Part 2! Much thanks to my lovely reviewers Bec and WAT2DO-y'all are the best!
Disclamer: See first chapter
BEWARE OF: obnoxious OOC's and mild language. Any critiques/reviews/corrections/etc are greatly appreciated!
"I've grown unreasonably attached to my flatmate," Sherlock said in one whoosh of breath, the words leaving his head to hang black and solid in the air.
"And this is a problem how?" Jade's voice, smooth and low, slid into the air like syrup, disintegrating the letters of Sherlock's statement into dark, dusty particles. Sherlock closed his eyes to relieve some of the pressure of his thoughts, words pressing and tugging at his lips in an agitated rush to get out. It's wrong because I'm a high-functioning sociopath and I'm dangerous and I don't care about people and it's wrong because no one should have to go through what John went through but now I can't let him leave and it's wrong because I'm Sherlock Bloody Holmes and I don't need anyone.
He didn't say any of this, and yet Jade could read it in his eyes and the curve of his lips.
"I heard about the pool," she murmured, "very interesting man, Moriarty. Took a huge risk hosting hostage situation in a public pool; although that's pretty damn tame when you consider he pulled the same stunt in the middle of an intersection."
She glanced at Sherlock from the corner of her eye, petite nose and high, rounded cheekbones highlighted by the fluorescents glowing above them. Sherlock remained silent, his face peaked and pale over whorls of navy-blue pashmina.
"I talked to Mycroft," she prompted, searching Sherlock's eyes for any rogue emotion, "told me everything. He's worried about you, the idiot. Said this was pushing you over the edge."
No response. Sherlock's features were set and unmoving, completely void of expression. He looked ethereal, almost angelic sitting knees-to-chin on the cluttered table-top, his jaw an exquisite line curving up to cheekbones of sliced ivory.
Jade sat unobtrusive and soundless, her legs crossed as Buddha, her face clouded, lacking the inner peace so valued by the Śākyamuni. Sherlock knew she would speak first, knew that she would draw him out and he would only have to follow.
"Who shot him," she whispered. She didn't specify, but Sherlock knew she meant John. Noble, noble John, shot mid-tackle; a bullet meant for Sherlock embedded in his ribs.
"I don't know."
She nodded, letting a knowing 'hmmm' slip through her lips. Sherlock bit down on the inside of his lip, breathing in through his nose. He did not appreciate the way Jade read humanity like one would read a magazine at the dentist: saw through their eyes into their head and deciphered the jumbled scribbling of their thoughts.
He himself could easily predict people, since most of them were the same and therefore lent themselves and their actions to being anticipated, but he couldn't understand them, couldn't make sense of the passions that fueled their movements. It was Jade, solid, steadfast Jade, who had somehow discovered this window of empathy through which she could lay bare any soul and then wrap it back up again. Sherlock had found it in him to be rather jealous of this talent, even more so now that she had the impudence to use it on him.
"It's not your fault, you know, she murmured, placating the detective with warm bronze eyes, "he wasn't shot because of you."
Sherlock smiled, but only with his mouth, his eyes impassive. 'It's not your fault'—textbook response, really. He was unmoved.
"It was my bullet," he said flatly, "John shouldn't have taken it."
Jade chuckled into her cup, dry and cynical. "I'd like to see you tell him that," she dared, and fevered elation flared up in Sherlock's chest. This mouthy reply was what he expected—no, hoped for—not some prearranged slop about not feeling guilty and life being out of his control.
She must've forgotten how to handle him, Sherlock realized—that explained her attempt at shallow, pedestrian advice. She had to readjust, had to remember how to function around her intellectual superior.
"Stop analyzing me, Sherlock."
Jade had flicked him hard in the arm, the fire of fractious thought reflected in her eyes. He turned to her, surprised evident in the trinity of lines between his brows.
"You hit me," he said, more impressed than offended, "why did you hit me?"
Jade rolled her eyes, throwing Sherlock a bored, almost condescending look typical of Mycroft. "You are not allowed to rescind into that transcendent area of your brain when we're talking about personal issues and-or emotions, capiche?"
Her eyes were narrowed and crackling yellow, her lips pursed, but Sherlock was far from intimidated. She had veered into the arena of snarky cerebral banter—whether purposely or by accident—and now he had the higher ground.
