Author's Notes:This will be a full length AU fic and will be posted up here as I finish and my lovely, amazing beta, kathecello, cleans them up! Warnings for the whole story: general adult themes, swearing, mentions of child abuse, drug use/abuse, graphic sex, and violence. Rating has gone up.
As always blown away by the positive reactions I am getting from this story. You are all amazing. There is some new fanart up on the blog for those interested (heartoutofashes . tumblr . com). I hope to keep hearing from you as your reviews bring me so much joy, and I hope you enjoy the new chapter!
How to Build a Heart out of Ashes: Rabbit-hole
by Teumessian
John had expected Sherlock to react much in the same way as he had when Lucy Heart disappeared, and this time he thought the staff would believe him. John knew he had no doubts in Sherlock's deductions; he'd smelled the evidence with his own nose and he'd been prepared to testify in Sherlock's defence this time, instead of just apologising for his insolence.
But the next morning John's presence was not called upon and he started to worry Sherlock had gone without him, and if that was true his friend may not have been a student at the Baker Institute by the end of the day. No matter how many times John told Sherlock that you can't call the headmaster an 'idiotic, blind oaf' it never seemed to get through the alleged genius's thick skull. However, when John rapped his knuckles in his characteristic three knocks against Sherlock's door, a familiar low voice sounded from within. When he opened the door, John saw an unexpected sight, but honestly the unexpected was expected with Sherlock.
The Changeling sat in the middle of the floor with enough open files scattered about him to consume the entirety of the floor. All of the other experiments had been banished to his desk or the square metre space to its left. The bed was also mostly covered in stacks of yet more files. Sherlock's laptop was open to his right and his mobile was in reach. He glanced up at John but made no other greeting. He looked from his open laptop, to a file, and back.
"I thought you'd be under the feet of any professor who'd listen to you by now," John said, trying to read the contents of the file closest to him. "What's all this?"
"I am not going to the staff this time. It was a mistake to even bother in the first place," Sherlock said, without looking up, pulling a file from near the foot of the bed into the place of the one in front of him. "And these are the files of every student Wandering in the past ten years."
John's eyebrows rose, focusing on the first part.
"You aren't going to the faculty? Why not?" John asked. "Don't they need to know about the fact that students are being taken?"
Sherlock quickly typed something before answering.
"It wouldn't do any good. If they believed me, which they probably won't because they are idiots, they could only go to the police. There would be far too much incompetence getting in my way if that were to happen. The lowest department with the specialised ability to handle a case so centred around Changelings is Scotland Yard and I don't have enough data or evidence to get them to pay any attention to the case whatsoever. No, I will work this out…" Sherlock trailed off, eyes narrowing the result on his screen.
John pressed his lips together in silence for a moment, processing. Someone had to figure this out and stop it, that John knew, and at his age and with his upbringing his instinct was to tell someone who could do something about it—the police, the professors—but Sherlock was right. At this point those who could do anything would most likely laugh at a couple of teenagers with a handful of circumstantial evidence. And no matter how much John teased Sherlock on a daily basis; he truly believed that if anyone could figure this out it was his arrogant, genius of a best friend.
So instead of scolding, John merely nodded once. Sherlock noticed and gave him a long glance before going back to his work, something like approval in his eyes. John would help however he could.
"So, how did you get all these? Oh, and why?" John asked, realizing there was a more important question to ask.
Sherlock retrieved another file.
"I had Mycroft send them," he said.
John snickered.
"What did you have to pay for that little favour?" John asked, having learned a lot more about Mycroft Holmes in the past months.
Mycroft would never let an opportunity to get something from his younger brother pass him by. John knew his assessment was correct when Sherlock cast him a narrow eyed glare over the top of his laptop.
"I have to attend Mummy's dinner party next month…" he said, with a disgusted curl of his lips.
John laughed and picked up the biochemistry textbook he'd left in Sherlock's room yesterday, which had been pushed into the corner of the room since then to make room for Sherlock's new project.
"And you need all these files to…?" John prompted once more as he began to carefully pick a path towards Sherlock's bed.
"I need to know if this has ever happened before…" Sherlock said.
John's head turned toward his friend in surprise.
"What? False Wanderings? You think that's a possibility?" John asked as he moved one stack of files to create a John-sized space to sit against Sherlock's head board.
