Holmesian Logic Part 2 Chapter 2, a sherlock fanfic

Disclaimer, Rating, Summary, Credits and all Notes: Please see Chapter 1.

Holmesian Logic

Part 2

Chapter 2

For a moment the world seemed to whirly-gig around him but the figure in the doorway remained in place.

Sherlock Holmes…

All upturned greatcoat collar and defined cheekbones himself…and looking remarkably chipper for a bloke who'd swan-dived eighty foot off St. Bart's roof six months back…behind His shoulder, with unwitting irony appearing to be just a disembodied 'head' due to Sherlock's six-feet-plus frame blocking everything from view…

Irene Adler…looking even perkier than Him, particularly for a woman who'd been beheaded by Muslim terrorists in Karachi a year ago.

"Well…this has got to go down as the ultimate Mark Twain obituary moment." The numbness was comfortably familiar – he'd experienced it several times in the service, like in Kandahar when he'd realised a lot of the blood all over his khaki was his own, and that there was a reason his right arm and leg wouldn't move and his right lung had apparently decided to take early retirement from all that moving-in-and-out malarkey.

"John… …"

Sherlock Holmes, actually reduced to monosyllabic? Yes indeed, we are down the rabbit hole and have swigged back the bottle marked 'drink me' in one swallow…

"You need to be careful, Mrs Hudson is downstairs – Mrs Hudson knows," he corrected, as the cheekbones went from clearly outlined to actually sticking out because of facial muscles tightening…delineated, Sherlock would have told him to put in their blog: went from delineated to visibly protruding…as a university educated Englishman John you have a vocabulary of over 500,000 words, so why do you persist in only using the same 500? It baffles me why educationalists in this country despise elitism and excellence and strive for banality and mediocrity. We have one of the most expressive languages on Earth; we are one of only six languages that even have the concept of a Thesaurus or actually needs one – if people want to read your blog you need to get them up to your level of language, not dumb down to some Politically Correct common denominator…

The words of that long-gone semi-forgotten but classic-Sherlock snippy rant echoed inside his head for a second, before the Sherlock here and now parted his lips and spoke new words:

"She yanked open the kitchen door to throw something at No.223's cat as we came in through the back garden…"

"Ah, that explains the clattering I heard from downstairs. What bit it?"

"Her biggest casserole dish – she was wiping it dry at the time and the kitchen floor is tiled. She's gone off to that late night place to buy another one."

And calm herself down from the near heart-attack of opening her back door to what looked like the start of a zombie apocalypse…but if Mrs Hudson knew now…

"How long has Mycroft known?" the sadistic bastard.

"Since I…we…went to see him this morning to...explain…that I…was back."

Yeah, right, that's why you're also stumblingly incoherent for the first time ever and why I've got some prime real estate for sale at a song…in central Kabul. "And unofficially?"

Ah yes, the wince was a merely a slight tightening of the eyes – stress, rather than laughter lines – but still detectable.

"I…needed to use some of Mycroft's…connections…to obtain certain funds and information…he noticed."

And figured it out in about five seconds flat…and never told me…beyond sadistic bastard. "Well your timing is impeccable for killing three birds with one stone – Mrs Hudson, me, and Greg's coming round in half an hour so…"

Sherlock said nothing, but then he didn't really have to.

"Oh, I see. Greg isn't calling around at all now because Greg Lestrade also already knows." The calm numbness considered this admission writ large across Sherlock's face and agreed it had done its bit and could now retire from the field and let others – like insane fury – have a turn.

"He was there - seeing Mycroft this morning when we arrived. Mycroft's secretary was so startled to see me that she didn't say he had someone with him…"

She just stood there pretty much like I am, looking like a stunned goldfish and you, being you, barely even registered she was there because you strode unexpectedly in for full dramatic effect with your swirling coat and your chiselled cheekbones and didn't even slow down as you swung open the door to beard your brother in his den…

"So there was only the one mushroom left…" He let the anger rise, because he deserved to, "Any particular reason for picking today for your re-enactment of Lazarus?"

