WARNING: for mild violence!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
One of the Four Beasts...
John Watson didn't know what time it was when he finally forced himself to go home.
After his encounter with Molly he took to wandering the lonely and deserted streets and sectors. He thought about a lot of things; things that didn't matter, things he regretted, people he had killed who haunted him daily. He thought about Molly... and inevitably that would lead him to think about Sherlock.
John felt scummy, he detested himself. He had slept with married women before, women who had boyfriends, it hadn't really mattered in the past.
The other men hadn't mattered. And they hadn't mattered because in the end he knew those women didn't love their men.
But John knew better with Molly, he knew when he looked into her eyes when she spoke of Sherlock that she loved him.
It agonized him when he thought of her saying that she loved Sherlock.
Maybe the girl didn't know why or understand what the word meant but John had seen that look before.
The look was pain and yearning and despair and hope. Because that's what love did to you.
It completed you and then tore everything in your world apart, reducing you to an infantile state of nothingness.
No matter how hard they tried they could never condition us not to love, John thought.
He sighed deeply and rubbed his tired face and remembered he was in the elevator that ascended him to his apartment.
The moment John stood in front of his door he knew something was wrong.
John thought he heard a loud bell tolling for him...
The welcome matt was askew, just slightly, no one else would have noticed.
The door was still shut and locked securely. He could run or stay.
To hell with it, he thought dangerously. He didn't really care what happened when he opened that door. He casually stepped through as if he hadn't noticed the welcome matt at all.
The apartment was still dark and he went about his normal routine, however a quick scan of the room concluded that nothing else was out of place.
Except... he smelt something strange. Something metallic, like hot metal. He didn't see any smoke so there was no fire.
"You need better security." A familiar voice spoke from the darkness of the kitchen.
John closed his eyes for a moment and released a shaky breath. He wasn't afraid. He was fucking ashamed.
The Devil has come to call, he thought.
"Sherlock," John said like a prayer and he pressed a hand over his eyes as he felt himself begin to sob.
A single, small light came on.
"I know, John, I know everything." Sherlock said through clenched teeth. John nodded and wiped his face. He couldn't look at him; nothing was the same.
It would be like looking at Irene and John couldn't believe that Sherlock was anything like her. He wasn't! He was more than Irene. And yet...
Is he still human? John thought sadly.
"Your brother told you?" John asked still staring at the floor like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
He heard movement and knew Sherlock was standing closer but still far enough away that he wasn't a physical threat, unless he had a weapon.
"No." Sherlock replied in a clipped tone. "I woke up on a slab, gave me some real perspective, friend." Sherlock made sure the last word was like a knife in the back.
John took a deep breath and headed towards the coffee maker, trying to keep himself from shaking too much.
"I didn't know until tonight, Sherlock, I swear." John said, he made coffee with trembling hands, enough for two...
Yeah, he was ashamed but he felt something deeper than that too, fear. He was afraid of Sherlock.
He's half robot, does he need coffee? He randomly thought.
"That I do believe," Sherlock said.
John could hear the Watcher moving around the room, maybe he was looking at the posters or awards or maybe he was trying to decide the best way to blow his head off.
Close range at the temple? Back of the head like the murdered Watchers, execution style? In the face? Maybe Sherlock would shoot him in the gut and let him really suffer.
At least he doesn't know about-
"Molly Hooper." Sherlock suddenly said as if reading his mind and in John's frazzled state he dropped the coffee scoop on the counter at the mention of that sweet matron.
"Your maid? What about her?" John asked, knowing he had already shot himself in the foot. Sherlock wasn't stupid.
Arrogant, late, annoying and proud but never stupid.
"I saw you together!" Sherlock suddenly shouted, raising his hand and slamming it down on the counter, a large chunk of the tile countertop broke apart instantly, scattering across the floorboards in plumes of dust.
John pulled his gun out of instinct, pointing it directly at Sherlock's forehead, the Watcher was closer than the Captain originally thought and he mentally kicked himself for being so careless.
Never trust a Watcher, he reminded himself.