Sherlock nodded and closed one file, opening another. John let that sink in before pushing himself onto the soft duvet, careful not to disturb the precarious stacks.
"Anything I can do to help?" John asked as he settled back.
"No…" Sherlock said simply, staring into the laptop screen.
"Alright," John said, unphased, knowing Sherlock wouldn't hesitate to call upon him when he was needed, and then he opened his biochemistry text.
. . .
John was no longer seeing Sarah. They still sat together in biochem, with Molly, but with how busy he was... and the fact that Sherlock's growing focus on the disappearance of Lucy Heart and Justin Hara was making him more neglectful of basic human needs than ever just made it worse. John never thought he would have to try so hard to keep another human being from accidentally starving to death.
Sherlock's frustration was fed by the fact that progress was slow with the files. Wanderings were such an accepted and culturally significant part of Changeling life that the documentation on them was weak. The events were supposed to be treated with reverence, not scrutiny. John knew this and how much it infuriated Sherlock because he had been subjected to more than one rant on the subject. He'd woken up to one just the other day. He really didn't know how Sherlock kept getting into his room when it was locked.
John didn't realize how fast approaching Winter Term was until one morning, towards the end of autumn. He was eating breakfast alone before his first lecture, when Mike entered the dining hall and sat down across from him. He looked worn far too thin, thick bags under bloodshot eyes.
"Morning, Mike," John greeted, and Mike nodded in return. "You okay? You look like hell."
Mike rubbed his eyes and then the back of his head, looking a little awkward.
"Umm, yeah. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about just that," he said, leaning lightly from side to side.
John cocked his head to the side and set down his tea.
"What?" John asked, utterly confused.
Mike looked like he was struggling with an internal conflict, fingers drumming uneasily on the table.
"Please, dear god, switch rooms with me when Winter Term starts!" Mike blurted suddenly. "Look I know it's a lot to ask and I don't want you to feel obliged to say yes but you're with Sherlock constantly anyway and you seem to possess some magical ability to put up with him but I just can't do it anymore!"
He finished, going a little limp. John understood now. Mike looked like hell because he was only getting as much sleep as Sherlock, which was not enough for any normal human being to survive on. No wonder Mike seemed like he was about to have a psychotic breakdown.
"Sure, I'll switch with you," John said with a light chuckle.
Mike looked abashed.
"Really?" he said, eyes wide.
Honestly, John knew it probably wouldn't be good for his sleep schedule either but he highly doubted the hallway had ever made a difference in Sherlock's infringements upon his time. Even so, John himself was a little surprised at the fact that the idea barely even seemed a little daunting. All he currently thought was that if he moved he could just yell at Sherlock through the wall to get him to go to sleep instead of having to walk down the hall.
John shrugged.
"I've developed enough of a tolerance for his violin," John said, cutting a bite sized piece off the breakfast sausage on his plate.
Plus, if John had an exam or anything else highly important to do on a given day he had no qualms about confiscating the young Changeling's bow altogether the night prior. Sherlock had yet to figure out a way to make the little instrument produce a loud enough sound to keep anyone up without it thus far.
It would be fine—good, John thought.
For Mike's part, he looked like he was about to dissolve into relieved sobs.
"Oh, god, mate, you have no idea how much I owe you for this," he said, going nearly boneless in his seat. "Thank you so much."
John laughed again, taking a sip of his tea.
"No problem, mate," he chuckled, hoping he wouldn't regret this.
. . .
Just a few weeks later John's days changed once more as Winter Term brought new classes as well as a new room. John still wasn't sure how Sherlock felt about him taking Mike's old room. When John told him, Sherlock had been working on the new wall dedicated to the Wanderers' Case. He had said nothing but he did pause to look at John with narrowed eyes, then over to the adjacent room, before a little smirk bloomed on his lips and he went back to his work. John forced back the concern that said Sherlock was pleased with this development and that was a very bad sign for him.
This term John was taking two courses that would never be seen outside of an Institute.
The first was a required course named "Changelings: An Introduction and History." By the students at Baker it was dubbed, with varying levels of affection, simply "Intro." Every Changeling to come through the Institute was required to take this course their first Winter Term. They only had it once a year to make sure there were enough new Changelings to fill a class. This was unfortunate for John for two reasons. First, he was a spring shift. The course was supposed to be taken as a way to inform new students about facts of Changeling life that they might find useful. Having been at the Institute for over seven months now meant that most of this was already common knowledge to John. The other aspect of the course, the history, would have made the class worth taking in John's opinion, if it wasn't so completely and totally outweighed by the other factor that severely reduced John's enthusiasm for the course. Since it was the first Winter Term of any new Institute Changeling this meant John would be in a class with children, no older than fifteen and possibly as young as eight.
