Well, I won't say too much. Just a hint. Just don't listen to "Under the Iron Sky" from the Iron Sky Soundtrack. I did when I wrote this chapter. And it broke my heart even more. Oh, the emotions.
My flat mate baked cherry pie today. It will save my life.
Please, send me some good thoughts. I'm just...well...you will see...
9. Golden shot
The blade enters the skin so smoothly that Sebastian nearly doesn't feel it. So easy and without resistance cuts the knife the throat of the other man, so soundless he sinks to the ground that he is almost sorry for it. His hand presses against the man's mouth, but he is silent anyway, his eyes wide.
He doesn't die instantly. Sebastian crouches beside the flinching body, leans lightly over it. The blood pulses out of the wound, agglutinates the clothes and the ground with red liquid. The man trembles as if he was cold not dying, his fingers dig into the dirt, grabbing soil. In doing so he watches Sebastian with a ghastly face, unable to blink. He breathes stertorously, blood bubbles in his lung, purple froth drips out of the corner of his mouth. And then the lying body tilts over a bit, and out of the inside pocket of the blood-smeared jacket slips a small leather case. Without touching or even opening it, Sebastian knows what it is, saw these things a hundred times before, and then he picks it up yet again and opens it and three syringes face him.
His first thought is that he can certainly sell the stuff for some extra money, but then he grimaces, the drug scene has never been his bag and he has no idea anymore how it works nowadays.
And then he thinks of Jim.
He is a drug. An addiction. Sebastian twists one of the syringes between his fingers, the needle under the plastic cap gleams. An addiction that will kill him some day. And he thinks, that's his destiny, to die violently, that's the way of the world, just so, and he actually believes it would only be fair. Because he killed so many and he's just one person.
But not now. He doesn't want to know when and where and how it will happen. He wants it to be a surprise, he wants to think, well that's how I die then, and he wants it to be good and satisfying. With a smile on his face. And blood on his hands.
And suddenly it becomes clear to him what that means, and when he stands up, he came to a decision. He will leave.
Sebastian carelessly drops the syringe, it lands in front of the frozen eyes of the man. Blood trickles out of the dead body, creates a glutinous sea under pale hands. Dirt sticks under fingernails.
John seems lost in the silence of the flat. His gaze wanders above the furniture, his hand grabs the door frame and supports him. Sherlock brought the books and documents into his own room, there they're piled up on his bed which he doesn't use anyways. But the living room is free now, Mrs. Hudson wiped the floor, dusted and cleaned the windows, and so the sunlight falls straight to the old wooden boards that creak under his feet.
The whole thing is an experiment. John still changes between awake and locked phases. They gave him "A study in Pink" to read, and no sooner he held the still warm sites in his hands and read the first words his eyes widened.
Since that day they communicate through short sentences John scribbles onto a pad. Sometimes he claims that he could remember all their cases and knows how he and Sherlock first met, but often it's just memories of the blog entries he read. The wounds heal over, leaving small pale scars. John never asks where they come from; Sherlock would never give an answer.
After all it was the doctor who suggested the experiment. Reactivation of memory with the help of visual stimuli. Returning to a familiar place. Sherlock had doubts. Not about the method itself, he himself had the idea before. But Bakerstreet, the place which would hold the most memories of the time after the war for John, was also the place he got shot, where all this begun.
"You can't have both, Sherlock", Mycroft had said on the phone. "Either he remembers it all. Or none." Sherlock gets annoyed at Mycroft being right every time in the last weeks, but he's too tired, too busy to bother.
Bakerstreet. John stands in the door and observes the flat, Sherlock asks "Do you remember?" and he slowly nods. Carefully he moves into the room, his fingers skim over the furniture, under his fingertips the rough material of wood or the smooth fabric of the armchair.
After some minutes he stops in front of the coffee table and the sofa, looks down and knits his eyebrows. He takes his note pad out and with shaking fingers he writes in capital letters:
SOMETHING HAPPENED HERE.
Sherlock sighs. Watches him a long time and thinks. All or none.
And then he speaks. About the night and the fresh suture. How they sat in the silence and John stitched up his wound. About the next morning when Sherlock blacked out, and about the reproaches John never addressed. And then, slowly, he tells of the shot, describes the trajectory, calculates speed and names weapons, and he realises that he is getting scientific and that his brain takes over again, and then he falls silent and says nothing more. He only thinks that he sat beside John's body and reached his finger but never touched him. And that Chlorophorm mixed with John's name. And then he can't say if he spoke it out loud yet again or if John just knows it.
John leans against his armchair, his arms hang loosely on his sides, he quietly breathes, stares at the spot where his body lied so long ago and lost blood between the floor boards. And finally he nods, a simple motion that means so much more, Sherlock takes it as a "I understand", and sees the changes in the other man's face. He watches memories breaking away from the darkness one after another, fragments are put together, and piece by piece John Watson rebuilds his mind.
