Tw: None for this chapter aside from general Hounds of Baskerviliness.
John couldn't tell if it was the rumble of the jeep's engine or just the adrenaline beginning to beat through his system, but for the second time that night, he was stuck on the edge of action and he felt as if he would shake apart from it. When he was in Afghanistan, before Fenrir, before special ops, back when he was just a part of the Northumberland fusiliers, he would go still when the adrenaline hit. He'd find himself tipped on the edge of action; tranquil on the outside, a storm on the inside. The world would go clearer around him as if at any moment it would slow to a crystalline point of decisive movement and the turbulence in his body would shake in his teeth.
When he had Fenrir, it was different. His partner became a lodestone: two bodies against a storm, two hearts beating in unison, two wills twined together for a single purpose. The world would narrow down to a single point but then Fenrir would move on his left and their awareness would kick out again, leaving them in the eye of a storm.
It was hard not to feel adrift, hard to find that centre of pinpoint action without a touch stone. Sherlock had helped, given him the thrill of the chase again, a purpose – but he wasn't the same. It wasn't enough.
And John always felt it clearly at times like this one, tumbling out of the jeep and down the dark moor. His and Sherlock's flashlight beams bounced off the fog. Eerie shadows loomed as they stumbled down into the Hollow to find Henry, gun in hand, sliver muzzle raised to his mouth.
Oh god.
"Henry put the gun down!"
John hung on anxious tenterhooks, flashlight in hand and heart in his mouth as Sherlock began unravelling the truth, spools of logic rolling out to try and calm Henry down.
"I don't know anymore!"
Henry was breaking down in front of them, gun raised to his mouth as John and Sherlock both stumbled forward to stop him, Sherlock still running his mouth, telling the truth the only way he knew how. He was steady in his logic, his faith in his conclusions steady and un-repentant.
It worked, Henry's hand fell lax, quiet desperation worked in his mouth as he tried to reason out his truth.
"Sherlock!"
It was Lestrade, and John took the chance to ease in, take the gun from Henry's shaking hand.
It was solid in his hand, he already felt better for having it and he engaged the safety, checking it as Sherlock was still calming Henry down.
"We saw it last night, the hound, I don't – I-"
"There was a dog… it was just a dog Henry, an ordinary dog. Fear and stimulus, that's how it works."
But John still couldn't shake the creeping paranoia, couldn't shake the knowledge that there was more than just a dog here.
And that's when they heard it. The howl.
It echoed over the moor, ringing from all directions in the fog, so far away, but yet too close at once.
A dog.
A Hound.
#
He ran fast, paws splayed against the ground, following the scent cone and his own kenning of John down over the moor, picking his way past the explosive-metal-danger-mine ground. The pulse of flight-run-John-fight-blood competed with demand of freedom-run-wind-escape and he let the rumble grow in his chest until it trembled the dirt under him and the scent of the small prey reeked with fear-run-predator-danger-hide.
As the scent of John grew stronger, the smell of fear and adrenaline bit sharp in the scent cone. So too did the smell of madness-anger-feral of another dog, too close and too dangerous for comfort.
Throwing his head back he howled a warning of both threat and reassurance, he was here for John and no mere dog would hurt his partner. He would kill before that happened. He dug in his paws, and felt the earth fly beneath him.
#
They tensed, John turning and swinging the gun up. Around him Lestrade did the same, gun and torch raised, as they turned in circles, their torch lights bouncing up around them.
Lambent eyes loomed out of the shadows. The growl shuddered in the clearing.
"Sherlock,"
There wasn't supposed to be a hound, it was an ordinary dog. But John was seeing it, and Henry, Henry was losing it. His voice cracked hysterically in denial. He tossed his body in one place, rocking against fear and terror.
"Sherlock," John said, demanding an explanation, Henry's hysteria grinding a sharp edge against his own tight hold of alarm. "Are you seeing this? Alright, well- he is not drugged, Sherlock. So what's this? What is it!"
The monster, because even though Sherlock was rationalising it as 'just a dog, Henry, it's nothing more than an ordinary dog', John had never seen a dog like it before. Less canine than beast, it's ugly block head was deformed. Teeth jutted from its jaw in a crocodilian jigsaw and huge eyes bounced their torches lights back at them. The thing's hide was a leathery armour of jutting bone under the flesh. It was feral and demonic. The beast was half the size of the thing John had hallucinated in the laboratory, and behind the pulse of fear he felt a drizzle of relief that it was not Fenrir. Fenrir never had and never would ever resemble the deformed thing snarling down at them.
"Oh my god," Lestrade swore and John stared at it as it advanced, its teeth snapping.
"Sherlock!" He demanded, "Sherlock!"
But Sherlock was not answering, he was transfixed on something else behind him, and John could not tear his eyes away from the approaching beast to see what it was. It was hard enough fighting against the effect of whatever had gotten into him, and John only noticed Sherlock's brief struggle with something, someone, after it had finished.