It was as bad as John expected. He received no shortage of interested looks when he first entered the room. They probably thought he had come to discuss something with Professor Highland, who also taught most of the university level Changeling Studies courses, but instead he sat at a desk in the very back row of the classroom and tried to ignore the heads twisting in his direction. He had been tempted to remove the blue striped tie that marked him as university student but that in itself would have tagged him as a much older student. Besides, there was no way anyone was going to mistake him for a secondary student for one minute… even if a few of them were taller than John. God damn his vertically challenged genes.
The other class John was taking was far more enjoyable, as well as probably the strangest course John ever had or ever would take. The class was a course on shift-speech. It was only offered to university students and most students who took it radically increased their ability to communicate in shifted form. John had seen the proof in Molly and Greg, who had taken the course last term.
The class did not take place in any of the many buildings on Baker's campus but instead it was held in a sheltered amphitheatre located in the forest just past B Wing. It was used for a few courses like this one, as well as theatre groups and performers.
The professor for John's class was an owl, a great grey shift, to be precise. This was because the course was taught in shifted form. Along the benches sat Changelings of all shapes and sizes. It was obvious that the amphitheatre had been constructed to allow for this arrangement. There were normal, wide benches towards the bottom, where most small to midsized shifts could manage to sit comfortably. Right at the front there was an open area for those whose shifts were too small to get up on the normal benches. Along the back there was also an area free of benches, just shallow raised steps where Changelings with larger shifts could stand or sit according to their preference. All about there were stretches of textured bars where avian shifts of varying sizes could perch comfortably.
John understood why this class was only offered to university students on the first day of class as he slunk into the amphitheatre behind a spotted, pot-bellied pig. Even when the professor alighted down onto the perch at the front of the theatre and announced herself as Professor Tidwell, and the class attempted to quiet themselves, the clearing still hummed with the sounds of claws on wood, feathers rustling, the panting of canines, an equine snort. John could not even begin to image the disaster that would be this amphitheatre filled with secondary students, or- heaven forbid- primary students. It would be absolute chaos.
Sherlock didn't understand why John was taking the class when he had told him about it. When John explained that just because they could speak fluently in shifted form didn't mean he didn't want to be able to talk to other people as well the young genius only became more baffled and John gave up on explaining it to him.
. . .
A week or so into winter term John was woken up at around one o'clock in the evening by his door opening. The light from the hallway hurt his eyes as he blearily tried to make out the visitor. However, it wasn't as if he didn't already know.
"Sherlock?" John mumbled, shielding his eyes. "What is it?"
Wordlessly his friend entered the room, door swinging shut behind him and grabbed the rarely used quilt folded at the bottom of John's bed as well as the spare pillow behind John's head, causing his head to fall unceremoniously backwards.
"Hey!" John complained indignantly, as Sherlock spread the blanket on John's floor. "What are you doing?"
"I want to lie down. My bed is covered in files."
Sherlock placed the pillow on the ground and ungracefully flopped back, settling on his back, palms resting on his chest.
"Well clear them off," John said, irritated at being woken up but knowing that there was no chance of Sherlock leaving now.
Sherlock ignored him as John expected.
"It's been happening for five years."
Sherlock's voice was quiet and awake. In the gloom John could see him staring up at the ceiling. John rubbed his eyes once more and turned on the lamp on his bedside table.
"What's been happening for five years?"
Sherlock looked at him under dark lashes. Then suddenly all attempts at feigned peace were abandoned and he popped up off the ground like a ping-pong ball pressed under water and then released.
"Until five years ago, one to two Changelings at each Institute in Britain Wandered per year. Historically the average combined student Wanderings was anywhere from 35 to 45 per annum. Five years ago that average jumped from 42, six years ago, to 51, five years ago, and it has hovered between 46 and 57 per annum since then," Sherlock said, wild light in his eyes, seeing the numbers in the air in front of him.
John was too tired to process at a high enough speed to hope to keep up with Sherlock tonight so he didn't even pause before prompting an explanation.
"What does that mean, Sherlock?"
