A/N: I thought I should hurry up with this one. -csf
III.
A wave of frustration and anger hits the beleaguered detective as he finally notices the slightest residues of acrylic resin around the airtight walls of the glass coffin someone has dared to place the doctor in. Not only confronting the scientist genius with a puzzle to solve, demanding all his pressing attention, but setting one last step to this successful rescue. A silent voice demands throughout the heavily staged scene: deduce the correct sequence of actions to save your friend and you can have him back.
.
That easy? Sherlock reacts with apprehension tinted relief. Modern villains aren't like this anymore, setting their intentions on a stage and giving the other side a fair chance to live through the day. That belongs to thespian actors, Bond villains, and superhero comic book strips; or are they?
There is old school chivalry in the set up, as a final chance is being given to the constantly belated detective to catch up and still win. The villain is bored, the villain wants to play.
Much like Moriarty's five pips problems.
This time the detective responds with pure hatred and a dark vengeful energy that darkens his mercurial eyes.
Still, pragmatically, Sherlock could be almost touched by the gesture of consideration and the kindred spirit he finds in the faceless opponent; almost, this is John, you don't touch John.
Sherlock has worked long and hard to impress that directive in all and any criminal low life. John is his, you don't touch John, you don't threaten John, you don't even whisper the good doctor's name. Only someone clear and brazenly broke the rules. The unknown enemy has methodically laid out a Sleeping Beauty cover version as a puzzle for Sherlock to solve, and used the one only bait that was sure to absorb all the attention the detective can muster from deep within the solid walls of his mind palace, and bring them piercing forth to the enemy that begs to have Sherlock engage.
John is eloquent with a handgun. Sherlock is just as much with his sharp intellect, that superior mind is his sole weapon against a planned disaster.
It's like confronting Jim Moriarty all over again. One glance and Jim had Sherlock deduced, knew which buttons to press to get through the most vulnerable parts of the genius' armour.
John is Sherlock's recurrent weak spot.
Only Jim is gone. Long gone.
This is either a good quality copycat, or someone following the late Jim's laid out plans, that never got put into place while the criminal mastermind was alive. It'd take a confidant, a right hand man to have access to this. Moran? No, Moran got blown up into smithereens in front of Sherlock's own eyes. Or did he?
No time for this. Authorship and due credits can wait. Inside the glass case, John is laid out as a specimen to be released from the mock scientific experiment. Fully exposed but for modest underwear, his broad shoulders and strong limbs resting with an eerie stillness, unnatural and contrived. It bothers Sherlock because John is a modest man, always covering himself in excess layers of wool or cotton, even around the shared flat. Always diverting the foreign gazes, never willingly the centre of attention in the room, he will gladly defer it to the young genius who willingly spins a web of attraction around his constructed persona.
This trapped specimen is John, centre stage in a gory trap laid out for Sherlock, still the pawn in someone else's game, still the easily acquired weapon to get to the primary target, Sherlock. At this the detective allows himself a quick stolen glance of his comrade in arms inside the glass box. John looks so cold, peaceful, pale; so dead.
No, Sherlock won't have that. Never! Sherlock will always deny John the possibility of dying before he's allowed to by his possessive detective.
'John, please', he pleads under his breath, as he leans over the glass case. What he asks so breathlessly of the good doctor, he is not sure.
Can't touch the glass case, it's booby-trapped with some explosive trigger, a small circuit breaker will cause an electric discharge that will detonate the semtex if dislodged from its set position.
Jim's signature all over again, but this is a more sophisticated plot, a more experienced villain's plot.
For all of Jim's big talk, he was still an amateur, a babe, against the likes of Sherlock Holmes, who completely annihilated the spider's web.
Inside the glass case, clearly John rests on a pressure sensor wired board. Sherlock is meant to be distracted by the doctor's lean, nearly naked body in a crude attempt at carnal humour. This villain seems to be under the impression that John is an untouched adoration object in Sherlock's mind, a romantic interest being sparked by the exposed pale golden skin of Sherlock's flatmate. Jim's the likely candidate again. He would have loved to mess with Sherlock's mind like that. Just like the majority of London, still grasping at straws, trying to understand the indefinable relationship between Sherlock and John. Who cares? Sherlock angrily dismisses. Labels! How can you feel any desire when someone who you deeply care about is caged and prompted to explode if you rescue him? Illogical, ridiculous to the sublime!