However, with a gun in his hand, John was surprisingly calm but Sherlock had other ideas.
Rolling his eyes, Sherlock suddenly reached out, and snatched the gun and knocked John off balance and the Captain fell back, landing in a kitchen chair.
"Don't be stupid. I'm not going to kill you." Sherlock said annoyingly.
John had never seen man move so quick- but then, Sherlock wasn't entirely a man.
It was Sherlock's turn to point a gun at him.
"I thought you said you weren't going to kill me?" John said half heartedly.
Despite being half human, despite having copper wiring, circuit boards, a motherboard and half a fucking titanium brain Sherlock was shaking and breathing heavily.
How does any of that work? John thought, staring at his partner and almost friend in wonder.
"Five minutes." Sherlock hissed heavily and he pulled up a chair to sit across from John.
"What?" John asked, confused.
Five minutes to live, talk, breathe...?
"You fucked her for five minutes, almost exactly." Sherlock said, twisting the metaphorical knife harder and harder into John.
John realized he was finally looking at Sherlock. He still looked the same, a little rough around the edges but that was to be expected.
Sherlock gulped and lowered the gun and John released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
It wasn't the first time a gun had been pointed at John but it was the first time he was absolutely unsure of whether or not the trigger would be pulled.
"How did you find out?" John asked.
"Rayburn had you followed by a drone. Some spy you are, can't even notice when you're being tailed." Sherlock mocked and it didn't hurt John's feelings, his guard had been down, he hadn't been paying attention to anything except Molly.
Not the first time a woman got you in trouble, that flinty voice reminded him playfully.
"I didn't plan this-"
"Don't lie to me." Sherlock warned dangerously, his hand still gripping the gun tightly that now rested on his thigh.
John held his gaze and nodded.
"So you did plan it. Even after discovering she and I... were together." Sherlock said, finally losing composer for a moment when mentioning Molly.
"I wanted it to happen but I didn't plan on us-"
"Fucking in an alley where anyone could see you?"
"You make it sound very sleazy." John said and instantly regretted it, cringing at his own words and having to eat them.
"Oh, I am, aren't I? Okay, John, I can clean this up for you-"
"-Sherlock please-"
"-you made passionate love under the stars against a majestic brown stone, is that better?"
Sherlock stood and began pacing like a caged animal. He even looked like one.
A beast trying to claw it's way out, trapped, ready to bite it's own foot off to survive.
"Where's Doctor Holmes now?" John asked and he gestured to Sherlock's hands. That one mechanical hand hidden under a black leather glove, the other ungloved.
Like Sherlock was trying to hide a handicap.
"Oh, he'll wake up eventually. I wouldn't kill my own brother, sadly." Sherlock said sneeringly.
"Sherlock, I know it means nothing but... I'm sorry." John said defeatedly. He didn't know what else to say. He didn't feel good about any of it.
Sherlock thought about the different ways he could kill John. He could easily throw him out the window, shoot him, strangle him, cut him into little pieces...
But he knew he wouldn't. He still owed John his life. The Captain had risked his own life pulling him out of the NLD.
Captain John Watson was the closest thing to a friend he had. And more importantly, an ally.
And of course, there was still the matter of the murdered Watchers... the "wake-up" for someone. And Sherlock was beginning to think that wake-up had been meant for him.
But who in the NLD would know of his... condition? The junkie had mentioned a big boss knew, at the time he had assumed that meant Moriarty.
But what if he had been wrong? What if the boss was someone else?
"I forgive you." Sherlock said and he held the gun out to John.
The other man hesitated before taking the weapon.
"Mycroft will send people after you." John said and Sherlock nodded and then shrugged.
"Big brothers, am I right?" He joked but the pain was still there. He had forgiven him in words but had he forgiven him on the inside, in the ways that really mattered?
John knew he would never forgive himself.
"Come on, John, I know who we need to go see and it won't be easy. I'm a wanted man now." Sherlock said in a strangely proud sort of way. He headed for the door and John followed but stopped for a moment.
