too long. Finally I bring myself to look away, dropping my gaze back to the pages on the pulpit without seeing them. I'm breathing a little too hard, I know, so I take a few moments to get myself under control before I look back up again.
He's gone.
x
He doesn't come back to my sermon the next week. I hate myself for looking for him. I hate myself even more for being disappointed when I don't find him. It's bad enough that I have this…this inclination, sometimes, but to feel it for an inmate…
I try not to consider it as I give my sermon, speaking slowly and patiently about the forgiving nature of a God I haven't spoken to in almost a year. I don't know why I've stopped praying. I only know that I've stopped.
Afterwards, as I'm packing up my things, I allow my mind to wander back to the dark-haired man I saw the week before. I don't let myself think about his long white neck or his full bottom lip, but I do allow myself to consider those fingers. I wonder: does he play the violin? Piano? He should play something. It would be a shame if he didn't.
"You don't believe in God," a deep voice postures in front of me, and I jump, my hand instinctively falling to my hip to grab a gun that isn't there. It's him, the dark-haired man. He has both palms pressed against the front of the lectern and is leaning against it, his eyes fixed on mine.
I don't want to look at him (I desperately want to look at him) so instead I continue packing, my voice falsely calm as I ask, "If I didn't believe in God-" here my tongue darts across my lips, a nervous habit "-why would I be a chaplain?"
"Habit, guilt, and a misplaced sense of duty," the man reels, his tone bordering on bored. "After you were invalided home from…Iraq, or Afghanistan? I'd guess the latter but I couldn't be certain. At any rate, after you were invalided home you could have switched careers but it seemed easier to stick with what you know. Thus," the man gestures broadly towards the walls of the prison. "Aside from that, I think you're in denial. You haven't accepted your loss of faith yet. But you will."
"How-" I begin, but he cuts me off with a sigh.
"I can't stay, obviously." I try not to stare at his mouth when he speaks but I fail, and the failure brings a mingling of heat low in my stomach and the awful, familiar churn of shame. "My time is not my own." He shrugs; the motion doesn't suit him. "But I'll see you next week, Rev. Watson." He's gone so quickly I almost believe I imagined him there…except I can still smell him, the scent of his prison soap lingering.
x
He wasn't lying. He's there, the very next week, sitting with one leg crossed over the other in the front row. I don't think he ever blinks. I find myself thinking about the things he said about me last time, things he couldn't have possibly known. My time as an army chaplain. My injury. My…troubles with my faith. I don't know how he knew them but I'm sure he hasn't had the chance to look me up. He just somehow knew.
I wonder what he did, how he got caught. The sharp intelligence in his eyes is nearly overpowering. I have a hard time believing that he's done anything too horrifying or that he was found out against his will. It's not good etiquette to ask, so I won't. But I still want to know.
Like a mind-reader, he approaches me after I've dismissed everyone and says, blandly, "Murder."
"Murder," I repeat, my tone level but curious. I slide all my papers together, tap them into an orderly stack against the lectern.
"Yes." The man, I've noticed, tends to fidget. He's twitching his fingers in the air and biting his thumb, but his eyes are as cool and clear as I've ever seen them. "You were wondering what I've done. How I wound up here. Murder. Serial murders, actually."
"And you were caught?" I can't keep the surprise out of my voice, and he rewards me with a lovely, deep-throated laugh.
More soberly, he admits, "I got sloppy. Consequence of habitual drug use. I'm clean, now. Didn't have much choice in the matter."
"What's your name?" I ask quietly. I don't know why I want to know. I shouldn't. The air around us seems to be vibrating with some unspoken something, though, and despite myself I want it. I want to know this man.
He stares at me for so long that I think he isn't going to answer. Finally, he mumbles, "Sherlock Holmes," and I can tell from the look on his face that the words feel foreign in his mouth. I'm reminded acutely of myself, in my first weeks back to civilian life, stammering out, "Wat- uh, John," during introductions. But he's not a soldier, this Sherlock. He's a sociopathic killer.
As he walks away, I watch the line of his back and the set of his shoulders and try to make myself care about the things he's done.
But I don't.
x
He comes to my sermons every week.
