In an hour, they are loaded into a small gray Ford Focus, driving in silence away from the bustle and gray skies of London. John stares out the window and watches streaks of rain mingle on the glass, racing down into other connecting streams and obscuring his vision of the blurry greenery rushing past.
He has said little to nothing to Sherlock, and plans not to speak to him for quite a while, though this does not seem to deter Sherlock from starting up a one-sided conversation.
"Sebastian Moran," he says after a while, calmly, "A sniper for the British special forces." He flicks a glance at John's expression, but can only see the back of his head and the way his hand grips the leg of his trousers at the sound of Sherlock's voice.
"Dishonorably discharged for an unknown scandal sometime in the early nineteen-nineties, he was enlisted by Moriarty as an assassin, and quite an able one at that. His list of kills runs on for miles." He stops, waits for some sort of input, some sort of understanding that John cannot hope to deliver. "John, are you listening to me?"
"Mm," John acknowledges.
Sherlock frowns, deep lines of confusion etching themselves between his eyes. "He blames me for Moriarty's death," he explains. "The loss of his income apparently has hit hard since he has few other connections. Moriarty has been his sole employer for-"
"And this has what to do with me and why you faked your own death for three years?" John cuts in sharply. "Stop the car, Sherlock, I think I'm going to be sick." His voice is guttural, disgusted, and dry. His taut muscles ache from being so cramped with what little restraint remained to keep John from trying to throttle Sherlock again.
John is not the least bit surprised that Sherlock merely hands him a plastic bag fished from somewhere between the seats. "It will have to do," he says in answer to John's sidelong glare. But the dirty blonde forces his hand by reaching for the door and letting the wing fly open.
Sherlock swears and the car swerves, hydroplaning somewhat as the detective attempts to regain control on the slick road. He careens to a stop, facing back the way they came and white-knuckling the steering wheel. He looked quite shocked that John had been ready to leap out of the vehicle just to get away from him. Another car screeches past them blaring its horn, windshield wipers throwing torrents of water into John's face as he unbuckles himself and all but throws himself from the seat.
He trudges down into the ditch on the side of the highway and hunkers down as if he were holing himself up in some old trench to think. He sits, not caring that his trousers, his shirt- everything, now- is soaked through. He feels the damp in his bones, he feels soggy and weak. The scorching heat of his fury meets with the icy chill of the rain, and he shivers at the contrast. He tries to control his breathing, but it comes out in brusque puffs, like he's just stepped out naked into the snow.
His fingers curl around the wet blades of grass beneath him. Emerald green, smooth- and oh so delicately rooted. He tears out clumps of saturated earth and presses his fingers into the dirt, sinking them as far as they would go, reaching for the core of the world. Because John Watson's world had been turned upside down and then inverted again, wreaking having with his equilibrium and leaving him feeling permanently tilted.
He knows who Sebastian Moran is, but he doesn't care. He doesn't want to listen to Sherlock recite what would undoubtedly be the most in-depth and complete compilation of Moran's timeline, and he doesn't want to be cooped up in a car with him just now. He hears Sherlock calling him, seeming puzzled and frustrated. John pushes himself up off the ground, straightens his clothes, and starts walking down the long, open highway.
"What do you think you're doing?" Sherlock asks as he pulls up beside him, letting the car crawl slowly to match John's pace.
"Walking."
"So I had assumed. Where are you going?"
"If I wanted you to follow, I'd tell you."
"It's pouring rain, John."
"Wonderful deduction, Sherlock."
The detective is stumped. He sucks his bottom lip and bites down on it in frustration, a firm scowl overtaking his sharp features. "John, I don't think you realize the danger-"
John laughs bitterly. Danger? Welcome back, he thinks. His life has been so impossibly dull. But that doesn't mean he's going to get back into the car with Sherlock, oh no. "Danger is good, Sherlock. Sometimes, danger keeps you alive." He keeps walking, his shoulders stiff, his eyes straight ahead. "I can deal with danger, with our normal bollocks. But do you know what I can't deal with, Sherlock?"
"What?" Sherlock snaps irritably. "My driving?"
"You-!" John shouts, then catches himself, reins in his anger, and pinches the bridge of his nose with his chin touching his chest. "Mmm," he groans quietly, taking a breath. He has stopped walking. Sherlock waits for him to continue, but when John glances over at him there is something injured on the detective's expression. Of course, it disappears once Sherlock realizes that his expression is betraying him.
"Me? Altogether?" Sherlock says in his low rumble. John hears the snide comment coming on even before Sherlock can utter it, and he shakes his head and interrupts loudly over the rain.
"I think you should leave me alone for a while, all right? I can find my way from here. I'll hitch or something."
Incredulous, Sherlock bites back, "You'll sooner die of pneumonia, and what good will you be to me then?"