"You used the word 'rescind' correctly—I'm impressed—but 'capisce' is not spelled like you think it's spelled," he rendered loftily, regaining control of his poise for the second time that night. He glanced over at Jade, expecting another affected wobbling of the eyes.
What he got, however, was a look of pity, calm and fathomless in its sincerity and depth, so whole-hearted and enveloping it lit the eyes and dimmed the face to leave a retinal glow that ate up pieces of you from the inside.
He had gotten that look from John recently, after he had fallen in asleep on a tray of radioactive beetles. It had frightened him, if that was the right word, the expression exhausting his flatmate's warm, tawny face and hollowing out his sky-blue eyes.
"Stop looking at me like that," he commanded, trying to cool the flush from marring his neck. Jade refused to look away, her eyes mirrored pools of liquid gold and molten shadow. Sherlock could feel them burning into his brain and crinkling the lines of his thought into disorderly squiggles and swirls. This look, this naked expression of pity, was going to rip him raw and leave him bruised and bleeding—
"Sherlock," Jade breathed, speaking his name in sharp, serrated American tones, making it a prism of razor-edged light, "what's wrong?"
She already knew the answer, had known since he had arrived, but she was going to tear it from his throat because that's who she was—a taker, a forcer.
John was not like that, Sherlock realized in a part of his brain that had once again risen above the cacophony of the rest. No, John was different. He was a giver, a persuader, a helper, a protector—so very, very valuable—
"I break people," Sherlock said, flat and detached. The memory of John's face, how he smelled—like tea leaves and musk and wool jumpers and earthy warmth—had distracted him enough so that the words slipped out.
"Didn't break me."
The contradiction shimmered, light yet firm, unbending, in the air. Jade looked somehow relieved by Sherlock's confession, but her face darkened again when Sherlock laughed hollowly.
"You don't break. Trust me, I've tried."
Jade snorted. "Thanks for that," she sniffed, "but I understand. That's how you make friends—don't give me that look, you know it's true."
Of course he knew it was true, and he couldn't help but sneer at the notion that he, Sherlock Bloody Holmes of 221B-is-for-Bloody-Baker St., did not know every strange, sordid, neatly catalogued facet of himself.
What he did not expect, or particularly like, was Jade's intimate knowledge of this precious, soiled piece of self that he kept so carefully hidden. She began to speak as if she was reading off a tablet in Sherlock's head, and he tensed.
"You don't really like people, I know; you think they're fickle, predictable, and finite in so many ways, which is mostly true. But the people that catch you're interest— you can't tell if they're breakable right up front because they're not ordinary, they're special. They throw you for a loop.
"You like that, obviously, but you still have to test them. Even if they intrigue you, you can't be running around with people who are, fundamentally, the same as all those other idiots you can't stand. So you run them through the cycle and see if they crack."
There was a pause, in which Jade glanced over to Sherlock, swishing the remnants of her chocolate around in her cup. Seared by the accuracy of her exposé, he did not return her gaze, his fingers steepled in front his face.
"You have very good taste in people, Sherlock," Jade assured softly, some of the dewy-eyed pity tainting her eyes, "almost everybody came out fine—"
"Victor," Sherlock spoke before Jade could, his eyes stormy, "I broke Victor."
Memories came slick with the name, more smells than pictures: the whiff of a cigar, the pungent smack of hair gel, the muskiness of stiff leather. Victor Trevor—a boy out of another age. Sherlock had worshipped the ground he stood on until the older boy had cracked under the intensity of the love—if love was what the burning, agonizing emotion really was.
"I don't want that to happen to John."
The words left Sherlock's lips as breaths, light and fragile. Jade closed her eyes, restraining the sigh in her throat so as not to overwhelm the ghosted whispers with the thick, humid air of her lungs.
"You are a very strange man, Sherlock," she spoke carefully, each word measured and light-footed, "if you think that not loving John—"
"I don't love John," was Sherlock's quick reply, those wild ocean eyes darting over to Jade with something like disappointment glimmering in the pale irises. She knew better, she should've known better
"Loving someone and being in love with someone are two very different things, Sherlock; pay attention s'il vous plait," Jade argued, veiled frustration simmering in her voice.