"Sherlock, you should go to her." John told him and the Watcher paused, his hand wrapped around the doorknob, trying his best not to crush it.
"I can't, John. It's better this way."
"Better for who?" John asked him incredulously.
Sherlock sighed deeply and turned his face a little, a tear forming.
"For everyone. I'm not good enough for her, not a real man and that's she needs. She's young and infatuated. It'll fade-"
"She loves you, you fucking moron!" John exclaimed and for a moment he worried Sherlock had short-circuited or blew a fuse because now the man wasn't moving or blinking or breathing.
"She- we- made a mistake together, it wasn't just one or the other. But she's out there, she's scared and she... she fucking loves you. I heard her say it. I didn't matter in those five minutes, Sherlock, it wasn't even me. It'll always be you.
And yeah, you're not a whole man, barely human barely machine. But don't let her go, mate, don't you dare let her go. Not like this."
John tucked the gun into his belt, resting it against his back and covering it over with his jacket.
Sherlock seemed to come back from his crash and he simply nodded curtly.
John wasn't sure if his words had gotten through to Sherlock, he hoped they did.
Whatever they were about to head out and do they might not come back from it.
And the Captain knew from personal experience that you have an obligation, a duty to tell the ones you love that you love them.
No matter how hard it would be, you don't want to waste your life wishing you had.
"They'll be watching the building." John said as they exited the apartment. The Watcher nodded and they headed towards the stairs and to the basement.
"These old buildings have tunnels underneath them, connects most of the sectors together." Sherlock explained.
"Won't they be watching those too?" John asked, Sherlock nodded.
"Of course. But there will be less of them. By my estimates I believe we'll run into at least four Watchers."
"That's four too many."
"But you forget John," Sherlock said with a grin. "You have me!"
X
Hidden faces, men walking with the shadows becoming the shadows. Faceless, you will become the poison, the knife and the bullet. Smother the wicked, defuse the bomb, kill the fire, extinguish the light... allow the world to fall away from you.
X
Janine woke up to find the bed still empty. She sighed and sat up.
It was still dark in the room, the curtains were drawn. Strange, she never woke before the sun. She ran a hand over her stomach, still flat and empty. She yawned and walked tiredly to the bathroom, smelling Sherlock's body wash lingering in the air. She used the toilet and returned to bed but couldn't find it in her to sleep.
Molly should be up soon, she thought decidedly.
Wrapped in her robe, unaware of the time or even aware of the day, she quietly tried to make her way to the servant's quarters until she stupidly realized she had no idea where that was.
Sherlock would've known, she thought.
Tip-toeing around the house in her bare feet and getting lost, what a way to end her night... begin her morning?
Janine yawned again and continued wandering. She wasn't afraid and she was quite surprised to find herself so calm and relaxed. She went into rooms she hadn't been in before and opened books in the library that smelt of mold and dust.
And Janine wondered why she hadn't ever walked these halls before or gone inside these rooms. It was as if Sherlock had gated and corralled her into the same five rooms their whole marriage.
What was so secret?
Janine came to a room that looked like a study and she entered with confidence. She was sure he wouldn't be home anytime soon. She opened the drawers to find them sparse, she tried turning on his computer but it was password protected.
"Boring." She said to herself.
Janine sat at the desk for a minute, pretending she was Sherlock, tapping away at the computer keyboard and giggling girlishly to herself before rising, trying to figure out what she would do next.
It was then that Janine felt something she couldn't quite describe but it sent a queer chill down her spine and made the itty bitty hairs on the back of her neck stand on edge. She wrapped her robe tighter around herself and looked around the room, suddenly cold and suddenly aware.
It wasn't like the time she had snuck into her parents bedroom and had been caught by the housekeeper, it was something else...
Am I being watched? She thought.
Janine, against her better judgement, decided to investigate even though every atom in her body was telling her otherwise.
Run away, find help they told her. But she couldn't. She explored further and what she saw horrified her.
For the last thing Janine saw before she blacked out was the decapitated body of the butler leaning bizarrely against the wall near a window.
