4: Dublin, Ireland
December 31, 2012
Incident number four (as Sherlock has begun labeling them in his internal file system) comes immediately on the tail of incident number three.
New Year's Eve is the exact opposite of Christmas. It's loud and crowded, and a portion of the people are half-arse drunk with an hour to go to midnight. Sherlock hates everything about the celebration. He wouldn't even be out here if his paranoid source hadn't insisted on meeting tonight of all nights.
His trip to Heidelberg paid off. He has a new trail to follow. Someone is trying to slide into the power vacuum left behind by dear Jim and seize his network by the throat.
Sherlock cannot allow that to happen.
Sherlock waits at the designated meeting spot for almost an hour, surrounded by cheerful holiday revelers. His source is over half an hour late. Whether he spooked, was compromised, or worse, a trap mattered not. Sherlock needs to disappear again and leave the country.
The countdown to midnight starts as a low murmur, catching Sherlock by surprise.
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He angles himself into a relatively isolated spot.
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He has no need for others to greet him with good cheer.
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Wasted days coming to Dublin for nothing!
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How can it be a better new year when he still cannot return to his beloved London?
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While everyone he cares about remains in danger because the spider's web still holds strong?
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Intolerable.
3
Hateful.
2
"This is madness!" John's voice, prickling at the edge of Sherlock's hearing, shouts over the humdrum. The answering shout immediately following is lost in the roar of the next number.
1
Sherlock whips around, trying to pinpoint the source. John can't be here. He can't.
Happy New Year!
The dark sky overhead explodes in a kaleidoscope of light and colors. Sherlock may not be an expert in fireworks, but he knows that array of colors should not be possible within their chemical spectrum. Least of all, so close to the spectators. He suspects he is one of the few besides technicians to notice something amiss.
The sparks rain down in an incandescent shower. Contact with his exposed skin sends a jolt of warmth down his spine. Doom and gloom fades into the back of his mind, until it's all but a whisper.
Safe, for the first time in months.
In the golden afterglow, Sherlock meets the eyes of someone in the crowd— someone who looks spectacularly like John, at least from a distance. But the other man's gaze slides straight past Sherlock without recognition. Someone else— a tall, dark-haired man— sidled up to the first and blocked the bright emerging smile from view. And when Sherlock blinks (flinching at sudden explosion of the next set of fireworks), they're both gone altogether.