"I didn't seem any good to you before. You've apparently done well enough, haven't you? Back from the dead and all." John's voice is deceptively light and agreeable. "I can't imagine how you got yourself out of that one. Tricking God, I joke about it, but-"
Sherlock stops him. "Why do you assume I'd have gone to Heaven?" he asks evenly. He's out of the car now, the collar of his coat up against his cheeks. He ducks his head against the rain and shoves his hands into his pockets.
John snorts and walks further down the highway. Sherlock follows.
"Leave me alone or I might punch you." he warns. Sherlock, as usual, doesn't seem to hear him. John is secretly pleased that he's being pursued- though he might be saying otherwise, his mind is silently screaming for him to return to his place at the detective's side. It's all that he's wanted for three years and now that he has it, illogically, Sherlock would tell him, he's pushing him away.
"Then punch me if you want." Sherlock stops in front of him and pulls his scarf loose with three long, bony fingers. The rain is patting down his black curls, making them stick to his face, and he squints at John through rivulets that drip from his dark lashes. "Punch me and get back in the car."
John sets his feet apart and glowers at Sherlock. He knows the detective is watching his every move to gauge whether or not he's serious, but he won't give him the pleasure of being able to read him like an open book without getting something out of it.
He throws his coat on the ground and imagines that he is clutching all of his anger, his hurt, his feelings of betrayal, his frustration in knowing that he wasn't good enough to aid Sherlock in his latest exploits and that this was the reason he'd gone to such lengths to make him believe he was dead- he puts all of it into his tightly clenched fist and slams it into Sherlock's face. He has a sneaking suspicion that the detective gave him that one for free, but the look of surprise on his face says otherwise. Bright blue eyes flash unexpectedly wide as he staggers back holding the side of his face and watching John as one would regard a pet who's just bitten them. John tackles him to the ground nonetheless, using the tall consultant's stumbling against him and bringing them both crashing down on the wet road.
As they struggle with one another, cars slosh by, and drivers lay on their horns as the two men tumble dangerously closer to the center of the road. "I thought you were dead!" John screams over the blaring noise.
"We've established that, John! I had to make you believe it, otherwise-"
John socks him again just to get him to shut the hell up. But then it's Sherlock's turn: the detective rolls, gaining the upper hand, and lands a cutting blow across John's cheek. The next hit just glances off his jaw.
"Otherwise what!?" John growls, retaking the high ground and pinning Sherlock's too-thin arms at his sides. "What could have been so beyond my competency that you had to cut us all off and make us think for three years that we'd let you down, that I wasn't good enough to help you-"
"John, don't be ridiculous," Sherlock mutters beneath the sound of the rain, wrenching one of his arms free in order to wipe the blood from his nose with his bony white knuckles. The red has already smeared across his face with the water pelting down on it. He has to duck his head slightly up toward John's just to avoid drowning.
Before he can continue, John reaches forward and takes the front of the detective's coat, twisting it in his hand and yanking Sherlock up to his level. Calculating blue eyes blink several times as John glares down at him. He remembers feeling disarmed, and damning those eyes and that cutting gaze. He curses that self-confident stare, those prominent, conceited cheekbones and thin, pale pink lips; for a fleeting moment he hates that face that has ruined every dream and haunted every nightmare he's had for the past three years. The moment lasts an eternity before John decisively head-butts Sherlock as hard as he can humanly manage without splitting his own skull in two.
In retrospect, it wasn't the best of decisions-it has been a long time since his combat days, when his body was more battle-ready and he himself was a bit more stable. He remembers little bursts of light behind his eyelids and then nothing.
When he wakes, his aching, soggy bones are draped across the backseat of the car. His cheek presses into the cushion as he watches little droplets of rainwater drip from his fringe onto the mat, and he is faintly aware that the silence is heavier than it should be. It is a Sherlock silence, full of cumbersome deductions and burgeoning plots complete with backup plans for every letter of the alphabet.
"Are you even bleeding?" John bellyaches pitifully, rotating stiffly onto his back like an animal on a spit. He slings an arm over his eyes and sighs, realizing that, most likely, he's wasting his breath. The detective has probably already lifted off to planet Sherlock, to his mind palace, to wherever he'd rather be, and John knows that it should scare him to have a man like that behind the wheel of a vehicle he was occupying. But honestly it came with the territory and he was glad to be, once again, fearing for his life.
They drive for what feels like several days but, Sherlock assures him placidly, has been exactly four hours and eighteen minutes ("When did you get in the back?" he first wishes to know.) Around noontime Sherlock parks the car outside a seedy little establishment whose tattered green awning reads "The Old Bell."
John sits up and stares out the window, wearing an expression of almost comical vexation. "A pub? I've already attacked you twice and you want to add a bit of alcohol to the mix?"
