(A/N : looks like this is turning into a three-part story after all! You won't have to wait too long for the epilogue however, I'm two-third through with it.)
Chapter 2
« No, no, dear, not at all » says the Napoleon of Baker Street, putting up a hand to her curlered hair. « Come inside and I'll see what I can do. Bubble, babble, beetle, battle, boobs. You don't mind if I keep practising ? »
« Practising ? »
« My LipGym, dear. Fickle, pickle, tickle, buckle, boobs. So much cheaper than Botox, and it's pepped up my vocabulary level no end. Now, was it Bacardi you said you wanted ? »
She clicks on her kitchen lights and John, not for the first time since he's moved in, feels a soft twinge of longing. Mrs Hudson's kitchen reminds him of a Matryoshka doll, wooden and coloured with a glint of copper here and there, and like the doll it shelters a run of smaller, invisible kitchens, nested in John's memories of a time when food and warmth were not liabilities. Granted, his mum never thought of beadstitching Elton John's face on a teacosy, and the potted basil rubbing sides with the flour pot bears a close resemblance to...
« Pot, pat, put, putter, butter, boobs. Oh love, I'm sorry. No Baccardi. I think that last tot went in the rum cake for the Vicars and Tarts Party. »
John blinks.
« The Church Cake Raffle, dear. Marie Turner does like her little joke. Of course, if it's grog he wants we could try the Costa Rican version. Paddle, poodle, beadle, boobs. Now where did I put my Evergreen ? »
Pot and Evergreen – John makes a mental note to avoid all mention of Mrs Hudson's urban gardening at New Scotland Yard while the other John blinks back a beady eye. « Could be a lit-tle strongish, Mrs H. What about a drop of scotch? With lemon juice and hot water ? »
His landlady nods vigorously, shoving the Evergreen back in place. « Quite right, dear. I'm glad we agree – what the boy needs, really needs, is a hot Teddy. »
John, that man among men, is past the blinking stage. Instead, he finds a hot blush creeping up his neck column. « They call it a toddy nowadays, Mrs H. »
« Potato, potayto » Mrs H. replies pertly, putting the kettle on. She selects a king-sized cup with Little Miss Sunshine's freckled happy face on it and pours a dollop of scotch before squeezing half a lemon and jiggling the sugarbowl for good measure. « A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go round, the medecing go... Goggles, google, goofy, goody-goody. Here you are, love. Good luck. »
He stills, holding the fuming cup in both hands. But she is already closing her door on him, her kind smile a reminder that zaniness can be uncomfortably next to canniness. John straightens his shoulders and plunges back into the dark pit of stairs.
Their kitchen is nothing like the warm brotherhood of things he's left behind. It smells of methanal and tea leaves seeped once too many, and three drawers have to be prised open before John locates the paracetamol. He sets it next to the mug, steps back into the living room for tonight's selected weapon, loads it carefully and slips it in his jeans' back pocket.
Two minutes later, armed and dangerous, he is pushing Sherlock's door open with his foot.
Rooms, it should be observed, change their skin at night.
(Now for the worse, now the better. John's old room became a trap, an unimaginative purgatory, a lazar house at the first crack of dark. He still remembers how he turned that white lampshade on and off, because no light suffocated him, but light, when it came, splayed apart on the wall in the shape of an empty hourglass – and when John could no longer take the sight and jerked the curtains open, all they showed was through a glass, darkly.)
His new room has tartan apple green curtains. It changes into home at night.
Sherlock's room... is known to John by day. It still happens that Sherlock asks for things to be fetched and that John stops long enough in his room to acknowledge it for the clear mad space it is, a biggish version of Sherlock's skull (his, not the friend up the fireplace). For Sherlock's room is literally papered with papers, scripts and scraps and graphs and photographs, and Belknap's arpeggios for beginners bouncing across the wardrobe pannel like an ant family on a Benzedrine high. To John's untrained eye, Sherlock's room looks like the love child of a hard disk and a Rohrschach test, and he usually ends up leaning his forehead against the one wall left a salutary white for Sherlock to focus at nap-time. (« Zen masters are known to practise before a bare wall. » - « ... But wait, isn't Zen supposed to free you from thinking ? » - « Oh, shut up, John. »)
Thus, the room at day. Tonight, it looks different. For one thing, Sherlock's bedside lamp has a parchment shade that doesn't burn white, but casts an arc of pale blurry gold over the bedhead. It makes the room simpler by shoving the walls and their scrabble of data back into the shade. The shadows clear a way to the bed for John, and in the bed is Sherlock, clad in shabby pajamas and already taking a perfunctory – « Whisky » – sniff at Little Miss Sunshine.