She paused a minute, Sherlock mentally thrashing himself for making such an imbecilic remark, and then continued. "As I was saying: you think not loving John will somehow protect him from whatever unpleasantness follows you around. But what you don't get—"
Another pause, this one filled with incredulous laughter from Jade. "What you don't get, is that the very act of not loving John for that specific reason, is you loving John."
Sherlock felt confusion beginning to engulf him again. How could you love someone and yet not love them at the same time? It was impossible, he decided; there was no avenue his consciousness could take that reconciled the two.
Once again, Jade read his thoughts. "Love is a funny thing, Sherlock. It's mistakenly interpreted, often mimicked, and probably the most painful and powerful emotion human beings can feel. But it's worth it—oh lord, Sherlock, it's so worth it."
Sherlock felt himself beginning to crumble. Mazes of cause-and-effect were spreading like a virus through his brain, always coming back into themselves and collapsing into pandemonium—
"Just try it, love," Jade whispered, "just open up a little. It'll kill you if you don't."
There was a very hot pain in Sherlock's chest. Jade's hand, small and brown, was hovering over his palled, long-fingered one, the skin of her palm barely brushing the fine hairs on his knuckles.
He swallowed, shaking himself free from the turmoil of thought. This was something very complicated: a puzzle of sorts that he would have to examine and dissect at a later date. This whole 'loving John' lark was something that would require cautious examination executed over a period of time and aided by a keen brain and a semi-thawed heart. Experimentation would begin presently; for the moment, he would content himself with a cup of very strong black coffee.
"I'd like my coffee now," he said crisply, after taking a thorough breath. Jade looked at him, her concerned eyes mellowed to a mature gold. He raised his brows, broadcasting a message through his gaze. I'm alright. I'll be alright.
"Good," Jade breathed, and then laughed, her whole countenance relaxing. Sherlock was treated to a lightly hummed rendition of 'La Habanera' as she waltzed around the kitchen, throwing on switches willy-nilly and flooding the room with rich, glorious light.
The air was much more awake, Sherlock noticed as the coffee pot began to bubble. He checked his phone, feeling nearly shattered and yet cleansed. There was a text from John (Visitor to see you, come back soon. JW), one from Mycroft (Check your voicemail, you prat. MH), and several from Lestrade, all requesting Sherlock's attention as soon as humanly possible, please and thank you. He grinned, his brain whirring.
"Jade," he called, pulling on his gloves; "I need you to do something for me."
"So, Mycroft's single then?" John asked, vainly attempting to hold back a snicker. Pascal gave a wide-mouthed laugh, revealing straight, porcelain-white teeth decorated with the slim silver line of a retainer.
"Oh yeah. I mean, come on—can you imagine him on an actual date with roses and chocolate and such? He'd do it too well, if you know what I mean; everything would be too perfect."
John nodded, remembering his first date with Sarah. It'd been a far cry from perfection, and that was putting it in a good light, but they were still on for this Thursday—hope springs eternal, he supposed.
"Sherlock still play this?"
Pascal had risen from his chair during John's moment of recollection and was now holding Sherlock's violin. It lay swaddled in its case, a glistening, full-bodied figure of oiled mahogany.
An image rose unbidden to John's mind of Sherlock, clasping the violin to his neck, drawing the bow across the strings as one would slide a knife through butter. He had looked like he was in a trance; eyes closed, mouth parted slightly; and John had tiptoed around the flat on cats' feet, caught between wariness and rapture.
"Oh yeah," he replied, the shrill, nimble strains of Violin Concerto #2 echoing in his ears, "played it last night, in fact."
Pascal hummed knowingly, sliding a long finger over the dark, glossy wood. "He tried to teach me once—I hated it. Took up piano instead, been playing for fifteen years. I'm eighteen, by the way," he added. John raised his eyebrows
"Oh. Oh wow," he said, trying not to sound as surprised as he was. Pascal looked much older, in his twenties, perhaps, and if the knowing expression on the boy's face was any indicator of his thoughts, John was not the only one who had tacked a few extra years onto the younger Holmes age.