Once, he runs an absent hand down the length of his neck and I stumble over my words- "Preserve me, O God, for in You I put my…um…tr-trust"- and have to look away, my face hot. I don't think he did it intentionally; how could he know? (How could he not?) Intentional or not, it doesn't matter. I can't think about anything else.
It shouldn't give me a rush when he hangs back after the sermons. It shouldn't, but it does. "You don't believe in God yourself," I say one day, because it's clearly true and because I have to say something. The steadiness of my voice amazes me. "Why do you come to service?"
"You," he says, and I can't look at him. I can't. I use my trembling fingers to fiddle with the computer, closing out my PowerPoint. As though he imagines I didn't hear him, he says again, "I come for you."
"I don't…" I trail off uselessly, yanking the little jump drive away from the computer and stuffing it in my bag with a frown.
"You interest me," he explains, softly. His eyes dart to the guard near the door before coming back to mine, holding me captive as always. "I like you."
My voice is barely a whisper. "Why?"
Sherlock seems to debate answering me. "You have certain…qualities. If we had met under different circumstances, at some other time and in some other place…" Another fleeting glance at the guard, and then he leans in so close his lips brush the sensitive curve of my ear. "You could have been one of my victims."
I draw in a sharp breath and he's treading out of the room quickly, more quickly than I've seen him move before (and I've never seen him take his time; the man is all manic energy and swift motion), so quickly that I don't have time to assemble anything like a coherent thought until he's long since gone.
x
"You should go," I say stiffly, stuffing my sermon notes back into my bag. Sherlock is leaning his hip against one side of the lectern, apparently amused. It's been one week since I've last seen him.
"You don't actually want me to," he smiles, leaning so that his curls are falling in his face. It's maddening, how much I want to brush them away, and I'm reasonably certain he knows it.
"I really, really do." I slam my bag closed and step back, my hands clenched. "Look, what you said last week? Not good. I should have reported you for that."
"But you didn't." Eyes twinkling, mouth smirking. I have the irrational impulse to kiss that smirk off his face and I hate myself for it.
"No, I didn't," I allow, letting out a slow breath. "Because I don't think…I don't think you meant any harm by it."
"Of course not," Sherlock says, a touch of irritation in his impossibly deep voice. "I could hardly kill you properly in here. No tools, no time, and too many eyes. And with you, Reverend, I'd want it to be perfect."
My heart is pounding for all the wrong reasons. I chance a look at the guard in the doorway, but if he's heard anything of our quiet conversation he's now playing dumb. "You can't just say things like that, Sherlock," I whisper earnestly, leaning towards him. I can feel his warmth, even inches apart, and I'm finding it difficult not to look at his lips.
"Why not?" Sherlock breathes, leaning in as well. We're almost touching. I should step back, but I don't. God help me, I don't. "It arouses you, knowing what I want to do. I can tell."
Too much. His words are too much; they help break the spell. I step back, my throat tight, and shake my head. "Go, Sherlock. You'll be late for lock-in."
He looks at me for a moment with something of an appraising eye before setting his jaw and nodding, once, before slinking away. I don't look at the guard on the way out, but I find it unlikely that he doesn't notice my red ears and shaking breaths.
x
"Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain," I recite, "And washed my hands in innocence." I like reading from Psalms, even now. The men in the room are inattentive, in some cases, or else feverishly focused. I could be reading from Numbers or rehashing the droll tales of the apostles and it would make no difference to the men in this room. Sherlock isn't here. Clearing my throat, I go on, "For all day long I have been plagued, And chastened every morning."
I hang around longer than I need to but Sherlock never comes. It's been three weeks. I wonder if he hasn't been transferred away.
I leave, at last, and each footstep feels heavier than the last.
x
He's back this week, finally, after five weeks of absence. I have no idea what I'm saying during service; it doesn't matter. I'm shaking all over. I can't look at anything or anyone else. Sherlock.
The disturbing truth is this: I missed him.
I find some excuse or pretense to cut my sermon short and dismiss everyone almost ten minutes early, to a great deal of grumbling. Prison life is carefully dictated and scheduled, and the men here don't approve of having their routine mussed. I don't care. None of them matter to me.