"It…I've done everything I can to destroy Moriarty's network now…there was no planned day but it wasn't…it wasn't fair to let you…you don't need to do all this packing up…"

"Why?" He said it because he could, and because he meant it, and because, yes, it was sweet, to see the banked fear in the cruel bastard's eyes surge and darken the pale irises from blue to near black, to see that tiny flinch, instantly controlled though it was, to see the slight flush across the skin drawn taut across those cheekbones drain to a chalk white pallor, to see the throat move in a convulsive swallow as the lips soundlessly framed what might have been one word – John…

And it was enough.

Because Irene Adler, stood there as still and silent as a shop window mannequin, had been right – there was nothing sexual in their relationship, but they were still a couple…only right now it felt more like Morecambe and Wise than King David and Prince Jonathan…actually it felt more like Julius Caesar and Brutus.

So…he straightened his spine into parade rest and drew in a deep breath; the sharp slicing gesture of his hand cut off whatever Sherlock had been about to say. He enunciated to be quite clear: "You. Are. An. Idiot."

Those eyes closed tight, for a single fraction of a moment, and the flush came back to those damn cheekbones and the throat moved in another less pronounced swallow…but at least the berk was too smart to smile.

"John…"

"Ah." He pointed his finger – Mother's Finger, the 'wagging finger', the Finger of Power, the Finger of Thou Shalt Not – at the miscreant's chest. "You are going to go downstairs and make me the best mug of tea in the history of Britain. Then you are going to bring it back up here, and we are going to sit down, and have a little chat."

"Uh…"

"Now, Sherlock." He channelled a bit of the most 'you 'orrible little excuse for an yuman bean you' Regimental Sergeant Major he'd ever met and in addition was pleased with being able to pull off hissing as a command a word with no 's' in it.

"Tea." Sherlock turned and went back downstairs with a sort of blank look on his face, as if relieved to be able to start off small and build up to the complicated bits…

Huh…which now left him and the ultimate femme fatale to make conversation across the width of the room?

Well at least one question he didn't need to ask; now Sherlock had moved from standing in front of her: that outfit was obviously not concealing his Browning…it was a 'restrained' slate-blue-grey-exactly-matching-my-eyes version of that white dress and little shrug jacket thing by Steve McQueen…no hang on – dead alcoholic macho BS actor –

…Alexander McQueen - dead druggie gay fashionista – that from newspaper photos had clearly been her favourite outfit back when she had been an oxymoronic 'respectable prostitute' in Belgravia, before thinking she could flick Sherlock's nose and get away with it… 'On the peg' it had probably looked deceptively ideal to convey 'discreet and demure modesty'…on her it was so figure-hugging he was surprised it didn't make breathing an optional extra…which meant the big lug currently off stage must have put the Browning in one of his coat pockets …because Sherlock had thought...as if he would really have ever used it to…the Muppet.

"Thank you."

He looked up sharply; he thought they'd instantly come to some psychic agreement to study the carpet and pretend each other wasn't there for the duration.

"For not making him beg."

Seriously? "Of course not. That's your job, as I remember."

She didn't avert that damn dissecting gaze. "He would have. He will, if that's what you demand, to make you stay."

I've never begged for mercy in my life…

As if she heard the echo of that long ago statement made in this very room, she said softly, "You're not a mushroom, John. You were last not because you were the least but because you were the most -"

"Important? Really? Let's see – Molly, you, Mycroft, Lestrade, Mrs Hudson and next door's cat knew before I did. I'm finding that a bit hard to take right now."

She didn't flinch or flush or do anything but gaze at him with annoyingly analytical calm. "You know him. He's not afraid of anything…but you. Every day for these past six months…he was so scared of having to face you, having to admit his deception after all what you've been through on your own these past months and he practically had a panic attack every time you sat there in that armchair gazing at Moriarty's shrivelled-up I.O.U. apple nursing a tumbler far too full of Scotch in one hand and that blasted Browning in the other…"

Hand…"It was your hand."

Automatically she looked down at the appendages in question – blood red nails to perfectly complement the lipstick, but now sporting a short, practical trim rather than previous semi-talons, indicating a more active lifestyle than puttering around a Belgravia mansion in her skivvies – very nice, very expensive skivvies admittedly – providing a bit of 'recreational scolding' to the cognoscenti of that kink. On one wrist she sported a 'silver' (he'd bet that metal was really Platinum) oval-faced watch, and on one finger a single ring – pinkie-fingernail size teardrop diamond - that expertly trod that fine line been exquisite and exclusive and vulgar and tasteless.

