Chapter Nine: Is it Proper?

"We can't stay here."

John looked up to see Sherlock staring out over the deck. It was empty, but wouldn't stay that way for long, and John nodded in agreement. He let Sherlock go and watched him sit up, then get up and walk around the back of the bench. He leaned there for a minute, staring out at the ocean, then back towards the main body of the ship, and he mumbled, "I need to sever myself from James Moriarty, if not my entire family."

"Yeah," John said, prompting.

The prompt did not translate to Sherlock, or he just chose to ignore it. He instead gripped John's elbow and tugged. John rose and followed, as Sherlock had obviously known he would. They walked down the deck, climbed the ladder to the upper decks, and along the promenade deck. They were walking fast; too fast to be casual. Thankfully there were very few other people on the deck, and for those who were the tried and true 'hear/speak/see no evil' policy stayed firmly in place.

"Where are we going?" John asked, but Sherlock did not reply. He instead led him through a door (The fourth or fifth identical door they'd passed; heavy metal, painted white, with 'A deck' painted on it in red lettering) and down a long hallway. They were in the first class cabins, John abruptly realized, and for the life of him he could not fathom why Sherlock had brought him here of all places. It was not exactly inconspicuous, or conductive to Sherlock avoiding his family.

They stopped in front of a door. Room 221. John frowned at it for a long moment, and Sherlock said, "This is my cabin. I share it with my brother, but I doubt he'll be returning tonight. Lady Anthea has her own cabin on B deck and I'm almost certain that he plans to spend the night with her." Sherlock glanced at him and added, "Aside from my brother, no one would have any reason to come in here tonight. My mother took my anxiety earlier for sickness and allowed me to return to my rooms. If I don't appear at dinner, shell assume I'm still unwell."

Although John did not know who Lady Anthea was, he nodded in understanding. No one would look for Sherlock here. They would be alone and have to plan some kind of strategy.

What this would involve was a very foggy area still for John. He had not forgotten the kiss; Sherlock's lips desperate against his and his hands clinging to John's shoulders. Still, it seemed unlikely, like too much to hope for that Sherlock wanted him as more than a way to hide. This was no storybook, no fairytale, and people of different classes did not actually ride off together into the sunset after a life of hardship. It would not be so simple, and John knew that.

Yet…and yet…

"Do you think you can find your way back here on your own?" Sherlock asked, after giving John a moment to acclimatize himself with his surroundings.

John nodded. Being in India, on unfamiliar streets with no one to give him directions had given him a knack for navigation unrivaled by any civilian, and many even within the service. Even in terrain so unlike that in India—where India had been confusing in its dark alleyways and twisted streets, this ship was confusing in its uniformity, and the maze of corridors that all looked the same—he felt confident he could find his way back here.

"Good." Sherlock unlocked the door, then handed John the key. "Go back to your cabin, retrieve your art supplies, and come back here."

"My art supplies?" John questioned, but Sherlock shook his head—a gesture that anyone would immediately recognize as translating into 'not here'—and shoved on John's shoulder.

"Go, and be quick. I can account for who will be inside the room, but not outside it, and many people on this ship know either my mother or my fiancé." Sherlock reached down and retrieved John's sketchbook from where it had been shoved, almost as an afterthought, underneath his arm. "I'll take this."

Bewildered, John watched Sherlock slide the sketchbook underneath his own arm. Sherlock smiled—lord, but he could be charming when he wanted to be—and John could no longer resist the urge that had been building inside of him since Sherlock, in such desperation, had grabbed him on deck. Carefully, he stepped close and took Sherlock by the back of the neck, to bring him down for a kiss. Sherlock responded limply, like he wasn't quite sure what to do. It, therefore, did not last long, and when John pulled back he hurriedly explained, "Just wanted to…make sure."

Sherlock nodded and reached behind him to open the door to the room. He slipped in with only a mumbled, "Hurry, John," and closed the door behind him.

The trek back below decks was taken with swiftness and a certain amount of paranoia. It was hard not to think that everyone had their eyes on him, even though at this point almost everyone in first class was at dinner and he encountered far fewer people than he ever had before on the usually-crowded promenade deck. The thought occurred to him that he really shouldn't even know how trafficked the promenade deck was. It was strange how much his life had changed in just the past three days.