"We Holmes's have always looked older than we are," Pascal revealed, "except for Sherlock, who is apparently immortal. I swear, he's going to look the exact same fifty years from now, damn him."
This elicited a giggle from John, who had imagined an eighty-year-old Sherlock looking something like Dick Van Dyke. "Oh, yeah. I mean, the man's four years younger than I am, but he makes it look like a decade."
Pascal set the violin down and returned to his chair, taking a long sip of his tea. After he had finished, he fixed John with a decidedly intrusive stare that was so Sherlockian it sent a shiver up the doctor's spine.
"So," he began, "how exactly did Sherlock rope you into this? You don't seem to be the type to take up with feckless consulting detectives on a lark."
John grinned, shaking his head. He admired Pascal's audacity in asking such a straightforward question, especially one his Uncle Mycroft had rather beat around the bush about, but he was getting rather tired of correcting people's assumptions.
"You know what I think is funny?" he chuckled, "That everyone seems to think Sherlock roped me into this, that he played some little mind games to get me to rent a flat with him and run about after criminals."
He looked up at Pascal, clear blue eyes meeting stormy gray-green ones. "Truth is, he didn't force me into any of this. I chose it. I'd been living a dead man's life before I met Sherlock—same routine day after day with the occasional round of Russian Roulette on the side. It was pointless. Pathetic.
"And then Sherlock came out of nowhere, like some crazy, mad genius, and offered me a life again, a purpose, if you will. I don't see how you could say he forced me into it when only a fool would've turned him down."
He took a deep breath, a little unsettled by the grin on Pascal's face. The boy was opening his mouth to say something when there was a bellow from downstairs.
"John! JOHN!"
It was Sherlock, clomping up the stairs with absolutely no regard for the decorum six o clock in the morning highly deserved. John sighed, rising from his chair and heading for the door of the flat. "Coming, Sherlock."
The door flew open to expose a flushed, exuberant Sherlock and someone completely unexpected—a brown-skinned, curvy sort of woman with a head of long, tousled curls and yellow eyes, wearing jeans and a t-shirt that read YMCMB in large black letters.
"John," Sherlock stormed into the flat, his coat billowing out behind him like a cape, "get your shoes on, we're heading out. I've called Lestrade; he'll meet us at the crime scene. Oh, and this is Jade. Don't make her angry, she'll shoot you and she's almost as good of a shot as you are…"
John sighed, rubbing the heel of his palm against his forehead. "Um, Sherlock, you have a visitor—"
"Of course I have a visitor, John, I brought her with me. Good lord," the detective was in a tizzy, whirling around the room like some sort of Turkish dervish, his eyes alight and settling on Pascal.
"Oh," he said, looking rather displeased with the short blond boy sitting in his chair, "This is what you were talking about. Who sent him here?"
He addressed this to John, who sighed, wishing he was back in bed sipping his tea and reading the papers. "Your brother."
"Which one?" Sherlock demanded, glaring at his flatmate as if this debacle was his fault. The girl, Jade, was snickering under her breath, the weak sunlight highlighting the diamond stud in her nose.
"Mycroft, Sherlock," she spoke, low in tone and definitely American in accent, "Cuthbert never sends you anything."
"No, no he doesn't," Sherlock agreed, making an abrupt about-face and plowing through a stack of misplaced bed linens to arrive at the door again, "He's coming with us, I assume?"
Pascal rose to his feet, grinning. "Of course I am," he answered, setting his tea down on the side table where it joined a host of other empty glasses and mugs.
Sherlock smiled appreciatively. "Good. JOHN! I do not have all day."
"I'm right here, Sherlock," John mumbled, wondering why on earth he was allowing himself to be dragged out of the house for a case this early in the morning, "you don't have to yell."
"But that wouldn't be any fun," Jade whispered, seeming very much at ease with the situation. Of course, if she had earned the rare title of 'friend' from the notoriously friendless Sherlock Holmes, John assumed she was used to this sort of fiasco. John grinned in reply.
"Alright then," Sherlock declared, giving the flat one more once over before tightening his scarf and beginning down the stairs, "A cousin, an American, and the long-suffering John Watson—Lestrade should be very pleased."
Well then. Perhaps we'll end here, perhaps not. Watch and see.