"Just before I…blacked out..." with a little help from a non-accidental cyclist, I bet, "that hand pulled mine away from…Sherlock's. Your nails were unvarnished, mind…to help you stay incognito in the crowd? Returning his favour from Karachi I take it?"

"He needed to disappear completely so he could ensure Moriarty's web was as thoroughly destroyed as he could possibly achieve…Moriarty's lot even tried to infiltrate the homeless network, a few weeks after…Sherlock…when they thought of it…I wasn't on anybody's radar at all since I'd been universally accepted as dead half a year already by then…"

"You decided to help out the amateur living dead bloke…Of course," the notion came to him, "a beautiful woman wandering around on her own attracts attention and a man on his own attracts suspicion – and attention, with those cheekbones. But a man and woman together, well, welcome to 'everywhere' on the planet..." the sixth type of people who could be invisible in plain sight…

She nodded, briefly, showing a flattering lack of surprise at his acumen.

"Especially if you were clever enough to…" he paused and squinted rather obviously at her unadorned right hand, where, yes indeed, there were narrow bands of red skin and faint thin marks around the base of the third finger, as if more than one small circular, and a little tightly ill-fitting 'make-do' object had been put on and removed several times. "…Yes, add a trio of rings to your third finger: wedding band, engagement ring, eternity ring - and its hello 'Mr and Mrs Smith', a la Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie."

"Yes…we swapped bold for bland, Prada for Primark and Gucci for The GAP. Jeans, T-shirts and trainers instead of suits, haute couture and kitten heels. Besides the radical change of wardrobe we also made sure we always went out and about together not alone and it worked so well that even Moriarty's…hirelings…who had had Sherlock's face memorised, just looked right past us when we were three feet away – not that they looked for very long, fortunately – the dead don't pay well, and can't be harassed if they stiff you for your salary."

He didn't even nod as his brain stuck at - Sherlock in sweatpants? "Crikey…you didn't go native, you went suburban…"

Now she shuddered as if at the memory of Dorothy Perkins and Next. "Yes."

"Are there photos? Footage? YouTube?" he couldn't resist – the mind boggled at the thought of her slutted up like a cast member from TOWIE and him in a football shirt and maybe even…shell-suit bottoms? Ah…England is the most surveilled country in the world; Mycroft and his 'be afraid' CCTV camera trick taught me that in Brixton…please let there be footage…ah, dear, dear Mycroft, I'll drop by soon.

She shuddered again, and not theatrically. "No."

"So…what now? Triangulated domesticity? We all make like an episode of Friends with a halved cast roster due to 'the cuts'? Me and Sherlock and his booty call makes three?" he was deliberately impolite – she could take it, she was a dominatrix!

She actually chuckled for a moment. "God, no…"

Then she became serious – proper serious, like in Battersea, when she had actually expected him to be okay with what she'd put Sherlock through…what Sherlock had now put him through…

"No, John. For us, familiarity breeds….mundanity. Being like any ordinary couple would…"

"I get it." he did not need to know the inner workings of their 'relationship' over the past six months, thank you very much.

"I do get it," he cut her some slack as he saw the anxiety in her eyes – not quite as composed as she was projecting.

Given how things had ended and what she'd pulled on Sherlock last time, in any other circumstances he would have genuinely been happy to send her swimming in the Thames in concrete Laboutins. But he could unbend a little, particularly as he knew exactly what dealing with a 'full on' Sherlock 24/7 for months on end was like…he was half-tempted to suggest they form a support group 'Survivors of Sherlock', because he suspected she'd seriously consider it.

"Back when I was…overseas…" no need to admit he'd done more than one 'black ops'/plausible deniability/tell-you-but-I'd-have-to-kill-you mission, "I, uh…'met' a few International Special Forces teams – Mossad, FSB, the Deuxieme Bureau and the Yanks. I got to know a few U.S. Navy SEALs quite well. Their divorce rate is astronomical for obvious reasons…You can't share your life with someone if you can't share your life experiences with them…But one guy had got married at like 22 and had just done their 15th anniversary. Half his mates claimed he was drugging his missus…"

"And they couldn't have said themselves whether they were entirely joking in that semi-belief," she murmured, showing an immediate understanding of the subtext that had taken him about ten minutes to work out.

