Charlotte and her web
John went to breakfast that morning, waiting for Charlotte. He truly liked her and thought that this would work. She never said what she did for a living, much beyond that she was a designer of some sort. She never said much about herself at all.
That bothered John. They'd been dating for a few weeks now. Maybe he should ask point-blank?
John opened a magazine, while he waited. He noticed the waitress give him a somber look and felt chilly. Why the stroke of sorrow in this sudden place? He was about to ask her how she was when he saw that the look was for him.
A Love Affair With a Mad Detective_by Charlotte Chase
In the byline photo, the girl John had been seeing. Beneath it a wild and crazed story about John's confessions. The raving ramble of a man who had been madly, dangerously in love with the frightening flatmate fraudulent detective who came back from government prison and was now an addict in his care.
Not a bit of it was true of course. Some of it was pieced together from little slips here and there that John might have made. Sherlock's favorite type of tea and occasional smoking habit were accurate. The rest was perjury.
John felt his blood boil to his nostrils, shot to his lips like Judas' kiss bounced back in his thought mirror. How had he dared to grow close to someone again, after all the tangled webs spun around his head before?
He wondered if Sherlock had seen this. He rushed outside, the magazine still in hand. It fell to the sidewalk, as unceremoniously as a leaf from the autumn wind. There Sherlock stood, on the sidewalk. Smoking in silence.
"You've seen it, I take it." John swallowed. Sherlock looked up, snuffing the cigar. John felt his stomach roll. He only turned to deathly habits when he had deadly things floating ghostly about the walls of the mind palace.
"There's no gentle way to say this. I'm leaving Baker Street." Sherlock tilted his chin. John drew back as if he'd punched him. He stammered. Sherlock held up the fragile fingers of his porcelain and ink scarred hand.
"Understand that I didn't come to this decision lightly...But this...This press leak...John, it could be fatally dangerous to you, if it keeps happening. I can't afford the risk." Sherlock indicates a bag at his arm.
"It's not like I've not been at risk before. Listen, Sherlock, I swear to God I never told her anything that she couldn't have found out on her own." John felt his stomach swim like dolphins to his ears. Sherlock nodded.
"I'm aware...All of it was painfully obtuse. The obvious twisted, braided into a showstopping fanfare. I understand, John. It's not your fault. It's the world. The world is cruel. You may fall on the swords of their smiles before the end. I won't allow it to happen because of me." Sherlock nodded, face pinched.
"This is ridiculous. What, and I can't stand for myself?! Sherlock, for God's sake. We need to sue her for libel and…"John's fists clenched and unclenched. Sherlock turned with a huff.
"Legally, I am dead. And soon...God help me, John. If I don't recover from what they did to me, I will be." Sherlock swallowed. John felt his body go cold.
"John, they would...They would come for you. Come for us both, if they thought that I...even if they only supposed that I was alive still. That I had survived...What was done." Sherlock shuddered. He reached out his hand and cupped John's face.
"You-you'll have to forgive me, but I...I wouldn't...I'd not be able to live with myself if you...If you met the same…"Sherlock looked at his hand. At his grotesquely scarred hand. He swallowed, lip trembling.
"You know I am going to come after you. Find a way to save you…" John swallowed.
"I know." Sherlock laughed. He lifted his head.
"Why is it always the saints and the saviors...crucified for the crime of being kind? You will suffer so much shame...And for what? For befriending a truly despicable man. A reclusive, substance addled soul that deserved none of your mercy." Sherlock swallowed back a sobbing laugh. John took Sherlock's wrist.
"This is ridiculous. Please, don't run off. We'd likely be safer together." John held his breath.
Sherlock shook his head.
"We have to make it look like we've broken ties. We have to...I...I will be within the city. Maybe someday, we'll pass each other on the street. Look me in my eyes. You interpret whether I truly want to do this. Believe me, I do not. Because they weren't wrong about one thing. You… I have cared deeply for you_obviously not in the way that they said but_since the day our paths crossed the first time." Sherlock pulled away.
"Friends protect people, Sherlock...Please, let me...return the favor once! Once, for the love of God, Sherlock!" John held out his shaking hand.
"And do what? Drag you further through the water and the wire that_!" Sherlock spun on his heel. He violently wadded his hand into a fist, nearly vomiting, shaking now, eyes darting away from John in shame. It took John a fraction of time to realize he was remembering something. He had nearly described what had been done to him, if only vaguely. He caught himself before he filled John's mind with something too horrible for either to entertain much further_Even though one had lived it.
"Oh...Oh my God." John burst into tears only able to imagine based on his physical reaction how dark that place had been. Sherlock shook his head.
"Listen to me! I can't. Please, John, I can't...Goodbye. Remember what I found your life worth, and think better of me." With that Sherlock was swept up into a bus, and was gone.
"You...Damn you...Damn it! Sherlock, God...I am going to save you. I am...Where the hell is Greg when I need him?" John pulled out his mobile, ready to set off in pursuit of fixing this.