« Spot on, Einstein. » John releases the mug into Sherlock's hands, dropping the paracetamol on the duvet. « Thank your stars you've been spared the ride to Costa Rica. And if you're set on binging yourself, try this first. You don't want to end up the wrong side of raffled, my friend. »
Sherlock's eyebrows knit over the mug rim, but he is too busy drinking his hot toddy to reply. By the time he's dosed and fluidized, John is settled on the edge of the bed and the light is curving softly around the two of them. In the golden blur, Sherlock's fine-boned face as he hands John the empty mug looks the slightest bit hazy – flesh made tender by the whisky's benign warmth.
« Don't go. »
Quiet words, hardly impressing the speaker's will upon the air, but John nods into the light. « Not on my agenda » he says quietly.
Sherlock's head tilts back upon his pillow as he shuts his eyes.
Slowly, exactly, John's left hand steals round to rest on his jeans' back pocket and take out his mobile. He brushes his thumb once across the screen before slipping it back. Then he crosses his hands on his lap and listens to Sherlock's slightly laboured breath for the next minute.
« Jean. » The name comes out in a surprised, happy huff of breath as Sherlock's eyelids flick open. « Pourquoi n'es-tu pas venu avant ? Il est tard maintenant."
The first word alone is familiar, though John's current feeling is that he would understand if Sherlock called out his name in Inuit. If he never even spoke but raised this face to him, pupils flushed dark and dilated as if they wanted to take all of John in custody.
John finds he is already responding in the flesh and clasps his hands tighter on his lap
« Tu as l'air fatigué. Tellement tendu, ces jours-ci, je sais bien. Je te cause du souci, hein ? » Oh god, now he's smiling. Not his typical half-measure, solitary mouth corner angling up as if tugged from high on by some clever fisherman. No, Sherlock is giving John the full benefit of a buoyant, double-dimpling, eye-crinkling smile under his shock of curls. « Regarde comme tu crispes ta bouche. Et tu ne te lèches plus les lèvres. Tu te lèches toujours la bouche aux moments où tu hésites. »
The words are yet an enigma. And somehow the enigma has turned a worse torment, because French is such a physical language to John's ear, its ebb and flow rougher at the edge but rippling with overt sensuousness. So that while Sherlock could be merely ordering a fresh batch of disjecta membra for Christmas —
« J'ai mémorisé sa forme, mais ça n'est pas assez. Je ne sais pas ce qu'elle donne sous mes doigts, sous mes paumes. Sous ma langue. Ah, Jean, si tu voulais... »
— what John visualizes is Sherlock's mouth, coated with warmth and sugar and wet nakedness. Oh, and wetting his lips now, never pausing in speech, and John gives up all pretense at understanding. He is, after all, trusting the words to his Nokia (poor Clara's high-priced gift, complete with a Voice Memo application) and can let them wash over him, raising pulse points in his throat, his groin, his heart.
« Si tu voulais » Sherlock repeats tiredly, and the light seems to fade from his eyes just as John leans forward to peel the duvet off the slim shoulders radiating warmth through several layers of cotton. He is close enough to smell Mrs Hudson's single malt on Sherlock and still mid-gesture. This is wrong. This is Sherlock off-limits, Sherlock fevered, Sherlock foreign. He re-directs his arm and switches off the lamp.
There is no more golden curve. John bends to drop a quick valediction kiss on the tangled head.
« I'll see us through this » he tells Sherlock. Silence answers as he grabs the empty cup on the bedside table. The walls are swarming with minuscule signs, larva-like, unreadable. John leaves the door half-ajar.
[Jean. Pourquoi n'es-tu pas venu avant? Il est tard maintenant: John. Why didn't you come before? It's late now.
Tu as l'air fatigué. Tellement tendu, ces derniers jours, je sais bien. Je te cause du souci, hein ? You look tired. You've been so tense, these days, I know. I'm the reason you worry, right?
Regarde comme tu crispes ta bouche. Et tu ne te lèches plus les lèvres. Tu te lèches toujours la bouche quand tu hésites Look how contracted your mouth is. And you no longer lick your lips. You always lick them when you feel hesitant.
J'ai mémorisé sa forme, mais ça ne suffit. Je ne sais pas ce qu'elle donne sous mes doigts, sous ma paume. Contre ma langue. Ah, Jean, tu n'aurais qu'un mot à dire... I've committed its shape to memory but that's not enough. I don't know the feel of it under my fingers, my palm. Pressed to my tongue. Ah, John, just say the word...]