She didn't do anything so plebeian as to shrug when he raised his eyebrows but her shoulders made an infinitesimal tremor. "I have a PhD in Human Psychology and an MA in Behavioural Pyschoanalytics, John. The basis of all consensual sexual acts – that involve more than one participant who can think for him or herself at any rate – is nothing to do with control, and everything to do with trust. A Professor Andrew Rose wrote the standard theses on the subject within BDSM and BDSD cultures if you ever…need to research…"

He didn't respond verbally but didn't give her a look of repulsed incredulity because he was neither repulsed nor incredulous – given the bizarreness of some of the cases he and Sherlock had been involved in – or rather than Sherlock had dragged him into – BDSM was quite mainstream in comparison…

Probably understanding that all too well, she went on, "To be a successful Dom…to be allowed to be a Dominant or a Dominatrix at all in the BDSM culture requires intensive training to produce an excellent grasp of human psychology and psychoanalysis that is above all else applied inwards to his or her own flaws not outwards to his or her Sub's perceived failings. A Dom who can recognise his or her own inner turmoil is more capable of being able to take their Sub into subspace – sub 'headspace' - because he or she really understands the subtle nuances of strong emotion, of helplessness, and what that feeling and being so does to a person psychologically and emotionally. A Dom who is able to admit he or she can't control everything is a far better Dom and safer person than one who is so arrogant as to believe he or she can control anything they encounter. A Dom who doesn't or refuses to understand the importance of understanding the intellectual and emotional context of dominant and submissive motivation, reciprocity, of emotional responses and psychological positive and negative stress triggers…why person A reacts to X with B and why person C responds to Y by D instead…is a danger to him or herself and everyone around them, physically, psychologically and emotionally."

"I get that…being restrained, even if it's only in 'play' means the person being restrained needs to trust the one doing the restraining absolutely, especially in him or her being able to read the situation properly and stop or change the situation if necessary." He acknowledged, even though BDSM/BDSD - Bondage, Dominance, Submission and Discipline/Bondage, Dominance, Sadomasochism and Discipline – had never been his thing, certainly not after a childhood of verbal conflict and physical altercations with his sister – his older, taller, heavier, stronger, faster sister.

He offered, "An Army psychiatrist friend of mine, who was as far as I know is still 'in' BDSM culture as a Sub, and who also has a civilian Police Consultant/Liaison role between those 'in the life' and police investigations, once told me that, 'it takes far more strength to kneel before someone than it does to stand beside them, and far more self-knowledge and humility to know, and more importantly accept, what you can't control to avoid losing control at the worst moment. One of the reasons I'm so secure in my lifestyle is that this culture is very good at policing itself – and enforcing the sort of rubber hoses in the middle of the night punishments for those who transgress – because we can't afford otherwise. It only takes one rogue Dom – or too-sub Sub – who let things get out of hand – to give the press and the meddlers and psychobabblers half-truths to use to vilify us in the media. Some background in the theoretical psychology research disciplines – no pun intended, Watson, mate – is a big plus for anyone trying out or in the life already.'"

Her expression was tinged with relief at his comprehension, "Your Army friend was right. You need to understand first the mindset of other people; reputation and trust are everything in our world – there are abusers and mentally unstable who think they can use the 'Dom' label as a cover or an excuse for domestic violence or emotional-psychological abuse of others, and there are faux Subs who have experienced some trauma who should be in counselling or therapy…"

"And who are the ones who have the Big Sub-Culture Freak Out and go running to the police or the press about being victims because they can't handle their own fake coping non-coping mechanisms when those suddenly stop working, often at the worst possible moment for them to have a psychotic break?" he put in shrewdly.

"Yes. That's why the second key criterion is to understand your own psychology – the reason BDSM relationships tend to last is because it is very strongly encouraged good practice that everything be discussed in embarrassing detail, and committed to an official typed-up contract, signed by both Dom and Sub, preferably in the presence of and witnessed by experienced lifestyle practitioners so everyone can prove who agreed to what and not, before anything gets physical or sexual – safe, sane and consensual." A wry smile curved her perfect blood-red lips, "The irony is that the Bible forbidding sex before marriage actually works best – delaying sexual relations with each other for at least six months after you start dating is one of the few things that significantly increases the chances that the relationship will last."