X
Sherlock and John did not encounter the Watchers as he had predicted. They moved silently and stealthily through the tunnels until the Watcher stopped them at one access point.
"Underground access tunnel to Station 4." Sherlock quietly informed John.
There would be cameras beyond this point but not before the power box. With a small tool kit Sherlock disabled the cameras, informing John they had about thirty minutes.
"You told me you thought Irene knew something," Sherlock whispered as they slowly walked through the vacant halls of Station 4.
John nodded.
"I believe we'll find what we're looking for in her as well." Sherlock went on.
"How do you know she'll be here?" John asked.
"If she's as attached as you say she won't power down with the other androids. She'll be where, as you said, her new normal would go." Sherlock replied knowingly.
They came to Sherlock's office door, a warm blue light was omitted from the small crack at the bottom of the doorway.
"What if she's been altered since you became a fugitive?" John asked, a little more nervously than he had liked.
"We'll have to risk it."
"It'll be locked." John said and Sherlock shook his head.
"No. With the androids there's no need for further security." The Watcher replied.
Slowly and carefully, Sherlock turned the doorknob.
And sitting there, like a strange lifelike doll, was Irene behind Sherlock's desk exactly where he believed she would be. Her eyes were not closed giving John a fright before realizing she wasn't "awake".
John looked at his watch. They had eighteen minutes left.
"What are you doing?" John asked as he watched Sherlock roll up his sleeve.
"If I'm anything like Irene, I have a cable port." He said and he began pushing down on his false wrist in various places.
Eventually there was a small beep and part of his wrist slid open to reveal little flashing lights, wires... anything other than blood, muscle, bone and vein.
Sherlock let out a small gasp, as if he weren't expecting it at all, as if this were the moment he would wake from an awful nightmare.
John felt his heart clench. The Watcher only gazed at the lights for a moment, taking in the realization that he was indeed not entirely human.
"So strange," Sherlock whispered, almost to himself, "I was conditioned my whole life to... to be anything other than human. To be more than human, more than a man. And now that I seem to have reached that goal I find myself strangely... John, what am I now?" His eyes met John's and they were filled with tears.
John didn't know what to say. He had no answers. He couldn't even shrug!
Perhaps Sherlock didn't really need an answer, maybe he just needed to say these things. To get them all out before he choked on them.
Sherlock blinked away the tears and cleared his throat, trying to regain his composer, and yet the crestfallen look remained upon his face.
"I apologize." He said dismally.
"Don't." John told him.
Sherlock opened a desk drawer and removed a small cable, inserting one end into Irene's port and the other into his own. He began searching through her memory banks and the information crashed into him like a brain freeze.
"Oh, my." Was all he could say. John stood by him.
"What's wrong? What do you see?" John asked him quickly, fearing his partner might collapse, so much so that he had to prop Sherlock up.
"Maybe you woke up too soon." John said worriedly. Sherlock shook his head and held up his hand.
"It's just... so much information. I'm trying to search through it but it's difficult." Sherlock told him, he sounded pained.
John waited.
Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Irene's finger move... he shook the thought away, it was just nerves. They were racing against the clock, against Watchers, against an android that could rip him in half, against whatever mystery the murdered Watchers held.
Then he thought he saw it move again... now he believed he was not being paranoid. She was waking up.
"Sherlock." John said quickly but the other man was too busy trying to download or extract whatever information Irene might have. Sherlock gasped and then groaned.
"What?" John asked impatiently, her fingers were definitely moving. "She's waking up, Sherlock."
"I know, I know! I'm almost there. One more thing." Sherlock gritted out.
The whole fucking hand was moving now, flexing and unflexing. Then the other hand...
"Got it." Sherlock said triumphantly. He disconnected himself from Irene only to look up just as John was knocked across the room.
The Irene stood tall and began advancing on John.
"Irene, stop!" Sherlock ordered. Irene paused mid step and turned to face her master.
"Intruders." Irene said emotionlessly and mechanically.
John groaned and pulled his gun but his hands were shaking and he didn't want to hit Sherlock. He deduced the Watcher would most likely be able to survive a bullet wound but couldn't risk it, his whole arm felt numb.
