Spoilers: Hounds of Baskerville
Ch 29 in which our hero Sherlock is forced to apologize.
Sherlock was shaken.
He wasn't used to be anything but in control.
A rational man. That was what he made himself to be.
His mind was all that he had and yet it now decided to betray him, to show him a thing that couldn't be.
It wasn't as disturbing to see the gigantic hound with its glowing red eyes and big jaws that could always be a show, a trick, Sherlock knew how to do tricks, what was disturbing was Sherlock's reaction to the beast.
He was scared. No, he was terrified beyond words. Never in his life, at least not in the life he can remember, did he feel a dread like that. It was so severe that his hand shook. That never happened to him before.
More irritating was John. He just sat there calm and collected as always in control. There were no tremors in his hands, not anymore. He too was out there but he felt no fear because he didn't saw the beast.
Sherlock was furious at him when he started to talk in his doctor tone as Sherlock was the crazy one in the room. He knew what he saw and he trusted his senses more than anything in the world. What disturbed him was his reaction. That was too severe, it shouldn't be like that, he wasn't a child to be scared of the dark.
What was worse John doubted his mind, his ability to observe. Sherlock looked around and the world looked as always did, understandable and simple. He spoke and showed John that he still has his mind working. The point of his mind was that it processed what Sherlock observed. The problem of this feeling was that if his senses betray him his mind will be useless. You can't solve mysteries if your eyes are presenting false leads before your mind.
"Why would you listen to me," John had to have the last line as always. "I'm just your friend."
"I don't have friends," Sherlock was offended by John.
John always did that, diminished their complex partnership to a simple thing as a friendship. Friends were people who occasionally went out together, not the people who you watched the whole day long.
Sherlock wasn't sorry when John got up and left.
It gave him the room to process this new sensation.
He'll conquer it like he did everything else in his life. Every emotion that would come his way, he would examine, understand and then just push down below with the solar system so it wouldn't interfere with his thought process.
He closed his eyes trying to get his breathing under control but he failed.
He looked around examining people to see are they as easy to read as they usually are. They were open and as simple as John's emails. Nothing hidden and mysterious. And yet, why did it interest him so? Why couldn't just dismiss John and let him slide down with the rest of them, unworthy of attention?
That wasn't important, not now. What was important was to regain control.
Sherlock blinked staring at the fire and then he heard a familiar name. He turned and saw Henry's therapist sitting down to eat.
Sherlock observed her. In other circumstances, he would get up and go over to examine her and to mock her profession. Now that was out of the question. Sherlock was too shaken and uncertain in himself to expose himself to her all-knowing posture.
As he observed her, Sherlock noted something familiar, not something about her, but her likeness in personality to John's girlfriends.
Sherlock snorted unkindly. Yes, John would be interested in her in a second pulling out his best game and he did have game for women. The woman was cautious and almost shy. John would know how to play her.
They did need the information so Sherlock sent her picture to John. Predictably, he showed up and was all smooth and smiling, pouring drinks and gaining trust.
Sherlock stood outside watching them. Watching John's face kept him calm. The fear was still there and it seemed as the monsters are gathering behind his back in the dark but he persisted. He kept his back turned towards them refusing to give them any recognition of their reality.
As John said, it just can't be real. Something was wrong with Sherlock, not with the world. Looking at John leaning towards that woman he knew something was wrong with him. In his usual state of mind, he would never expose John to a woman like that, the one with whom he could really get along with.
Sherlock was selfish that way. John and he still needed each other, women just spoiled that equation and made John hesitate in joining him on their adventures.
Then the cheerful scientist came and interrupted the date. By the expression of John's face, it was clear that he had ruined the whole date in just a few lines. Why did he do that?
Sherlock tried to think about that but John's face wasn't cheerful anymore and Sherlock didn't feel safe before the monsters in the dark. Nevertheless, he kept standing in the darkness turning his back towards the monsters.
He closed his eyes to see clearly the John in his mind, the one who would always just stand there smiling, and waiting for Sherlock to impress him with his discoveries.
He wasn't sure how long he stood like that exchanging between monsters and John, trying to think. All he knew that it was dawn when he opened his eyes.
He breathed in and discovered that the fear was gone just as strangely as it came. Sherlock had enough experience with the drug to recognize the withdrawal. That was what was wrong with Sherlock and Henry. They were both drugged into hallucinating and experiencing a high state of anxiety.
John clearly wasn't drugged. How? They did everything together, there wasn't a thing Sherlock did that John didn't. That is except sugar. John doesn't take sugar with his tea.