Effectively wiping out the two friends, both metaphorically and in actual reality, considering there is enough explosive substance set up in the trap to kill Sherlock too as he stands too close.
Sherlock would be too fragmented to ever be put together again if that bomb went off and killed John just as he was about to get rescued, no matter how many miles away the detective was.
'Hang in there, John, give me enough time to think!'
It may have been lengthy paragraphs of reasoning flowing fast in the detective's mind, but in all actuality it has been the whole of three seconds, ticking away in whatever reason centres are left to run the mind place's wall clocks, with their intricate and precise cogs.
The electric wire lining the glass cage needs to be diverted before exposing John. There is an oxygen mask over John's thin lips and upturned nose, providing the life sustaining gas. The distinct possibility that John is lying in a contained, toxic atmosphere becomes highly likely. Going by the faint eyelid tremors in that familiar, minutely freckled face, the doctor is in the process of waking up by himself, whatever sedative in circulation on his bloodstream being quickly decomposed and fought off with a tenacity that characterises the army doctor. A time limit, then. Sherlock must rescue John before he wakes ultimately to his predicament, before he fights that oxygen mask off his face and inhales the lethal gas. In his disorientation, with a wall of thick glass between them, Sherlock wouldn't be quick enough to convey the important "hold still!" message to the doctor.
Once freed from his glass case, then John needs to be removed from the weight sensitive platform without disrupting the second circuit - again, likely outcome: boom.
John will then require immediate remedial medical attention and being fully revived from that hateful stillness of death he now sports. Right now John looks pale, cold, exposed. Again, unfair, uncivilized, provocative. John is the doctor. John can't be expected to doctor himself to health in his current condition. This post-dead Moriarty is less than a gentleman or a sportsman. As if Jim's earlier drafted plans had been picked up and bedazzled by a more violent mind-set.
Four seconds past.
With a quick shake of bouncing curls, Sherlock makes his decision under the first five seconds at the scene. He's got it figured out. An electrician's nightmare, gift wrapped in a medical conundrum, edged out by an emotional shock of epical proportions.
Sherlock isn't bored now.
He's not enjoying it either. He blames John's humanity for that, seeped deep into Sherlock's skin, drumming in his veins, suffocating his heart.
How is a detective supposed to deduce when all his senses are overwhelmed by concern, worry, brotherly love?
John is a bone deep necessity thrumming through Sherlock's mind palace walls. The detective needs to have his friend back, and to keep him from further harm. He will avenge this awful wrongdoing over John Watson.
Hidden away under the rubber piping Sherlock finds the cutting pliers he knew instinctively would be in the dirty dungeon, somewhere. Teased to find a way of liberating his friend, but incapable due to the lack of equipment? A ridiculous proposition for the monster who set up such elaborate trap. The solutions, the detective knew instinctively, would be found in the underground dungeon, much like a real life escape room scene, or a videogame upscaled to human dimensions.
Sherlock is now squatting by the table legs, faced with two protruding wires, from a mesh of circuitry under the platform that sustains John and the deadly glass cage. Which wire to cut? A life changing decision.
Six seconds.
'That capacitor is too weak!' he bellows in relief and ecstasy.
Simple as a child's home electronics kit. The circuit would break if the glass edge of the case got dislodged, thus triggering the dull grey, explosive play dough. Armed by his deductions, Sherlock confidently cuts the red wire – yes, of course it's the red wire, the typical double bluff – and nearly jumps back as a sudden rush of sucking air gets pumped out of the glass chamber. The toxic atmosphere receding around John, just as he starts to blink, roused by the sounds around him.
Seven seconds.
Sherlock jams the pliers as a steadying lever at the edge of the raised platform that sustain the glass box, bypassing the pressure sensitive trigger, then grasps tightly the glass case and rams it away from his friend, as the last traces of toxic fumes are being whisked away by the hidden pump. He can still sniff the remnants of pool side chlorine gas that evaporate in the dungeon cellar.
The glass shatters in thick slices on the stone floor under the ten seconds mark. It doesn't quite break into the myriad of microscopic ground glass Sherlock would have hoped for, but it will never encumber John again. Never.
The pliers jamming the pressure sensitive platform, locking it into a makeshift safety mode.