He could hear the harsh pant of Sherlock's breath and then the hastily muffled sound from Bob Franklin, his mask torn away and mouth covered by his sleeve.
"It's the fog! The drug is in the fog. Aerosol dispersant, it said in the paper, Project H.O.U.N.D," Sherlock's voice rose frantically as he figured it out. "It's the fog; a chemical minefield!"
It still did not explain the beast, which was coming ever closer. Its snarl overrode all action until Franklin yelled, "Kill it, for God's sake! Kill it!"
John and Lestrade swung their guns, Lestrade shooting once, then twice, missing both times. The beast snarled, made to leap - John levelled his gun, mind narrowing to a target point – and something burst out of the woods, careening into the beast, slamming it down and out of the way.
John caught nothing except a huge bulk of fur, some slavering jaws, and frantic snarling. It cut off sharply with choked yelp and gunshot whine as the smaller beast lost to the thing that had flung itself down into the pit
For a moment, he thought that the drugs were playing tricks on him as he watched the huge wolf, because that's what the thing was: a wolf much larger than the demonic hound. There was a long second of stillness as the four men watched the dead thing thump to the ground.
Lestrade's gun was back up again defensively. John's was not.
It hung limp by his side as a strange sense of recognition stuck him still in place.
He knew this animal before him.
It was huge, yes. Its paws were a massive splay against the ground, and its teeth were white and threatening, its coat was a shaggy rough of brown-grey fur. But he knew this animal, he did, and suddenly the ticking paranoia and unease, the sense of missing that had been so close and so near while he'd been here made sense.
Fenrir?
He heard the cock of Lestrade's gun as the huge wolf took a single step towards John. Panic rushed his voice in a command.
"No! Don't Shoot! Don't shoot!" He could feel Lestrade's incredulous look from here, but all other awareness was pared away as he stared into the amber eyes, at the wary spark of hope and recognition.
"Fenrir?" He asked this time. Hope burned up his throat. "Fenrir?"
There was a tiny whine, a sweep of a tail, a paw placed hesitantly forward.
"Fuck. Fuck."
John realised that he was sobbing; the sound clear in his voice. The force of it drove him to his knees, Fenrir sinking with him.
"Fenrir. Oh god-"
His arms were around Fenrir's neck; Fenrir's massive head was pushed into his torso. John's own head was bent over, pressing into the thick fur.
"I am so sorry," He said into the solid warmth of his dog's bulk, his wolf's bulk- the truth no longer deniable. "I am so, so, sorry."
Fenrir was here – he was here. John didn't know how, or when, or why. His mind struggled with the impossibility of it before he stopped trying and focused only on the shaggy warmth of Fenrir, the way Fenrir's ribs pushed out under his fingers. It seemed so surreal. But if this was another hallucination, he didn't want to wake up from him. It would kill him. It would hurt too much.
Fenrir pawed desperately at him, and the almost painful rake of claws against his thigh convinced him it was not.
The wolf's noises of happiness were infectious, and John began to laugh through his tears- the emotion brought about by something unnameable – an edge of incredulous mania to his sorrow. Fenrir nudged his muzzle up to bathe the tears away from John's face, and it felt a little like benediction.
"John." That was Lestrade, a humming line of tension in his voice, "care to explain why you are cuddling a massive wolf?"
John swallowed back the sobs, scrubbed a hand over his face, and turned to face the others in the hollow. Fenrir fell automatically to his side, and he let a hand fall to Fenrir's shoulders to ground himself.
"This is Fenrir," He said, "I found him in Afghanistan; when I was discharged they must have found him, or kept him."
"You were a dog handler," Sherlock said, "That was your dog?"
"Yes," He said.
"That's not a dog, John," interjected Lestrade, "That's a wolf. How the fuck did you use a wolf in the army? Okay?"
The question was difficult, not because the answer wasn't easy – as the answer was easy - but because John had spent so long living in those moments of sand and heat, and had so many complex emotions tied into those memories.
About to explain it, John was interrupted by Henry's exclamation of, "So there was a hound!"
All heads turned as Henry, no longer forgotten, broke into a hysterical laugh, swinging around from Franklin to Sherlock, to John and Fenrir, "There was a hound!"
"Don't be stupid boy," Franklin barked, "It's only been there less than a year. That thing never saw the outside of the facility – too busy wrapped in tests and cages – animals lack finesse. Chemicals are clean."
Sherlock did not listen to Franklin, and he laid John and Fenrir to the side as he grabbed Henry and dragged him over to dead dog that Fenrir had killed. Henry fought him at every step and Fenrir's head swung to follow his process.
"Look at it Henry – it's an ordinary dog, a dog. John's pet aside – there was no hound."
The man's trembling stilled as he stared at the broken body on the forest floor, stark truth dawning. He didn't look at Fenrir, who stood as an imposing other at John's side, but instead heaved a strangled cry and flung himself at Franklin.