Sherlock looks down at the sofa, he remembers all too well the morning and his words, which he regrets so much, and only now, after all these months, he finds in his brain what he back then searched for too long.
"I'm sorry", Sherlock says and John looks up. For a while they just watch each other and Sherlock isn't sure if John knows what he is talking about, but then he realises that he just needs to say it again. "I'm so sorry", he therefore repeats, and then: "It was stupid, childish! I should never have said that to you, no, of course not. Why did I say it anyways?" Sherlock shakes his head.
"Because you're an idiot."
John's voice is so thin and quiet and husky, and when Sherlock looks up in surprise he still looks as small and lost as before. But on his face there is a faint smile and it's the moment when Sherlock wants to laugh with all his heart and scream and clench his fists and shout and yes, maybe even cry.
He does none of this, he keeps calm and smiles back to his friend, and the feeling of happiness overwhelms him.
The Jambiya lies on the side table, the blade shines tarnished in the lamps light, the handle and the pattern on it are smooth and worn and at some spots where the blood seeped into the wooden ornaments it is coppery. Sebastian sits on the edge of the bed, at the door leans, indifferent, Jim Moriarty. With his fingers he lightly loosens the knot of his tie.
"Where do you want to go, Seb?" The question is posed so calmly, and still Sebastian feels the tension. He understands that he can't keep it from him, and he never intended to. You can't hide anything from Jim Moriarty. His fingertips play with the dog tags around his neck, they silently clash against each other, clicking.
"Back", he says, "Back to Yemen."
Jim suddenly laughs, in his eyes flashes anger, with a start he pulls the tie over his head and drops it to the floor.
"You think you can just leave?" Jim takes some steps towards him while he slowly removes the jacket from his shoulders. Sebastian gets up, he's taller than Jim and still he has the feeling to be dominated. In his stomach it trembles and vibrates, he tries to concentrate, but he feels sick and dizzy. He feels like he's going cold turkey.
"I'm not your prisoner anymore, Jim", he says as calmly as he can manage, but Jim takes the last step towards him and laughs again. He grabs the dog tags and pulls Sebastian's body closer, near his face.
"No, no, Seb, you're right. No prisoner." His breath moves along Sebastian's cheek to his ear, whispers one word. "Possession."
Sebastian wants to push him away, but Jim is faster, presses him backwards until he struggles onto the bed, he is fast above him, pushes his hands down. Sebastian is stronger, actually, but he can't fight back, or doesn't want to, in Sebastian's head questions and thoughts are spinning around, he looks up in Jims face.
"Why do you want to leave me, Seb?" he asks and there really is a short glimpse of vulnerability on his face and the smile disappears. He sits on Sebastian's chest so that he gasps for air and the words come out between his teeth as a hissing.
"You're poison, Jim. And you're killing me."
Jim watches him for a long time, a few times it looks as if he wants to laugh again, but be swallows it down.
"You can't leave", he says, and as if he realised how desperate that sentence sounded, he adds: "You need me."
Sebastian coughs, Jim bows down, grips his cheek and pulls him against his lips. Sebastian tries to turn his head, but then he lets it happen, and eventually he opens his mouth and he can taste Jim on his tongue, can't stop himself from slipping his hand behind his body and pulling him closer. Finally Jim breaks away, lifts his head and Sebastian shudders when he sees his expression. Jim smiles, one corner of his mouth bend upwards, his eyes are opaque and empty and sad and then he leans forwards down again and his trembling lips touch his own so lightly.
The Jambiya breaks through the skin between his ribs, pain explodes in his chest when the blade cuts through muscles and sinews and the point of the knife pierces into his heart. Sebastian exhales in surprise, the hurt paralyses him, he suddenly feels the blood seeping into his shirt, feels the red life gushing out of him and he sees into Moriartys eyes. Jim gently places one hand behind his head, the other hand leaves the knives handle and he puts the arm around Sebastian. Then he presses the dying body against his own, his forehead on Sebastian's, his skin so warm. Fingers grab into his blonde hair, Sebastian barely feels it, blood sticks to Jim's suit but he doesn't seem to mind it.
Sebastian's head vibrates, his thoughts disappear into a vortex of darkness, he closes his eyes. The deadly dose, he thinks, the golden shot.
Jim cradles him. Blackness. A whimper. Or a giggle. Impossible to tell. Jims hand in his hair.
Inhale. Steal and skin. Blood trickles into hot sand. It's so warm. The sun breaks through his closed eye lids, and Jim is just a shadow. Under him the dessert glows. It burns.
Jim.
He smells of sand.