"It's a safehouse," Sherlock replies humorlessly. "I've arranged accommodations for you here until I've dealt with Moran."
John's brows slowly knit themselves together and he shakes his head, realizing 221B had clearly been compromised. "Mrs. Hudson-" he begins, but as usual Sherlock has thought of everything.
"She's being looked after elsewhere," he mumbles, his hands gripping the top of the steering wheel leading John to another realization. The car is left to idle and Sherlock isn't getting out.
"You're looking for a man named Vincent. You'll know him when you see him. Tell him Mycroft sent you-"
"Mycroft?"
"What, you didn't think death would prevent me from using my brother's good name howsoever it befitted my interests, did you? I can't very well use my own."
"Of course not, what was I thinking," John quips quietly, still shaking his head. "But wouldn't you think Mycroft would figure it all out? He's caught us using his credentials before." A bit of a tremor wracks him at his use of the word us. It's as if none of it had ever occurred- John Watson and Sherlock Holmes are at it again, sniffing the trail of some new scandal.
"Vincent is expecting you," Sherlock prevaricates impatiently.
It's then that John realizes Sherlock doesn't intend to stick around. But something about that doesn't quite add up. "You came all the way to the flat just to be my cabbie? Wouldn't it have been easier to arrange for a car to pick me up? Nice and anonymous. I would have expected it was Mycroft, you wouldn't have had to reveal yourself at all."
Sherlock doesn't answer him. John wonders silently if maybe he was just tired of his own lonely game- did he just grow bored of playing dead, of hiding in the shadows? Was it the attention he missed? Was it the engaging cases that saved him from abysmal mental stagnation? Was he overdue to one-up Anderson, did he miss Sally Donovan's hateful sneer?
He gets out of the car and stands by Sherlock's window, his hands curled around the edge of the pane. "Come on, Sherlock. Get out of the car."
Sherlock looks up at him and finally John can see that his earlier blackout hadn't been completely for nothing- a thin line of dried blood scrawls down Sherlock's pale forehead and diverges over the bridge of his nose, which appears crooked and definitely broken. Either the detective hadn't felt it necessary to wipe the crimson evidence away, or he honestly hadn't noticed he was bleeding. Whichever the case, it serves to highlight the urgency of his one-track frame of mind.
John frowns at the lack of pride he experiences upon seeing the damage he'd inflicted earlier. Instead, he grapples with pangs of compunction and the need to apologize for acting so rashly. Rather than admit this, he pulls the sleeve of his jumper over his palm and wipes the blood from Sherlock's face as cleanly as he can manage, avoiding his nose, despite the detective's undignified sputtering:
"John, will you desist-"
"Stop being a child. Can you imagine getting pulled over and then taken in for something as silly as forgetting to wash your own blood off your face? Even if you're alive, you're still the disgraced detective wanted in connection with the murder of Richard Brook." John spits the false name in staccato as he lifts Sherlock's fringe to peer into his hairline, critically assessing the damage he's done though he knows it to be minimal. Sherlock swats the doctor's hand from his face and scowls.
"Thank you," he says reluctantly, hesitantly touching the bridge of his nose, "Now please go and check-in with Vincent. Stay inside and don't try to look for me."
John laughs bitterly, but something in the way the action jostles the tension in his chest brings him a bit of unexpected relief. "Why would I look for you, Sherlock?"
The detective gives the sort of smirk that has always infuriated John- the one that belittles and intrigues him all at once. It's the smirk that keeps him guessing, leads him on, ensures that he'll follow the near-autistic, certainly idiotic, beguiling detective through every twist and turn, down every dank alley and sewage pipe, into situations to which no sane human would subject himself. The smirk that tells him that ultimately, everything works out the way Sherlock Holmes wants it to, one way or another. Today is no exception; his faith is not renewed in that faint, cocky, deplorable smirk, for it had never wavered, but today it is strengthened- though Sherlock will have to earn that admission if he wishes to hear it aloud.
"I figure you've had three years of perseverance under your belt," he says. John watches as he absently fingers the pocket of his coat, inside which John knows he keeps his mobile phone. "Why should I expect you to give up now?"
John's jaw drops. "You received every one of them, didn't you?" he accuses, about to reach through the window and throttle him when Sherlock's waiting finger presses down on the button to shut the window. John is forced to move or lose his fingers, but that doesn't keep his fury from carrying through the glass pane in the form of various expletives and oaths.
"That said, I've also elected to hire you a body guard- she should ensure that you stay put." Good dog, John could almost hear in his head. The image of Sherlock patting him on the head would haunt him for days now. "Vincent is waiting."
Sherlock pressed his foot down on the gas pedal and slowly pulled away, leaving John to stare after him, rattled and wading in the no-man's land between indignant rage and slumped-shouldered disappointment at watching the gray vehicle drive away into the rain.