Sherlock almost ran towards Henry's house there and then but the chill on his skin stopped him. He was standing on the cold the whole night but he was sweating the whole time. His shirt was wet and cold.
He went to their room to change. There John slept undisturbed and Sherlock felt a stab of anger toward his serenity.
Why should he get off so easily?
That made Sherlock smile. That will be a test to show that he's right and for John to experience the awful feeling of dread he mocked so easily.
Sherlock put on new clothes and got out without disturbing John. There was no need for him just yet. He picked up the sugar from Henry's home and went back to find John.
John was sitting at the graveyard and Sherlock suddenly felt awkward. All his sleepless focus was gone. It was one thing to investigate the case and do whatever is necessary to unveil the secrets of a crime, but completely another to handle angry John.
Sherlock did remember his words from the evening before but wasn't still at liberty to say that he was drugged. He still wasn't able to prove it and it wasn't really an excuse. People rarely took that as an apology.
First he did try to just run along John's theories. Sometimes that helped to show interest in his train of thoughts, but this time it didn't work at all.
John just got up and walk away from him. Sherlock went after him and talked to his back trying to explain himself.
"Something happened to me," he said but John kept walking.
It was irritating not seeing his face. His face would always betray his thoughts, without it Sherlock couldn't read anything from his soldier posture.
That's why he grabbed him by the arm, to force him to face Sherlock. As he talked John seemed interested but then just disengaged.
"Good luck then," he said and just walked away.
Sherlock realized that he'll have to face up to it and apologize.
"Listen, what I said before, John, I meant it," he couldn't just retract his statement but he could modify it. "I don't have friends, I just have one.
John looked at him and looked away. Sherlock could see that he did accept it, the apology, but he kept moving like he always did, away from the emotions and the real confrontation. That made Sherlock relax and his mind finally saw the possible solution.
The Morse code proved to be wrong, but the possibility of an acronym was plausible. The word 'hound' was repeated over and over again. What if it wasn't the word itself but an acronym?
Sherlock ran after John all excited praising him but in his praise, he again did something wrong.
"You were saying sorry a minute ago, don't spoil it," John stopped his enthusiasm.
What was the mistake wasn't important, important was that John corrected him? That was John's role, to make boundaries for Sherlock, to steer him away from pointless insulting of people and just getting irritated with the silly things that were emotions.
Sherlock showed him the possibility that the word 'hound' was an acronym and they were back on track, there was a lead to follow. Sherlock had his swing back but then he missed the step when he saw Lestrade in the pub.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded to know.
Lestrade tried to act like he's there by accident as that would ever happen. John called him Greg and Sherlock challenged his fake persona.
"That's his name," John said and Sherlock withdrew, there was no point of memorising Lestrade's name.
Once he would mess up a piece of random information that had no personal meaning there was no way of making it right. In his mind, all possible names for Lestrade had the same amount of meaning, he was simply Lestrade, which was enough for Sherlock.
Still, he tried to find out was there any development in London, something Moriarty related when John turned the focus back on the case. He found a bill for meat in a vegetarian restaurant. That was the exact kind of information that Sherlock trained John to notice. Things that stick out.
"Excellent," said Sherlock and let John have control over this bit of their investigation.
Instead of participating, Sherlock made himself busy in making John a cup of coffee. He stirred it nice and long letting the sugar time to dissolve. John didn't take sugar so he'll take just a few sips.
Predictably, John immediately noticed sugar but Sherlock used their previous fight to display guilt and made John take a few more sips. His face was so obviously in a cringe of disapproval as he tried to act as the coffee was anything but awful to him.
Then Sherlock turned his attention to the interrogation. He found adorable how the younger man is trying to protect his partner with a feeble lie that he started to eat meat again.
It turned out that their dog was already dead so that proved to be a dead end. Before he exited he checked on John's cup to see how much did he drink. He was good, susceptible to guilt. He drank half of it. That should do it since Sherlock put four teaspoons in it.
Outside he looked at Lestrade and John suspiciously, were they talking about him?
Lestrade left and Sherlock took John to Baskerville again. This time he needed a proper control over the environment so he called Mycroft using his fakest polite voice to cut through the chatter.
"What do you need?" Mycroft sighed knowing that he can't refuse him.
He used that voice only for the most urgent situations. Mycroft complied and Sherlock drove.
As they entered he gave a warning to John. A certain heads up.
"Could be dangerous," he used his common phrase when he would want to lure him in the case.
Now it was a code really. It meant, whatever happened just play along.
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