"Sure, once you remove sex from the equation and the commensurate hormone flood clouding reason and judgement, you tend to be a lot more honest with each other. I noticed in…the service…someone once told me that, 'at its heart, every adult relationship you have will be about friendship, or the lack of it. Concentrate on making the woman your friend before your lover and you'll have a much greater chance of a HEA..' Happy Ever After, I mean. I noticed that the guys who met someone online and wrote letters and Skyped and emailed over a period of six months or over a year before actually meeting up in person had a much better chance of making the relationship work long-term, because they usually ended up having all the Deep and Meaningful conversations and the impossibility of sex took the pressure off and helped them to really understood their compatibility or lack thereof way before they started bumping uglies and complicating the issue."

"That's the nature of BDSM culture. To ignore a Safeword or to transgress the hard limits set by both parties is an absolute taboo, an unforgivable 'no'. We have to be able to trust each other to honour trust, so everything is hammered out in the cold light of day, sobriety and logic and made legally binding by contract. To do that people need to know their partner and him or herself, so the need to be a Sub, or a Dom, or a Sub in some situations and a Dom in others, to leave their D/s relationship strictly in the bedroom or be practitioners twenty-four-seven, is what everyone who comes into the life is taught," a smile flashed across her face, "long before anyone gets to the whips, chains and pink furry handcuffs."

Good grief, are we actually teetering on the edge of Having a Moment, here?

He moved on hastily, "A week or so later, I sort of made sure I got chatting to his wife at this networking thing, and maybe it's the doctor thing about me but she let slip…she was a very private person. She'd not had one of those horrendous misery-lit childhoods or anything," he waved a hand to indicate the current literary fashion for memoirs by those celebrities unfortunate enough to have parents and-stroke-or wider families that had been mad, or bad, or sad, or various combinations of all three, "but she'd been orphaned at a young age and taken in by her aunt and uncle with four kids of their own and minimum wage jobs. She'd had to survive on her own resourcefulness as a kid, and the reason their marriage worked – for her – was because it wasn't normal, was because he was away so often – the thought of him being there all the time gave her claustrophobic anxiety attacks…She was already planning for when he had to switch from active service to desk-duty when he had to ice his knees or don spectacles or whatever, so he still wouldn't be around all the time. She genuinely loved him, but she couldn't have handled what people would consider a 'normal', 'typical', 'ordinary' marriage…Suburban would destroy…what you have."

"Yes." She looked relieved at his understanding. "But from time to time…"

"You will be around, when he needs you." It came out like an order, because it was one and she inclined her head in acknowledgement.

From downstairs there came a sort of whump-click-rattle-bop-thunk sequence, as if someone holding a tea tray with both hands was using their arse-hip-elbow-foot to open the connecting door from 221A at the bottom of the stairs…and when he looked back again there was nothing there except for a faint after scent of delicate perfume and the far door leading to the back stairs was slightly ajar…

Continued in Chapter 3

Author's note:

The two novels referenced are Power Exchange and Safeword by A.J. Rose, which incorporate within the story structure a detailed psychology of the BDSM/D lifestyle/cultures. Please note both novels are crime/thriller/romance cross-genres and if you prefer your murder mysteries to be more Miss Marple (little grey cells) than Dirty Harry (blood-drenched gore) and your romance to be M/F not M/M you may want to avoid them.

NB – In reference to the above two novels and BDSM and BDSD cultures, I have very little knowledge of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy; whilst E.L. James' success as a middle-aged 'ordinary' fan-fiction writer is nice to see to us fellow fan-fiction writers, the books have a great deal of technical issues in the writing and needed a great deal more editing and rewriting in terms of plot and characterisation to bring them up to standard as original fiction (they were originally Twilight series fan-fiction based on two minor characters in the books).

As I understand it, FSoG is not classed as BDSM romance because the heroine is not a 'true' submissive. She submits only to please her lover, rather than being a Sub by choice, and a great many people have protested about 'the seriously psychologically disturbed Christian Grey' as the hero.

I suspect that in real BDSM culture, Grey would be rejected as an abusive individual using to make the 'Dom' label a cover or disguise for sexual and physical violence of women and that the female lead would be rejected as a faux Sub who needed counselling and therapy rather than sex games. However, I know nothing of the culture and do not presume to speak for practitioners, so I am happy to be corrected in any errors.