Sherlock flopped down again, and John was afraid he'd hurt himself, but he seemed fine.
"It means that in the past five years there have been about ten more Wanderings a year than the historic average. The higher numbers don't come from specific Institutes but all of them, the increase spread out over a number of Institutes, and which Institutes show an increase changes each year. It's never the same. I have checked the statistics of neighbouring countries and no such rise is detectable…" Sherlock's eyes were wide and John was looking over the side of the bed, watching when he looked up to meet John's gaze. "John, it means in the past five years over fifty British Changelings have been taken, killed, stolen, I don't know… but they were made to look like Wanderings and nobody has noticed."
John couldn't speak for a moment. He just stared, Sherlock's blue eyes never wavering from John's. The idea that such a horrible thing could be occurring without the notice of officials... under the guise of something nearly sacred was a hard thing to swallow.
Sherlock finally looked away, rolling back onto his back.
"John… there's something else…" he murmured.
There was more? How could there be more?
"What?" John's voice came out hushed.
Sherlock's eyes narrowed.
"My immediate guess to the culprits of such an act would be a group of Normals… there are still multitudes of anti-Changeling hate groups. It's happened before, such groups targeting Institutes. Not as elaborately as this but it is a logical possibility except…" Sherlock trailed, head cocking to the side, as if something was actually hard to understand, even for him.
"Except what, Sherlock?" John asked, his hands fisting in his duvet.
Sherlock looked up at him, something like wonder in his face.
"There are Changelings involved, John. I don't know how much, or if it's willing participation, or coerced, but it was a Changeling that returned Justin Hara's marker to his changing booth. Changelings are a part of this," Sherlock said, light sparking in his eyes.
John shook his head, amazed that Sherlock had figured all this out. His confidence in his decision not to try and make Sherlock leave the case to the staff or police was solidified. They would have never figured all this out, but there was still so much they didn't know.
"What are we going to do?" John asked.
Sherlock smiled and John's stomach twisted a little uncomfortably because he hated it when Sherlock forgot about actual lives, which he was obviously doing now.
"We're going to figure out how and why this is happening, and catch whoever is doing it," Sherlock said gleefully.
"And save the false Wanderers if they are alive, right, Sherlock?" John asked, with a stern set to his face.
Sherlock rolled his eyes and made a dismissive hand motion with his 'agreeable' nod, which infuriated John to no end.
"Sherlock, there could be lives at stake. At least pretend you care about that," John scolded.
The young genius looked up at John with disdain.
"Caring about them won't help save them," Sherlock said.
Sometimes, John really just didn't understand him. He shook his head trying not to admit to himself that it hurt to hear Sherlock say things like this for reasons John didn't understand.
"That's… that's not the point," John said wearily.
Sherlock pushed himself up onto his elbow and looked at John defiantly.
"Well then what is the point, John?"
John opened his mouth to respond but found he had no words to explain himself and he was just tired. He let the anger fall off his face.
"I—no, fine. Never mind. Just go to sleep, Sherlock. I'm sure you'll work out what's happening soon," John said, turning the light off, leaving them both in the dark.
There was nothing for a while and John thought Sherlock might actually be going to sleep, or at least allowing John to do so, even if he doubted he would sleep for a good while with how uncomfortably twisted his stomach was, but then there was a very faint twitch against his mind.
"I've disappointed you," Sherlock said softly in the darkness. "I can feel it."
Sherlock almost sounded troubled. John sighed in the dark.
"Maybe a bit," John said, honestly. "But it's okay. I shouldn't expect you to feel something just because I think you should."
He said the words but the tight knot of unease at Sherlock's apparent disregard for human life still resided in his chest. There was silence and suddenly John knew Sherlock was troubled. He could picture the scowl on his face even in the dark. He was troubled and confused.
"I'm… sorry?" Sherlock's hesitant and unsure voice escaped into the room.
The knot loosened and John rolled his eyes, even if his friend couldn't see that. Maybe Sherlock cared about something at least. John shut his eyes and pulled his duvet tighter around him.
"It's okay, Sherlock. You're still brilliant," John murmured, sleep and disposition making him frank.
Sherlock said nothing, but the displeasure John had sensed previously disappeared, and was replaced with a surprised pleasure. A light smile played on John's lips that shouldn't have been there for a number of reasons but remained as he slipped into unconsciousness.