He made it to his cabin on D deck unmolested, retrieved his art supplies (Pencils, some charcoals—not really supplies so much as a small kit) and made his way back out. Here, however, he encountered a problem in the form of Mike, who ran up to him from the opposite direction and grabbed his arm. "John! Where have you been? I haven't seen you since breakfast. Aren't you going to eat dinner? You weren't there last night, either, come to think of it." Mike frowned and looked at him. "You didn't eat a lot at breakfast. Are you alright?"

Sighing, John shrugged off the friendly hand on his shoulder—the bad one, and some of the faith in Mike that he'd had previously faded—and said, "Look, Mike, I really can't explain right now, but it's an emergency and I can't really chat." Was it an emergency? He really didn't know. But he knew that Sherlock expected him to make haste, and talking to Mike Stamford was not in the equation.

"Well…alright," Mike said, with his earnest face so open, and John had the decency to feel a bit sorry for his short-temperedness. "Just…you're alright, yeah? You'd tell me if there was something seriously wrong?"

Now John reflected that his life had changed in more than just one way recently. He'd also regained an old friend, the kind of old friend that was good to have because you never fear that they were putting their own best interests before what was right. Mike might have been bumbling, clumsy, and forgetful, but he would also rather bite off his own arm than purposefully hurt someone he considered a friend.

"I'm fine," John said carefully—and honestly, for the most part—and stopped to turn towards Mike, and squeeze his shoulder with the hand that wasn't holding his bag of pencils and charcoals. "There's just…there have been circumstances to come up that I can't explain to you—mostly because I'm not exactly sure what's going on myself—but once I do, and I've gotten everything sorted, you'll be the first to know, and the first I'll explain everything to. Okay?"

Mike nodded, despite still looking confused and not altogether placated. It wasn't much of John's concern, however, whether Mike liked the circumstances he'd laid out, just as long as he accepted them. With another pat of Mike's shoulder, John was gone and navigating his way back up, out of the bowels of the ship and on deck, and thence to the nearly-deserted promenade deck. He moved quickly, because Sherlock was waiting for him—and his pencils, for whatever reason—and also because the deserted deck was rather eerie.

There was not even a soul walking through the hallways, but that did not stop him from surreptitiously glancing over both shoulders twice before unlocking the door to Sherlock's cabin and allowing himself in. The cabin looked much like Irene Adler's cabin the night before, if with far fewer garments and knick-knacks strewn about the place. There were, however, papers scattered liberally about most horizontal surfaces—John noticed his own sketchpad, set seemingly thoughtlessly upon the edge of one side table—and the typical detritus of two young men sharing the same space.

Also, John realized, a skull on the mantel. This he stared at with somewhat morbid fascination, and wondered whether this was a memento of Sherlock's or Mycroft's. Something told him it was much more likely to be Sherlock's.

"John?"

Without looking towards Sherlock, John cleared his throat and gestured vaguely towards the skull, with the hand that held the bag containing his art supplies. Rather unnecessarily, he muttered, "It's…'s a skull."

Sherlock nodded and mumbled, "Yes, it's…just an old friend."

"Um." John glanced back at the skull, but Sherlock did not elaborate and John had to wonder if that was supposed to mean that the skull was Sherlock's friend, or the skull had once belonged to Sherlock's friend. It occurred to him that he really did not know much about Sherlock. The excitement and urgency of earlier, and of last night was wearing off, leaving him feeling awkward and unsure of how to proceed.

"Is it proper, then? To keep a skull on the mantelpiece?" John asked, and the inquiry succeeded in making Sherlock smirk a bit to himself. John found that he liked the feel that Sherlock's smile, especially one he had put there, caused in his stomach. The same feeling from last night, and yet amplified. Amplified because he now knew how those lips felt against his own.

"It's quite proper, I assure you," Sherlock chuckled, and crossed the room to stand next to John. He'd come from some side room, John now realized; not from elsewhere in the large parlor. A door to the left was open, and John could only assume that it lead to a bedroom. He tried to get a glance inside, but the door was not open at a wide enough angle. He turned back around as Sherlock picked the skull up off the mantel and said, "Mycroft and Mummy loathe and despise it. They've hidden it on me a number of times. Although neither of them hates it as much as Mrs. Hudson."