"Irene, I order you to stand down." Sherlock said firm, disciplinary voice.
Irene tilted her head to the side.
"You have betrayed your cause, Fugitive." Irene said.
"Irene, you remember me. You care about-
"I care for nothing." Irene cut in but Sherlock shook his head.
"You haven't killed me yet, that means something." He told her.
Irene seemed to think for a moment, processing what he had just said.
John gripped the wall as he pulled himself up. She definitely broke a couple ribs when she hit him.
"I am not programmed to care." She said firmly.
"Irene, you will not kill me or John Watson."
"I have been ordered to kill you." She told him.
"By who?" He asked even though he already knew, her brain had told him everything.
Irene seemed to almost smirk.
"Classified." She answered and it was Sherlock's turn to smile and then it slowly faded.
"I'm sorry, Irene." Sherlock said sadly.
"I will kill you." Irene said simply and began advancing on Sherlock again. John raised his gun again and was on the brink of firing when Irene suddenly fell to her knees and began convulsing. Sherlock knelt down beside her and placed her head in his lap, as if trying to comfort her.
John limped towards him.
"What's happening?" John asked, almost out of breath.
"I gave her a virus." Sherlock replied, not looking at John, looking only to Irene.
John sighed.
"She's-"
"I... I..." Irene stammered, her voice reaching a high pitch then dropping then meeting in the middle again.
Her eyes blinking rapidly, not together, one after the other. Her face twitched strangely, her lips curled back into a snarl and then resumed it's normal muted and monotone mask.
"I'm so, so sorry Irene." Sherlock said sincerely and he took her hand in his.
Irene seemed to hold his hands as well, though her grip was weak and slack.
John was reminded of the time they spoke together, just the two of them...
"Humans touch, they show affection through touch. It feels human..." she had once said.
"I am... dead-dying, dying, dying, dyingdying-" She stammered again and again. Sherlock nodded and held her as gently as he could, offering comfort to a being that did not require it but had been learning to want it.
Sherlock felt something pass between himself and Irene. She had been learning what it was like to be human while he had tried to escape it his whole life. He envied her in an abnormal sort of way.
And he pitied her at the same time. He had been forced to take her life, a life that could have meant something.
Is this how I'll go? He thought sadly to himself.
"Why?" Irene asked looking into Sherlock's eyes.
"Because I killed you." He said to her and she shook her head, more like rolled it around on her neck until it flopped and her body stopped moving, only her eyes seemed to give an impression she was still alive.
"Is-this what... dying feels like?" She asked him and it broke John's heart. He wished she would just let go, stop fighting the virus and shut down.
It didn't make sense, there were hundreds of Irene Adler models but he had known this one. She had been unique even if she had been designed and programmed to be just like the others.
And this Irene would never be remembered by anyone except the two men in that room.
"Yes, Irene," Sherlock said gently. "Now go to sleep."
"I can not see you anymore. Systems failing... attempt at reboot failed... fading... sleep..." She repeated and Sherlock nodded. "Sleep... sleep... slee...p. Sleep."
John knew when she was gone. Even in an android the light leaves them.
Sherlock gently lowered her back to the floor and he sighed deeply, grieving in his own way at Irene's passing. He had not wanted to do it but he knew there would have been no other way. He knew he now possessed strength greater than a human but he was still weak.
John was right, he had woken up too soon.
"There was no other way we would've gotten out." John said helping Sherlock to stand.
Sherlock didn't reply. John checked his watch. They had ten minutes to get out.
"What did you find out?" John asked him. "Do you know who killed the Watchers?"
Sherlock was about to speak when bright lights flashed in front of their eyes and they both immediately ducked for cover under desks, pulling out their guns.
"Going somewhere, Holmes?" The eerie and irritating voice of Watcher Anderson called out.
Sherlock groaned disgustedly.
"Really? They sent you!" He yelled and then the barrage of gunfire began.
John curled himself into a small ball under the desk and kept still as did Sherlock.