"Why didn't you just kill me?!"
Fenrir snarled low in his throat, but John's hand on his ruff restrained him. The minute trembling of his muscles vibrated up into John's hand, leaving them with false tremors and the primal thrill of barely checked aggression thrumming in his chest.
Lestrade pulled Henry off Franklin to Sherlock's explanations of why, logical and sickly admiring,
"Because dead men get listened to! He needed to do more than kill you, he needed to discredit you. He had to discredit every word you ever said about your father, and he had the means right at his feet. A chemical minefield! Pressure pads in the ground dosing you up every time that you came back here. Murder weapon, scene of the crime, all at once."
Sherlock was soliloquizing, John realised, overdone with admiration of other geniuses.
"Thank you, Henry,"
And just when John had thought the man was gaining some measure of, oh, understanding? Humanity? – but – Christ, Sherlock, timing.
"No, no, it's okay," Henry turned to face all of them, "because this means my dad was right, he found something out – and he found you, right in the middle of an experiment."
Henry spat the words out, and John left Fenrir's side to body block him, just in case the man tried to beat Franklin into the ground again.
That was when there was a horrific noise and their heads turned. The dog was scrabbling at the ground, a feral snarl frothed in his mouth. John and Lestrade swung their guns defensively but Fenrir got there first. His jaw clamped down on the dog's throat and he shook it viciously. A horrific snap of breaking spine cracked out and the dog was finally silent.
In their distraction, Franklin slipped away- dashing through the dark wood with a reckless turn of desperation.
"Franklin!"
They scrambled after him, slowed down by the uneven ground. Roots and shadowed dips and rabbit holes threatened treachery, dark knots making to break ankles with each footfall. After John tripped the second time, Fenrir stayed beside him, catching John with his bulk whenever John stumbled. Fenrir could've very easily caught Franklin, pressed him into the ground, jaws a palpable threat around the man's throat, but John did not order him away and Fenrir stayed at his side.
They reached Franklin just in time to see him clamber over a barbed wire fence into the minefield, glance back over his shoulder once and let the mine he'd stepped on activate.
The explosion was a burst of acrid light and left them blinking away the retina burn.
Fuck.
The clean-up was, fortunately, none of John's or Sherlock's business. Lestrade was the poor sod who got to deal with the paperwork, explanations, and other bits of bureaucracy that blown up scientists required. Henry was dropped at his house where he promised to A) give John the money, and B) get himself to a psychiatrist.
John was glad to leave Henry there, because Fenrir, who'd loped beside the Jeep on the trip there, was then able to cram himself in the back of the car for the ride to the B&B. It was quiet trip back; John crooked an arm behind his seat so Fenrir can press the comforting warmth of his muzzle into John's hand.
"So, he's staying then," Sherlock said.
"Yes," John said firmly as Sherlock's jaw jutted forward into a vague approximation of mulish displeasure.
"I don't like dogs."
"Sherlock," there was a shade of bite in John's voice, "he's staying."
Sherlock's response was a huffed out 'Fine', but he didn't fight so John knew that it wasn't really a problem.
In the distance, the warm lights of the village were almost absurdly peaceful, a cheery twinkle against the dark night. All John looked forward to was the prospect of a comfy bed, Fenrir sleeping beside him, and an undisturbed sleep without Sherlock perched on a chair muttering things about the case like some damned noisy murder gremlin. Sherlock didn't say anything, but John could tell by the restrained yawn and unnatural stiffness of his shoulders that he needed to sleep too.
It wasn't that late when they reached the B&B, but thankfully no guests were up in the lounge and Fenrir was able to slip up into their room without being noticed. The wolf was a large and looming presence in the relatively small room, and John felt slightly guilty that there wasn't a place for Fenrir to sleep but the floor.
"Sorry Fenrir," he explained, "when we get to London I'll sort you out."
He received a nudge of Fenrir's nose, as if the wolf was saying 'that's okay', before Fenrir lowered himself on the carpet beside John's bed with a sigh and watched John got ready for bed.
Sherlock of course just flung his coat onto the chair, kicked off his shoes and fell onto his bed with a fine disregard for bedtime conventions. John took a little longer, but when he did climb under the sheets with was with a grateful sigh as the screaming tension in his muscles unknotted somewhat.
He lowered one hand over the edge of the mattress so it could just brush the warmth of Fenrir's bulk, and let himself drift to sleep. For once since he'd last seen Fenrir, he slept without an edge of disquiet. He was content with Fenrir back beside him once more.
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HAPPY NEW YEAR! SOoo - this was it, the reunion. Everything i've written has led up to here - i hope you've enjoyed it so far, and I hope you'll enjoy where i'll take it. Also, i'm here for story and plot ideas, Especially for Reichenbark Falls bc I am STUCK.