"Where have you been?" I hiss as soon as we're (relatively) alone. I know what it sounds like, can hear the desperation that's only too apparent in my voice.
Sherlock hears it, too, of course, because he's wearing a smug little grin. "Solitary," he yawns, leaning up against my lectern like always. Before I can ask him what he did to deserve such a severe punishment, he snaps his gray eyes up to mine and asks, sharply, "Why don't you believe in God? I understand the 'when', that's obvious. I'd say just about the time you got that." His fingers just barely brush the fabric of my black button-down shirt, right over the messy scar on my shoulder. My blood is roaring in my ears so that I can barely hear him as he goes on, "But the 'why', that's much more interesting. You've been a man of faith for a long time, long enough and completely enough that you've made a life of it. You're not a young man so clearly you were in military service for some time, and I imagine most of it if not all of it was spent serving as army chaplain, considering your reluctance to switch careers. So why? Why should this-" again: his fingers, my scar, I'm scarcely breathing "-have affected you so profoundly?"
I have to take a step back and clear my throat to tamp down the buzzing in my veins. I cannot and will not discuss my crisis of faith with anyone, not even him, so I say something that I would never have said if I weren't backed into a metaphorical corner: "Why did you kill all those people?" I looked him up, online. Twenty-three known victims. Scores more suspected. He was brilliant, the police said. Extremely thorough, undeniably careful. Except once. And all it took was one mistake to bring him in.
I don't know how I expected him to react (anger? violence? surprise? disappointment?) but this isn't it. He laughs (I love his laugh, and it's so rare) and folds his arms, looking at me as though I've done a new trick. "I was bored," he says, still smiling. "I spent years helping the police solve murders before I came to the conclusion that committing them was loads more interesting. And, since I knew perfectly well what the Yard was capable of, I found it alarmingly easy to cover my tracks."
"How did you pick your victims?" I blurt, suddenly pink-faced.
Sherlock smiles again, slow and dangerous. "You mean, why would I have chosen you as a victim?"
I steal a glance at the ever-oblivious guard before turning back and nodding gently. "Yes," I breathe, my hands tightening on the lectern.
He steps closer, craning his head so that his mouth is near my ear. "I liked drawing out a man's secrets," he says softly. "A homosexual chaplain experiencing both PTSD and a withdrawal of faith? I suspected you might have a wealth of secrets. And I'm right, aren't I? There are no circumstances under which you would tell me why you lost your faith. Well, none but one."
Again I step back, folding my arms over my chest. "I'm not gay," I mutter uncomfortably, daring another look at the door and then back again. Of all the things he's said, this one irritates me the most. I'm not gay. I just…well. Sometimes I'm weak, that's all.
And again, Sherlock closes the distance between us. "No?" He touches my face, just barely, his fingers dancing along the line of my jaw and I shiver, my eyes falling closed reflexively. When he draws his hand away I feel the loss keenly, almost lean back in towards him and those long, delicate fingers. I open my eyes. My breathing has become harsh; it seems loud enough to fill the entire room. "Rev. Watson," Sherlock whispers, and I interrupt him, breathless: "Call me John."
Sherlock's smile this time is less predatory, more fond. "John," he says, and I can feel the word reverberate down my spine. I'm ashamed of my body's reaction, of the tightening of my trousers and the dryness of my mouth, but I won't step away again. Not this time. "I have been awarded twenty-three consecutive life sentences," he says gently, as though the news will be more painful for me than it ever has been for him. "I will never be paroled. And I feel no remorse for the things I have done. If I were freed, I would kill again. You understand all of this, what it means?"
"Yes." Because I do. It means I'll never be able to touch him, not really. It means that all of this, the rush of chemicals and hormones slamming through my body, is worthless, futile. It means that I'm safe.
I don't want to be safe.
"I have to go," Sherlock says quietly, not without regret. I don't want him to go. I nod.
I watch him leave and it takes all of my strength not to hit something or shout. Instead I pack my things away, my hands trembling, and leave. I sit on the train home with my head in my hands and try to concentrate on my breathing, the way my therapist taught me to do when I'd first come back to London. It doesn't work. My mind keeps going back to him, to Sherlock and his gray eyes. I don't know what I'm going to do. I only know that I have to see him again.