"Who?"

"Mrs. Hudson. Our maid." Sherlock set the skull down, still smirking slightly, and said, "I'll save the story of why for a time when you're not poised to run away for the smallest reason."

This made John falter, and he floundered for a response, but Sherlock waved his hand dismissively.

"Don't bother trying to tell me that you're not wary of me. I know you are." He pushed away from the mantel, and as he neared John tilted his head up to maintain eye contact. Sherlock's eyes bored into his, flicking as though reading him. Then, with slowness that belied apprehension, he said, "I…I want you to know that you're the only person I trust right now. I don't even trust myself, but I trust you. But I need to know that you won't betray my trust."

The enormity of the situation piled itself onto John, and made him almost gasp for air. Sherlock thought of him as a real, honest-to-god hero. John was his salvation. He'd never felt so honored, and yet so terrified and put-upon. Still, it would have been calamitous to leave Sherlock without an answer, and if he was sure of one thing, he was sure that he would never willingly do anything to betray Sherlock's trust. It was a realization that he'd come to only recently—within the last twelve seconds, actually—but he knew it with a deep certainty, like he knew his name was John Watson.

"I would never," John assured, and kept very still as Sherlock searched him once more. Then, with a satisfied nod, Sherlock smiled slightly and John knew that he'd passed the test.

With a vague nod somewhere behind John, Sherlock said, "I have something to show you."

In the bedroom that Sherlock had come from, there was a safe in the closet, hidden by a door that on first examination looked like a mere wall panel. Opening it, Sherlock explained, "I believe all of the first class staterooms have these. James has the family safe in his room; it has some of our shared valuables in it, as well as money to cover unforeseen expenses. Usually, I place all articles of importance in there." He turned the monstrous dial—surely it had to be for show because there was no real application for a dial that big—and John heard it click. Before he opened it, Sherlock glanced over his shoulder and added, "However, two days ago, James gave me an early wedding present. Not wanting my brother to know about it—and certainly not wanting to wear it—I hid it in here.

"Okay." The word sounded impatient to John's own ears, but Sherlock didn't comment or react except to turn back around and open the safe. From it, he pulled a large dark blue box. When opened up, it revealed a necklace sporting an enormous jewel on the end. John's breath caught in his throat, awed was he at the sheer magnitude of the gem. He mumbled, "Is that a sapphire?"

"No, a diamond." Sherlock pulled it out, and held it dangling from his hand in obvious encouragement for John to touch it. It, however, was no less overwhelming when held—as Sherlock should know, because he'd been trying to wrap his head around what he'd so suddenly gained possession of for the past two days—and John only brushed his fingers across it briefly.

"That's worth more than I'll ever earn in my life," John said, but without grudge. It was a plain fact, and Sherlock nodded in agreement.

Instead of placing it immediately back in its box, Sherlock took it in his hands and carried it with him to the vanity seat, where he sat down and turned it over and over in his hands. He said, "I have a request to make of you, John. I will understand perfectly well if it's not something you feel you can do, but I want you to at least consider it—carefully—before you refuse. It's not proper, not really, but there's no way to go about what I'm attempting to go about without impropriety."

"And just what are you attempting to go about?" John asked, although he was relatively sure he knew the answer already.

"Two nights ago, Irene Alder pointed out to me that James Moriarty was attracted to me for my…innocence, we'll say."

Snorting, John said, "You can say virginity, Sherlock. I'm not unfamiliar with the concept." He was not unfamiliar with the concept of taking it, either; although that was not something he was going to mention to Sherlock.

A good thing, too, because Sherlock's face made a weird contortion at the word, and John realized that it may not have been so much for his benefit as Sherlock's that the word 'virginity' had been circumnavigated.

"And anyway," John ventured quickly, "that doesn't answer my question."

Sherlock snapped, "If you'll give me chance, doctor, I'll get to that."