'Wake up, John!'
The doctor is all still again.
Come on! Sherlock has defused a bomb, saved his life, and yet John lingers in that semi-unconscious state, just out of reach. It's enough to madden a possessive detective.
'John? Can you hear me?'
Sherlock starts gnawing at the explosive plasticine, chucking it far and wide, away from John. Enough! Suddenly he senses the slightest movement, and the innocuous motion could have broken the last standing emotional barriers Sherlock has upheld to keep his wits together at a crucial time.
'John?'
John's usually deep starry night skies eyes are blinking unfocused as he turns his head towards Sherlock's voice, as a loadstone keeping him in the right direction, returning to the detective. Sherlock can't help a deep smile, deeper than meanings and words, that lights up his face as his doctor starts to recognise him, and their surroundings.
'John.'
That one word, the name he has heard countless times throughout his life, is enough to sharpen the doctor's mind when pronounced by the one consulting detective he wholly trusts. He recognises this voice at a visceral level. It's safety, it's blood life, it's meaning.
'I'm here, I'm here now, will you stop calling my name once and for all...' he says, in a tremulous, brave voice that is still too frail, tainted by the paralyzing chemicals bathing in his blood stream. It's an omniscient attempt at humour, as if even before the world fully returned to the doctor's grasp he was already trying to spare some load off Sherlock's.
'John, please.'
John hears it for what it means; we need to get out of here.
Where's "here"?
It doesn't matter, not yet, I got you.
Good. I need you.
Silent telepathic dialogue across strong gazes done, Sherlock glances over his shoulder to the door he barged in though and the faint light coming through. The exit now.
The doctor slowly grapples with his uncoordinated body to sit on the wooden platform, his legs and bare feet dangling off the edge.
Sherlock senses the precise moment cultural shame dawns on John, as he perceives his almost absolute lack of clothes. Immediately he blushes, looks around. But his beloved black asymmetric jacket, his grey jumper, his worn jeans, they are nowhere to be found. Lord forbid some perverted criminal is keeping John's clothes as precious mementos of this attack on the doctor.
'Here', Sherlock offers at once his beloved long wool coat, that will surely drape over hands and knees of the smallish doctor.
'I think I'm alright', John reads the angst filled, racing thoughts in Sherlock's uneasy mind once more. 'No one's hurt me. Just knocked me for six.'
The consulting detective does not know what the strange expression actually means, but John could be quoting Shakespeare and his calm voice would still appease his friend. He'd also be believed just as much.
'I will avenge you, John', Sherlock promises darkly to the small blond in the oversized coat.
'What do you mean, you doing all the avenging?' John protests, irritable, at once. He seems extraordinarily focused all of a sudden.
Sherlock smirks. 'Fine, we'll share the pleasure.'
'Damn right we will! This new fan of yours is going to hear it from me, putting you through this shit!'
'John, you were drugged and encased like a taxidermy model in a natural history museum, and you are upset at my inconvenience? Surely you should be angry at being once again the victim of circumstance due to our friendship alone.'
'Yeah, I guess. Later', John states with a strategic look around them. 'We need to get out now. Whoever did this, they meant to get to you, it could still be an overly elaborate trap to get you. I won't let them do that', John promises, just as darkly.
Suddenly John doesn't look quite as small anymore.
Nothing could be more sure and instantaneous proof that John is back, than his loyal command of Sherlock's safety. The detective lets John's words wash over him as a soothing balm for his overheated mind. He dares to take a deeper breath. But he doesn't know if they are safe yet.
'Let's get out of here', the consulting detective seconds.
John nods, and rises to his feet. The moment he does that, though, his knees buckle and he folds into two, hastily chasing the ground. Sherlock is quick to react, grabbing hold of his pliable, almost rubbery, collapsing friend, shielding him from impact. With infinite gentleness, Sherlock guides John's drunken body to him, and pats the soft wool around John's uncertain sluggish moves, as he is trying to get his bearings.
John is deceptively heavy, not quite having lost the army's muscle. Yet Sherlock would never hoist him back to the table of death behind John, so he keeps the doctor in a steady embrace until the doctor can gather himself.
'Please, John, don't do this to me.'
The detective doesn't realise he's talking out loud, not this time, his thoughts a whirlwind of panic and blind faith in his friend's sure recovery. John hears him, though, and raises blurry midnight blue eyes to his friend's too honest expression.