The new day is its ordinary wintry self. John pours them tea.
« Feel more rested? »
Sherlock's voice is hoarse as he answers. « I seem to have acquired a sore throat overnight. And my mouth feels all — furry. I — » He pauses. « Whisky. Of course. Diluted, however – mug, no, cup, telling white circle on my table. You took the cup back, didn't check for the mark. »
« There's always something » John says lightly.
Sherlock, however, is drumming two fingers on the tabletop. « So. Did I— »
« Yes. »
« And — did you — » Hoarse voice caught speechless. White face taut with that strange inbred defence, but John knows better by now than to trust Sherlock's appearances when sober. He puts his own cup down and rises, letting his friend see the resolve in his eyes before he smiles. And even then, waits for Sherlock to answer the smile, if not the resolve, with his own trademark lopsided grin.
« Not — yet. »
Ten minutes later, still smiling, he is flagging a cab and directing it to Westminster.
« John! Come over here - the very man I need! »
Eight thirty a.m., and the Homicide section has never been so alive. Lestrade is no exception, hailing John vigorously across the bustle of early morning policemen. « Say, how old are you ? »
John grabs the chair facing the DI's desk, currently rustling with a pellmell of papers. He spares them a chin nod. « Christmas lists from your team ? »
« They wish. No, Budget has seen the light and is introducing us poor sods to... » - Lestrade squints malevolently at the whey-coloured sheet flattened under his palm - « ... previsional result analysis. Your age, please. »
« Thirty-four. Why ? »
« Perfect. » Lestrade's ballpoint pen jabs a few vicious strokes at the form. « You've just given me my clearance rate for 2013. Mind you hold Sherlock to your word when it comes. » A few more boxes are checked before the filler sets down his pen. « Speaking of which, where's our bright boy ? If he's sent you for another cold case, point him to the break room. Coffee distributor's blown a fuse and is serving bloody iced Arabica all around. We could do with a spot of genius here, preferably before 2013. »
John shakes his head. « He's not with me, Greg. I've come to see you because I — well. I need some help. » There's a touch of concern in the tobacco-coloured eyes and John raises his hand quickly. « No, nothing to do with money. I'm doing fine on this front. No, I need you because — because I need someone who can speak French. »
« And you've hiked the whole way to consult me ? I'm flattered, but — come on, John, you have an expert at home. Don't tell me he's never mentioned his French grandma? Used to spend all his summers as a teen at her place, up to his eighteenth year. » Lestrade hesitates, pushing the form aside with a sigh. « At least that's what he told me in circumstances – well, it wasn't exactly a happy hour. But those summers... I guess they were the only time he was truly happy as a kid. »
And this, John thinks, could well explain that. What's more of a quizz is how he is going to explain « that » to Lestrade. He takes out his mobile and sets it on the table. Play straight is the best option here, and to hell with semantic niceties.
« Here's the thing » he says, and launches upon a stoic confession. Not an easy task, that; not with Lestrade's quiet eyes on him, still warm yet somehow keeping warmth on probation as the tale reaches back into last night and John's shifty course of action. But John soldiers on. He knows who is facing him across the expanse of hard oak – a man good enough in his own estimation to grace an old-time morality play, yet a man of his day; a warm-hearted realist, who has shown his unflinching concern for Sherlock in drugs busts and lies by omission (as John's Sig, this elusive witness to the defence, could testify).
« So yeah... » - John lowers his voice, though the office is sound-proof enough for its transparent walls – « ... basically, I'm asking you to translate a private conversation recorded on the sly and under the influence. Which is probably illicit and, morally speaking, downright crappy. But I don't see what else I can do. And it all boils down to trust issues, right ? »
Lestrade doesn't answer.
« I'm trusting him. I'm trusting this is not one of his « little tricks », to quote a common acquaintance – not a game, not an experiment on the resident guinea-pig's gullibility. I'm also trusting you not to use this against him, and I'm asking you to do the same. He wants something of me, Greg, and I'm ready to give it, whatever it takes, only... Houston, we have a bug! He's using the booze as a password for us to hack into whatever emotional storage he's got compacted here, but it's no use at all if it comes with a program filter. So all I can say, and I'll say it this once before you kick me out, is, trust me, please. With him. With this. And please help us. »
Still no answer, and John braces himself to stare back into Lestrade's steady eyes. He has counted up to twenty-nine when Greg nods to no one in particular and stretches out a hand over the paperwork.
« Okay, gimme. »
(TBC)