Putting up his hands, John acquiesced with, "Alright, okay. Just…take your time." It was sarcastic, and he knew Sherlock could tell, but he felt it was justified. They were on a bit of a tight schedule, after all. Despite what Sherlock seemed to believe, they had only a few hours to figure out what to do before someone at least poked their head in the room. John couldn't believe that any mother would let her sick child return to his room and not come and check how he was. Even—or maybe especially—a mother like Violet Holmes.

He leaned back against one of the four posts on the bed and impatiently waited for Sherlock to speak.

Finally the younger man said, "I think the only way to truly shake James Moriarty is to spoil the innocence he so covets."

"Okay," John said slowly, at once apprehensive and prompting.

This time Sherlock actually did pick up on the prompting tone in John's voice. "If I show myself to another man—or a woman, for that matter, but that's not an opportunity that's presented itself—if I just revealed myself," he added, when John's eyes widened in alarm, entirely too capable of seeing where this was leading, "to you, and you drew me as proof, it may be enough." Looking off to the side, he mumbled, "Maybe…" as though to himself, as though considering further options should this plan fail.

John stepped closer, wordless and eyebrows furrowed, as Sherlock stared down at the carpet. He had a look on his face that John could recall seeing in school; the look of a student working hard at a problem, internally navigating convoluted formulas. Obviously, Sherlock had put a lot of thought into this; or at least was trying to navigate the logistics of an epiphany. That was why John did not automatically refuse—despite being asked by Sherlock to consider the proposal.

"Sherlock," John mumbled, bowing his head to get a better looking at Sherlock's face. "Why are you asking me to do this?"

"I just told you—"

"No." Not without gentleness, John took Sherlock's face between his hands and made him look up. After staring—almost glaring—at him for several long seconds, he said, "Are you asking me to do this because you trust me, or because I'm the only person who can do this for you? Am I no different to you than any other man—or woman—who happens to be present, and who can draw? If…if Irene Adler could draw, would you be doing this with her instead?"

For a moment, Sherlock's mouth worked without sound. Then, finally, he said, "Are you saying that if you were, you wouldn't do it for me?"

"Answer my question first," John snapped, even though he had a queasy suspicion that the answer would not be what he wanted to hear, and that he'd still do whatever Sherlock asked of him because, God dammit, if it wasn't the Hippocratic Oath it was his own misplaced sense of justice.

Or perhaps something else. Something he didn't want to admit even to himself.

"In that case, we're both going to have to go answerless, Doctor Watson. Because I don't know."

John turned away, unspeakably frustrated, and snapped, "Would you stop that? John, it's John! If you can do one thing, can you please, please call me what I ask you to call me? I get that you're pissed off—believe me, I can tell. You don't have to be so completely fucking pretentious that you call me by my title to tell me how pissed off you are because despite not being educated in some kind of tight-arsed private school, I'm smart enough to figure out when someone's pissed at me."

Deafening silence dominated the room. Neither of them even fidgeted. John stared out the window, and Sherlock stared at the back of his head. John tried to say something—to apologize, to explain himself. But the words got stuck in his throat, and he gave up.

"I just," John mumbled, "Don't think this is a good idea. What will happen to you once you're on your own? I know that you don't like the idea of marrying him, but you can't separate yourself from your entire family. Who will you have?"

"You," Sherlock said, with a strange half-shrug.

This gave John pause, but he bulled forward nevertheless. "Sure, yeah, but…Moriarty. He's a powerful guy. He'll…he'll do everything he can to make sure your life is a living hell. Don't you think? Don't you think there are better ways to do this; ways that won't make him as upset?" Perhaps it was a bit of his own self-preservation talking.

"Are you saying that I should be careful of his feelings as I'm planning how to leave him?" Sherlock inquired, not at all kindly, and snorted derisively. "The time for obedience and respect has gone, if they actually ever existed." Sherlock pushed away from the closet doorjamb and crossed the room to stand in front of John. "Do you know what my proper, respectable fiancé threatened me with?"

John stayed still. The question was of course rhetorical, and he was finding it was better to let Sherlock monologue with no interruptions.

"He told me he would take was he desired if I was not inclined to give it."

Once he understood Sherlock's somewhat cryptic wording, John's stomach churned. Somewhere inside of him, he'd always thought Moriarty capable of such things—so much evil in such a little man surely concentrated the substance—but to have it here, in front of him…

Well, it was no wonder Sherlock had been in such a state earlier.