'We're alright, Sherlock', the doctor states, firmly, as he moves to take his own weight. 'We're alright.' He says we because he knows it is useless to proclaim that he himself is alright. John can only be alright if Sherlock is alright, they are one cohesive entity now. 'Let's go. And thank you for, you know, rescuing me.' Again, the small doctor blushes. This time in defence of his overruled independence at the hands of a criminal mind.
'You never need say that, John, never.'
Sherlock will always come to John's aid; it's not a chore, it's an intrinsic need, lodged deep in the detective's heart now. John is the very fabric that holds together the mind place's walls.
'It's the least I can do. Say Thank You.'
'Why?' Sherlock deadpans.
'Because it's nice.'
'John, you'd do the very same for me. We're even from the start. Why point out a supposed disadvantage in a mental tally of heroic feats if we know we'll always come to each other's rescue?'
John keeps silent. Perhaps too focused on his unsteady steps or trying to find a societally normalised response to Sherlock's flawless logic. Sherlock smiles at his advantage. In his arms, the focused doctor has stopped those minute shivers that rattled his body for a while; fighting off the chemically induced lethargy or trying to warm himself in the cold underground dungeon.
'We're alright now, John. We're alright', it's Sherlock's turn to promise, as he guides a uncoordinated doctor up the uneven stone steps.
.
Ambulances arrive on the scene, in a cacophony of blaring sirens. I wince at the penetrating sound, splitting my head in two. Sherlock gently brings me closer to him. I blush, considering how almost naked I am under the long wool coat, how that cannot fail to be noticed soon by the investigators and paramedics. People will talk.
'You texted Lestrade with the location, John.' It's a deduction, not an accusation.
'As we were going in. Seemed like a good precaution', I defend, holding my aching head.
'Did you ask him for an ambulance too?' Sherlock asks, and I could swear he softened his voice as he saw me wince. There's no reproach left in his question, although I'm aware that my friend regards the Yard as more useful for the aftermath clean-up, than as backup during the action.
'No, no mention of ambulances. That's all Greg's own doing.'
'In fairness', the detective comments, 'Greg is not all wrong, as we were supposed to come out with the latest Curfew Killer's victim.'
'I thought that was just what you did', I cut, acerbic. Sherlock's curls bounce as he whips his head to face me.
He hums, displeased. I think he's not seeing the bigger picture here. He saved the latest victim's life. If it had been any John Doe, Sherlock would be prancing around, sticking his tongue out to the Yarders, declaring his success. In a slightly classier way, but still—
'John!' someone calls.
We turn. Vaguely I make a mental note that the DI has called my name, not Sherlock's. It's always Sherlock's. Suddenly it's my name.
And we find Greg coming to our aid, carrying a bunch of muddy clothes, that I vaguely recognise from my morning shower. Even my short jacket is there. I like that, recognising the item immediately. I'm not nearly as possessive as Sherlock is of his long coat, but it holds out memories of Sherlock, Baker Street and a new life start. I hope it's intact.
'John, how are you, mate?'
Greg appears to the world as if he isn't ready to take my answer for granted anyway, so I just shrug minutely. Sherlock will do the talk. It's always Sherlock doing the talking.
And just on cue the protective detective cuts in:
'John has been abducted, knocked out, and displayed in an elaborate trap that could have resulted easily in both our deaths. He has survived, though, because I am here, I got him out. It's not John you need to worry about, detective inspector, but the very pissed off killer that lost his fight with me. And this' – he waves his hand about to encompass the busy scene – 'is only publicising too quickly that my blogger survived his attack.'
"Tongue sticking out", I had said.
I frown. No, wait. 'There was a bomb rigged to explode, I was lying on it. Sherlock, I think the lack of a huge fireball explosion has been enough signal that I survived the trap.'
The detective blinks, a bit stunned. Lestrade sniggers, thoroughly enjoying the rarity of this moment. I'm being cleverer than the detective. I take pity on the compromised synapses that misfired from the shock I caused my friend.
'We both need a rest', I insist at once. 'Baker Street is safe, right, Sherlock?'
He nods, still looking a bit sheepish.
And sheepish is a look that Sherlock Holmes doesn't ever do.
I worry immediately.
.
TBC