The gunfire eventually stopped.
John deduced there were at least four shooters, just as Sherlock had predicted there would be.
"I've got orders to put you down," Anderson said and the two men both heard footsteps.
Two of the four Watchers were coming from the other direction now, trying to flank them.
Sherlock gestured silently and John nodded, taking a position facing that direction while Sherlock faced the other way.
"My brother wouldn't like that." Sherlock responded, he looked through one of the bullet holes that just missed his head and could see Anderson coming closer.
"These orders go above your brother, all the way out into orbit." Anderson said with a stupid chuckle and Sherlock smirked and then began laughing, which only infuriated Anderson more.
"What's so funny?" Anderson grumbled.
"Oh, just your stupidity and thank you for confirming what I already knew." Sherlock replied.
"I'm not stupid!" Anderson shouted.
"Then why am I about to kill you?" Was the last thing Anderson heard before Sherlock pulled the trigger of his gun and Anderson dropped.
"One down three to go." John said to himself.
A leg appeared in his field of his vision from where he was crouched.
John kicked the leg hard and heard bone snap, the Watcher howled in pain and went down hard and he pulled the trigger killing the Watcher, they were dead as soon as they hit the floor with a bullet lodged into their head.
"You two let us leave and we won't kill you." John said trying to bargain, his eyes still on the dead Watcher. He didn't want anymore blood on his hands. The Watcher he had just killed gazed back at him with dead eyes, a younger man in his mid twenties.
Just a fucking kid.
Watchers never live long, he reminded himself.
"We?" Sherlock mouthed at him and John rolled his eyes.
"Come on, you're scared and alone and we're better than you." John said, in an almost comforting tone. Sherlock and John waited for a moment with bated breath.
"Alright. You've got two minutes before the cameras come back on!" A young voice called and John nodded to himself, relieved.
"Then get your asses out of here." John told them and they did.
When they both felt it was safe they stood and regrouped. Sherlock looked down at Anderson's dead body, part of his head missing.
"Finally laid to rest," Sherlock said in a darkly amused voice.
"What did you mean when Anderson said the orders came from orbit?" John asked. The two men took the dead Watchers ammo.
"There's only one person more powerful than my brother who lives in orbit." Sherlock told him as they quickly made their way out of the building.
They headed for the garage to commandeer a car.
"Not... the Cardinal, Sherlock? The Cardinal?" John asked as Sherlock hotwired the car but had John drive and the Captain didn't ask him how he knew how to do that.
Maybe it was in the Watcher handbook, right next to kill your partner before he kills you.
Sherlock shrugged.
"Seems so." He replied as if it weren't anything at all.
"We're not... I mean, we're not going to kill the Cardinal?" John said with a nervous laugh however Sherlock was not laughing, and John kept his eyes on the road and making sure they weren't being followed, but his laughter subsided into a cold sweat.
"Jesus-fucking-Christ, Sherlock!" John exclaimed and he nearly pulled over.
"John, he's the one. He's the one pulling all the strings. And I've been after this one for a long time." Sherlock said and he told John all about how he had come so close to getting Magnusson before but couldn't because of Mycroft.
"I'm remembering John," Sherlock said, he looked out the window at the empty city streets. "I jumped off a roof and died- or nearly died. Mycroft brought me back for a reason. I need to know why."
"Maybe he just loves you." John suggested and Sherlock scoffed but said nothing.
John was becoming more and more convinced the Cardinal needed to be taken out but were they really the right people to do it?
An emotionally unstable and war crippled soldier and a half man-thing.
John gulped but his mouth was suddenly dry.
"The Cardinal told Mycroft he wanted to see me. Well, now is his chance. We need transport." Sherlock said finally.
"That won't be easy." John said and Sherlock chuckled.
"John, we've just stolen the car of a Watcher. You've no idea what it's in that trunk." Sherlock told him.
Little did either man know, as they drove like bats out of hell to a transport leaving for the Aquitaine, that Mrs. Janine Holmes and Molly Hooper were already high above their heads, waiting...