So John nodded and murmured, "Alright. I'll do it."

Sherlock bobbed his head in acknowledgement, almost to himself, and glanced at the carpet. After a moment, he nodded again and said, "Well, do whatever you do to…get ready. And I'll get myself ready."

Inexplicably nervous, John walked out the door, closed it softly behind him, and stepped over to the table where his sketchbook and pencil bag laid. It was the first time he'd had such a setting at his disposal—his 'studio,' of course, had always been that one little hostel room in France, if he had not been drawing from memory. To have something to do, he began rearranging furniture. One chair was moved to a corner of the room, the sofa was pushed back and the other chair put in its place. One side table, the shorter of the two, he moved in front of the chair. The other side table and the coffee table joined the chair in the corner.

He sat his sketchbook, open to a clean page on the table, opened his pencil bag, and sharpened his charcoals to points.

Then Sherlock came out.

For some reason John had been expecting him to walk out in the altogether, but he didn't. He was wearing a robe, a blue silk one that went all the way to his calves. On his collarbone was the necklace, and in his hands were a violin and bow.

"What's…what's this for, then?" mumbled John, gesturing to the violin.

"You're an artist," Sherlock said, "and you know how the human body works. You could probably draw what you believed me to look like naked, even if you'd only ever seen me fully-clothed. There needs to be evidence in the picture that it was drawn from life-that I actually stood in front of you, naked. Thus the violin, because you probably wouldn't have drawn me with props unless they were from life. And this." Sherlock gestured to the necklace, then gave a smirk that looked a bit more like a spasm. "Because you wouldn't have known about it had it not been for me telling you. Although I have to admit, this is more a fuck you than anything else."

John felt a nervous grin cross his face as well. He'd been wondering where the seemingly random anecdote about the necklace was going. "I'll try to convey the message." Then, turning towards the mantle, he said, "You can stand there, I think. If you want. We could also move the chair or the sofa back over here, but—"

"No, this is fine." Sherlock stepped towards the mantelpiece, and John found himself staring at the other man's bare feet. They were pale, delicate. Obviously did not often see the sun, or have uncovered contact with the ground. Feet were not something that typically interested him, but because they were so bare, on a man that was usually so covered up, it struck something deep inside of him. It was almost intimate, even compared to Sherlock being pressed against him in dance the previous night.

Touching skin through layer upon layer of fabric, and actually seeing it uncovered were two very different things, although when asked why John wouldn't have been able to explain. Sherlock's uncovered feet were a vulnerability, and at the same time seductive in their bareness.

"Here?" Sherlock asked, placing himself just to the left of the fireplace.

"That's fine," John said, and sat down in the chair. Still staring at the fine-boned instep revealed below the low-hanging dressing gown.

Then Sherlock dropped the dressing gown from his shoulders, and all thoughts of feet flew from John's mind, as an expanse of pale back was revealed. As expected, he was slim, but not without muscle. There was not a scar on him, and the only blemishes were the pinpoints of light brown freckles. They scattered down his back, over his buttocks and own his thighs. It was André all over again, although of course there were far fewer on Sherlock than there had been on André. It was a light sprinkling, liberal across shoulders and shoulder blades and then more conservative as they continued down his back. Elegant.

As was the slope of his back, convex at shoulders and concave in his lower back before curving out again, where his bum emerged, demarcated by two dimples on either side of his spine. They were perfectly thumb-sized, John could not help but notice.

From below his bum came two muscled, shapely thighs. They flexed as he put his weight on them, each of them in turn as he fidgeted nervously. The suits had hinted at such a body, but to actually see it was an entirely different thing.

He was gorgeous, every fine-boned, creamy-skinned inch of him, and all John could think about was tracing his tongue from freckle to freckle, from shoulder all the way to ankle, where a lone circle sat on the very center of his tendon.

Sherlock turned around. John slowly came to the realization that there was arousal heavy in his trousers.

"Is it proper," Sherlock mumbled, as he picked at his violin—making sure it was correctly tuned, John could only fathom, "for an artist to have an erection whilst doing his work?" Under his lashes, he looked up at John. The corner of his mouth quirked.

