Chapter 12
Author's note: Everyone please send love, admiration, and white-chocolate raspberry truffle Haagen Dazs ice cream to strangegibbon, who deserves all this and more for her l33t beta skillz. All blunders are my own.
John always found it amusing when people assumed he'd developed the skill allowing him to sleep anywhere at the drop of a hat whilst in the Army. Other doctors never made that mistake, remembering their own years on the A&E rotation only too well.
He woke on a narrow bed with the softest, crispest sheets he'd ever touched. Right, then. He was in the safe-house Mycroft had insisted on. A very, very posh safe-house. Sherlock was pacing and messing about with his phone on the other side of the room instead of tearing around London, so they must still be in lockdown.
He scrubbed at his face with his hands. "Assume I haven't heard anything you've said for the last five hours."
"You've been asleep for three."
"Assume I don't understand anything you and Mycroft said before that. What's going on?"
"Mycroft would prefer it not be treason. That's always messy."
"Do you think it is?"
"Not enough data. Well co-ordinated attack, excellent intel. Not many people would have been able to connect Mycroft to the codecracker, even fewer would have been able to reach him. But what were they after, exactly? He doesn't have the device, that's long gone, and the people who came after us wouldn't expect us to have it any longer either. What else could it be? That one's easy: information. About what? The device? Possibly, but what would be worth the trouble an abduction would cause? We're not technological experts; no one who's ever seen you type would believe you know anything whatsoever about technology. "
"I—"
"You have trouble with chip-and-PIN machines, John."
"I'm quite good with my phone."
Sherlock's expression was half pity, half disbelief. "You actually think that's true. What must that be like, to persist in a delusion in the face of all evidence to the contrary?"
"I've had three hours of sleep in the last two days and I was in surgery for most of one of those. Could I at least have coffee and toast before you start in on me?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes, strode to the door, flung it open, announced "Breakfast here" loudly to the hallway, and slammed it shut. "There. Now, as I was saying, information. Specifically, information you, I, and Mycroft would all possess. Not about the device, but about the maker of the device. We've all seen her. Obvious."
"They think we can lead them to the inventor?"
"Yes."
"You figured that out from practically nothing. That's brilliant."
Sherlock's derisive snort was overshadowed by his obvious preening. "Basic, John," he said, but he caught his gaze in a scorching eyefuck that sent John's heart thumping against his breastbone.
Or that might have been knocking at the door. Damn.
Sherlock tossed him an unfamiliar dressing gown and tipped his head towards what John assumed was an en suite bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later, showered, shaven, and dressed in the suit that had been hanging just outside the bathroom, John found a breakfast tray set up in the bedroom. Mycroft was there, Sherlock was not.
Mycroft waved him towards a chair by the tray. "Eat, please. It can compensate somewhat for lack of sleep. We need to talk and we haven't much time."
"I won't—"
"—conspire with me against him, I know. I'd never ask you to betray his trust, John. I'd never put you in a position where you'd have to agree to that."
John didn't even have to think very hard to spot the loophole there. He remained standing and only looked longingly at the food once.
Mycroft closed his eyes and sighed, mask slipping momentarily. He looked weary and injured and whilst John knew any expression of vulnerability from the elder Holmes was calculated, he was just as sure this one wasn't manufactured. "Please, John. There are things you must know."
John sat and, being practical, spooned eggs onto a plate. You simply never knew when you were going to get a chance to eat whilst running around after Sherlock.
"Sherlock explained this may be a matter of treason? Then you understand the need for tact and discretion, and you understand that all matters concerning tact will fall to you. More urgently, I need you to understand how important it is that Sherlock succeeds.
"Until recently, Sherlock's abilities have attracted only passing interest among certain of my peers. His little cases had been local in impact and no official notice had to be taken of an eccentric younger brother with a drug problem who dabbled in solving crimes as a hobby. His involvement with Jim Moriarty changed that. His lifestyle and talents have come under close scrutiny and there is going to be increasing pressure to bring him into the fold and under someone's control."
"I can't see him tolerating that. He'd see it as a prison, a straitjacket."
"And destroy himself to get free, yes. He has done once already, or nearly so. I know you've little reason to trust me, but we are on the same side in this matter, you and I. I'm not a villain, John, despite what Sherlock thinks, and I cannot abide the waste of human potential."
John said nothing. Loudly.
"Very well, if you can't believe I want what's best for him, at least believe I don't want to see him pushed to the breaking point of frustration and desperation. My brother is extraordinary and capable of great things if allowed his safety valves. Without those, he is an atomic bomb."
John's appetite evaporated.
Mycroft shifted, trying to ease the pain in his ribs. "If I can't prove that he can be useful to us, that he is a unique, irreplaceable resource worth the trouble he causes and the concerns raised by his violent allergy to authority, I don't know how long I can shield him. He has to be valuable enough to us to outweigh the risks of his potentially being used against us. This investigation is an opportunity the likes of which may not come again. I can't afford to let it pass by."
John licked his lips. "And you can't tell him this."
"You can imagine his reaction if I tell him he needs to prove himself to my peers."
Yes, he could imagine it only too well.
"So you'll need to keep him focused, John."
"Wait, what?"
# # #
"No, no, no, no, no," John was saying to Mycroft as Sherlock opened the door. That was excellent. John had finally remembered the coda.