John chuckled and scratched the back of his neck. "Ah, well, no. But," here he cleared his throat, and gestured for Sherlock to take his place. He did so, and if there was a light blush on his cheeks, slight redness on his chest, a noticeable swelling to flaccid penis, John pretended not to notice. "But I promise I will be the pinnacle of professional."

Smiling at the floor, Sherlock shifted in a comfortable stance. He would be standing for quite a while, which was why most people sat for portraits, but it just seemed appropriate, with his height and his figure, not to mention the goal being a display of independence and sitting or laying down was submissive in nature, that Sherlock be standing up. He lifted the violin to his shoulder, placed his chin on the rest. He stood open, not a single bit of him hidden as though in modesty or shame. Even his hair fell so that his eyes were completely uncovered.

"Keep your eyes open," John murmured, when Sherlock closed them, and found himself the full focus of Sherlock's piercing stare. He cleared his throat again. "Yes, just like that. That's…" He wanted to say beautiful, but John was not sure how Sherlock would react to that, and so did not continue. Merely put charcoal to paper and began to draw.

It took an hour. During that time, John's attention became less focused on the Sherlock standing before him, and instead on the Sherlock drawn on paper. In a way, it was just as flattering, and Sherlock wasn't vain enough to be insulted even if John's attention had merely strayed from him in general.

Every once in a while, though, John's eyes would glance up, through lashes and over the upraised top of his sketchpad. For the first few minutes, he smiled reassuringly, and Sherlock became slowly more relaxed—and John too, for that matter. Eventually, his blood cooled from hot arousal to a kind of simmering contentment, and he was able to focus on other things. Able to let his mind wander, as the necessity of piloting his body fell to the wayside in favor of stillness. John, across from him, became focused and intense and Sherlock found himself staring over his head, rather than in his eyes, because for once he understood how it was to be pierced by a gaze.

Then finally, John sat up and placed his charcoal aside, brushed off his blackened hands, and blew the excess dust off the picture.

"Done," John murmured, as he took a moment to admire his masterpiece. Sherlock didn't want to look, not really—he'd never liked portraits of himself—but something made him come around the back of John's chair, as he wrapped his dressing gown back around his body. He stooped so he could see from a fair vantage point, and his breath caught.

It was like looking at a complete stranger, and yet he knew it was himself.

"Is this how you see me?" Sherlock murmured, reaching out his fingers, and stopping just short of touching the still unset charcoal.

"This is how you look," John chuckled, slightly bemused as he folded the sketchbook closed.

"No it's not."

John turned to look at him, confused, and Sherlock felt the urge to kiss him build up so suddenly that it made his breath hitch. Not being able to resist, he leaned in and caught John's lips, pressed their mouths together firmly, pressed his nose into John's cheek. John inhaled sharply through his nose, and skirted his fingers hesitantly up Sherlock's neck, over his cheek and around the back of his head.

"Thank you," Sherlock said, still no more than an inch away from John's face even after their kiss ended.

"My pleasure," John said. It could have been twisted into an innuendo, had either of them been of that particular mindset, but the air in the room was far too thick for such filthy jokes, and Sherlock merely kissed him again, softer this time, before straightening up.

"I wouldn't have, by the way," Sherlock said as he took the sketchbook from John. "Let anyone else do this, that is. I think I told you I trust you." He stood there for a long minute, even though the thought of retreating into the bedroom to put his clothes back on was more than attractive. It felt good, though, to be standing there with only his dressing gown on, in front of John. The knowledge that John, if he so wished, could pull the string and send the gown pooling back down to the floor gave rise to a peculiar, heavy sensation in his lower stomach.

Of course, John did not do this. But he did wrap a hand around the back of Sherlock's thigh and pull him closer, so his knees butted right up against the arm of the chair. He murmured, "I'm glad," and dropped a few gentle kisses on Sherlock's hip.

Sherlock had never been touched that way before. A brief flash of terror passed over his mind, and he almost jerked away, but something—perhaps the fact that John obviously intended the move to be more tender than lustful—kept him from it, although he did flinch, and John felt it.

He stopped, said, "Sorry," but did not move away, and Sherlock found that he appreciated that.