"Ah, good, you've eaten," he said, and brusquely tipped John forward in his chair, yanked off his suit jacket, thrust the cardigan he'd managed to locate in one of the clothespresses into his arms, and headed towards the bathroom.
"Childish, Sherlock," Mycroft called after him as he dumped the wool into the bathtub and turned on the hot water.
"I'm not the one trying to put him in a suit when he prefers jumpers, Mycroft."
"Boys," said John tiredly.
"I was saying to John that we'll need a cover story to explain why you're moving in these social circles again as you investigate. It's only natural that I should invite my brother and his partner to stay with me as we arrange a public celebration of their engagement."
That...wasn't actually a bad idea, even if it was Mycroft's.
"No," said John.
Mycroft continued, "You would of course wish to begin making connections, talking to parents about school choices and the like, planning for the future."
"I'd really rather not."
Sherlock ran possible scenarios in his mind's eye. "It accounts neatly for everything..." It also provided the perfect social barrier to oblivious idiots who would otherwise make entirely inappropriate advances towards his John.
"In case anyone cares what I think, I am opposed to this idea."
"But it—"
"Pick something else, anything, I don't care. But I can't carry that off."John stood, dropping the cardigan into the just-vacated chair, crossed to the door, and marched away down the outer hallway.
"Now look what you've done," he snarled at Mycroft, and went out after him.
# # #
Was that real gold leaf on the ceiling? Why would anyone even do that, except to show they had so much money they could piss it away on hideous decor? "What was this?" he asked without turning around. "Ballroom?" I'd be such a crap dad. It's better this way, really.
"Dining room." Sherlock ghosted to his shoulder and simply stood beside him. John regretted leaving the jumper behind; the empty, cavernous room was bloody cold and that made his shoulder ache.
Having a who-can-be-silent-longer contest with Sherlock was like trying to stare down a cat: you only won if your opponent became terminally bored. He cleared his throat. "I would try, Sherlock, of course I'd try. I just...I don't think I could be convincing and we really need to carry this off."
"It's fine, John. We'll come up with something else." One side of his mouth twisted in a half-wistful smile. "Ah, well. I was so looking forward to introducing you to Sebastian Wilkes as my husband-to-be."
"If you're going to manipulate me at least try not to be so bloody obvious about it." Anger was so much easier to deal with than longing and loss, so familiar. He knew what to do with anger, how to press it down and hold it primed and ready and waiting. He knew how to be both angry and calm. "There's something else, too, you know. If we do this, there'll be expectations, pressures, assumptions from the people around us, influencing us. Things will change, and we're not ready for that."
"It's only—"
"A cover story? No, because people will treat us differently and it will affect how we are with each other. You think it won't matter, but it will. It's jumping about six steps ahead of ourselves and that won't lead anywhere good. I know you want to skip the boring bits. I know you—we both know...Sherlock, we both know neither of us is ever leaving. But that doesn't mean we're ready to be...bound together."
"That makes no sense, John. If it's going to happen eventually then it may as well happen now."
"No. Some things take time. I've been remembering m'gran, the one with the dahlias. She was an amateur naturalist, taught me about botany, entomology, things like that. I forgot so much," (he resolutely ignored Sherlock's knowing snort) "but I remember the butterflies. She had a butterfly garden, and one summer I got to see one hatch.
"She told me that the caterpillar spins a cocoon, and then...turns to soup, as she put it. Dissolves. That before it becomes a butterfly, it has to become a cocoon full of goo."
"I am familiar with the process of metamorphosis, as well as the proper terminology."
"Bully for you; I was eight and I wasn't, so she explained it in a way I could understand. She said if you shook up a chrysalis, you'd disrupt the process and only ever have a cocoon of goo. She also told me that when the butterfly hatched, I couldn't blow on its wings to dry them faster so it could fly sooner, because it took time for them to straighten out and they had to stay moist until then or they'd be deformed."
"You think this...process of ours could be disrupted?"
"Not leaving just means neither of us leaves. Being happy with each other takes much more work, and it takes time. This thing—whatever it is between us, it's in a—a formative stage."
Sherlock just looked frustrated. "We could add a catalyst—"
"And watch it explode. Stop pushing this and start using that massive intellect to figure out how to give ourselves time and still solve this case."
He made a dissatisfied noise but John could see the wheels already turning at the challenge. "If your grandmother taught you entomology, why did you call my insects 'bugs'? Only a third of them are."
"They looked like beetles. I wasn't much into beetles. I liked her bees, though." He looked around the echoing room again and took a deep breath. "Sherlock? Mycroft...thinks it's really important you solve this one."
A pause, and then a dropping away of tension. A soft hand in his hair tilted his forehead into a kiss; a hummingbird pulse drummed in the white throat under his cheek.
"Thank you, my loyal John."
# # #
Given John's vehemently expressed opinion on the matter, it was probably best if Sherlock didn't mention that with a bit of help from the registrar who owed him a favour, he'd forged John's signature in the marriage register eight days ago. Sherlock was always very careful with his catalysts and there were hardly ever unintentional explosions.
Metamorphosis. Really, John got such odd ideas in his funny little brain sometimes.
Author's postscript: Many happy thanks to all the lovely people who alerted and favourited. My eternal love and gratitude to every one of my treasured reviewers: thank you for the praise, for pointing out what works and what doesn't, and for the time you took to engage with the story, share your thoughts, and help me become a better writer. I kiss your hands and feet.