"It's alright," Sherlock said, and found he meant it, and Sherlock saw the very moment, the very instance, when John realized he really did have Sherlock's compete and utter trust.

Now he did take his hand away. Cleared his throat. "You'll want to, um, get dressed. I think…Well, we can't stay here forever, you know, and if nothing else they have no idea where my cabin is, so…"

Sherlock nodded his agreement, able to see what John was implying. "Alright."

He reentered the bedroom and went to the closet, where he stood for nearly ten minutes in silent confliction. All of these suits, these terrible, stupid suits…they wouldn't do. Hiding meant blending in, especially on a ship where so many people knew you were. He would certainly not be able to take them with him when he disembarked either, not if the plan he was forming came to fruition. For a moment, he considered wearing just one of the shirts and a pair of trousers, but even they were distinctive in design.

No, this would not do.

Mycroft had chosen to keep his more casual clothing in his suitcases, as they didn't really need to hang by necessity as Sherlock's did. These suitcases were where Sherlock found himself digging, looking for shirt and trousers that would fit him, considering the fact that his brother had some considerable bulk over him. Although, it warranted mentioning, that Mycroft had started losing weight right about the time their father died, and hadn't started putting it back on yet. In fact, Sherlock's engagement had only seemed to make it worse.

It was all Sherlock could do no to think of this, not to think of how his brother would react to his treachery—he'd spent eight years not giving a damn what Mycroft thought, why did he care now?—as he searched through his brother's clothes. Eventually, he found a pair of trousers and a shirt that fit him relatively well, and donned them speedily, along with a pair of his own braces because, thankfully, braces were seemingly the only thing that did not change when feminized.

Then, contemplatively, he sat down on Mycroft's side of the bed, next to his nightstand, and slowly opened the drawer there. Several French letters laid within, in their foil wrapping, and although he hesitated, Sherlock eventually grabbed one and slipped it into his pocket.

He closed the drawer before he could think about his actions and come to be embarrassed for regretful, and hurried out of the room.

"Do you have a knife?" Sherlock asked, without giving John any time to react to his sudden change in style. "I know you must, because you sharpened your charcoals with something."

"Um, yeah." John patted his pockets, found what he was looking for, and pulled out a small pocketknife "Why?"

"It's quit sharp, yes?" Sherlock asked, already migrating towards the mantel, over which a large decorative mirror hung.

"Yes…"

"Good." Sherlock set the knife on the mantel and retrieved the ribbon he'd shoved into his pocket before leaving the bedroom, to wrap it around his hair. It was the last time he'd ever have use for one of these ribbons, if he had his way, and he relished the experience of wrapping it, tightening it into a firm knot, then setting the knife to the area of hair just above the ribbon's knot. In a few swift motions, he'd cut off all the hair and had a neat little bundle sitting in his palm.

John, behind him, looked gobsmacked, and Sherlock smirked as he turned around and waved the lock of hair in his face. "A memento for James."

"You just," John muttered, "Cut off all your hair."

"Problem?" Sherlock inquired, and John dumbly shook his head.

"Well then." Sherlock turned around, retrieved the sketchbook his keyring, and started towards the door. "We have a few errands to run. Come along, John."

With every step he took, the physical ones away from the clothes and the metaphorical ones away from James and feminization, he felt like a new person. Or, in all actuality, the person he'd been seven months ago, before James Moriarty came into his life.

Nor was he however, completely out of the woods yet.

End Chapter

Notes: Just a little fyi, because it's a term that will be coming up often in the next chapter or so: French letters refer to condoms. It's a previous-century term for rubbers; not actual letters written in French. I believe the term technically came into popular use during WWI, but they wouldn't be referred to as condoms for at least a decade after the setting of this story, so I found the term appropriate.

Thank you for reading, and I'm so sorry I haven't updated! It's been a bit hard finding time to write, and unfortunately my computer died halfway through typing this. I managed to finish it, though, so here it is for you~

I'm posting tonight (03/13/2013) without betaing. My beta, peonyvase (That's her tumblr username, because I'm too lazy to try and remember her FFN pen right now) will probably have it beta'd by the end of the week, however, so I'll put in her edits at that time.

Thanks once again for reading!