In bruises the victor finds peace
It's not actually hard to stand there face to face with a man who saw your head up close, like the only target and purpose. It's not hard when you leave hate and thoughts of revenge at the door. A soldier's fate is to follow orders and John sees Moran fight the desperate fight to keep his soldier training even after all orders are lost in battle. Moran is not a general. But neither is he. He can understand tactics and it's because of that he can understand why Sherlock did it.
He doesn't care much for victimization. John felt like and guesses, he was seen as a liability to Sherlock and any good strategist would have a move to exploit that. He understands. He can't feel it, but he can understand it. Only a genius tactician would make the game change and turn his liability into a strength. John likes to be Sherlock's strength.
Click. Metal silence.
The first round spares Moran and prolongs the game. The smug smile, drowned in sweat droplets, pushes into him like physical presence. John catches himself thinking – wishing – the revolver to end the game on him. It's just a thought, sharp and hard on his soul, similar to the one he had – he tries to forget – of Sherlock actually being a fake. He doesn't need to push it aside. It runs on its own, embarrassed and crippled by the infusion of trust. Not once he thinks about Sherlock's warmth scented, pale – or blood covered - temple. It's just him and the revolver and the empty barrel.
Click. Metal silence.
Moran is covered in sweat, trembling under the firm grip of his witness. John's witness is Irene Adler. She keeps her hand on him, part of the game, part of the spectacle, but if not for her expensive perfume, he wouldn't feel her. He's sure she's cheating and resents her light weight. It's irrational, and rude, so he stops and focuses on Moran instead.
Moran hates John Watson. For what he was and what he is. And for what he had. A man killed himself so that this man could live, while his master killed himself to...to end one life, to cut ropes and leave no other choice. For anyone. Him included. Him especially. Moran thinks he also hates Moriarty. But he definitely hates John. Him and the name John reminds him of.
Click. Metal silence.
John doesn't know what Moriarty was to Moran, but if he had to guess...he pretends he doesn't have to and raises the revolver for the next round.
Whispers can be heard, but not meanings. They each have the right to say something before pushing the trigger. John has nothing to say. It's not smugness, confidence in the result or a slap in Moran's face. It's peace. He looks at his left hand and Mycroft's words come to mind. He smiles. Moran launches over the table, death in his eyes.
"Colonel! Colonel! You know this is against the rules. Please, be seated," the host intervenes along with four of five security guards.
"He mocks me. And this game."
"Sir, please, do you wish to say something? We should proceed to round two. Please be seated."
Click. Metal silence.
Moran has nothing to say. It's smugness, confidence in the result and a slap -he thinks-for John. He can act brave. Along with hate, fear of this place, of the man holding his shoulder, covers him completely. And all he wants is to win, to see John Watson's brain coming out for air, the same Moriarty's brain did. Oh, he wanted this so much. He could have killed John long ago, just out of spite, but this is so much better. To force him replay the scene, just as his general played it, gun to his own head. So he pushes the trigger and removes the cold steal from his temple.
Click. Metal silence.
Snipers cleared. Location secured. Not over
He doesn't answer. Doesn't push the syringe in. He thought about it, the chemical pause button he sometimes used. Not since John.
He morns you.
Refused a better therapist.
Contemplates suicide.
Doesn't go through.
Moved out of Baker Street.
Sherlock remembers the usual updates Mycroft sent him. He never asked for them, but he was grateful. They made him lose focus, so he never read them more than twice before deleting them. He could never delete John. He tried it at some point, before coming up with this plan to make him part of his life again. It ended in paying a male prostitute for a night and coming only after he was gone from the room. He came mumbling John's name. After that, he was sure it was written in his shadow. The weight he was carrying, the sentiment. Except for Irene Adler, no one else saw it.
You were hungry. You just didn't want me for diner.
Does he know? Of course he doesn't. Do you know?
He's not even sure. Will you show him? Will you take him out to diner?
He shakes her words from memory and reads the text from Mycroft again. Maybe he can go there. Wait outside. Th screen lights again.
Stay away. She'll let me
The "want" becomes a "need" to go. He locks himself in. The room is still damp and still messy, the box opened and traces of the other human being living here with him almost tangible. He avoids the couch and lays down instead, on the floor, looking up at his home. He won't go there without him. The door of 221C is holding him in, safe but isolated from his life. All he can do is wait. He contemplates resuming the smash the phone game.
I'll need to reach
The phone goes down by his side, almost tenderly.
"John..."
All he hears is the commotion. Voices cheering or yelling displeased. All he sees is the blood smearing a face still smiling in provocation. And then the man who held Moran's shoulder grabs the revolver, puts it to his own head and pushes the trigger. Again and again. Click. Metal silence. Click. Metal silence.
He wants to ask why, but the ethereal presence behind him becomes commanding.
"Move."
For the first time, he feels like the unplanned may happen. Irene Adler pushes him towards the exit, the bodies around them more and more suffocating realities. Are they after them? Will they get out safe?
"Sherlock."
"Yes. I need to get you to him. NOW!"
The sense of urgency grows. Each step, a return to normalcy. Step. Step. Stagger. Step. She tries to guide him, touching him and trying not to be obvious about it. Oh yes, she's suppose to be his enemy. Can they see them together? Trying to get out...together?
"Danger?" he asks her, moving his hand to search for a gun he hasn't carried since ….since.
"I don't know," she answers, and John hears annoyance and maybe some fear in her voice, like the tunnel of bodies is a collapsing force on her and she was here before, in this situation, cornered, the way out far, too far and this time, Sherlock Holmes is not waiting for her. He's not waiting for him either.
But the car is. A black invisible car, one of Mycroft's he decides, because he really wants to believe that for once, the older Holmes will kidnap John when he wants to be kidnapped.
As they leave, other cars appear, purpose in speed, and they spill out black suits, armed and dangerous. The ship will be cleared, the game, he hopes, forever ended. And he feels nauseous for the first time.
"Let me get out here," he hears and turns to Irene.
"Not coming?"
She turns to him, still not completely herself.
"Wish I could."
"Then-"
Irene cuts him off, a hand to his lips and comes so close John believes she'll kiss him. Who knows how her mind works? Not even Sherlock Holmes. She doesn't kiss him. Just comes very near him and whispers in his ear.
"He made it clear he wants you... out..."
There's something left unsaid, but she smiles and covers her hands in black gloves. The car stops and she disappears into the night, to her life. John wanders if he'll ever see her again. If Sherlock will ever see her again. The bets on No.
The driver says nothing when they stop in front of 221B. John steps out and checks the window above. It's dark inside too. He's afraid for a second. He fears the moment the car will make a turn and disappear. It will feel like coming home after the funeral. The fake funeral of his fake death. So real to John he can still remember the dread of walking back into their...his...their flat. The agony of going back -again-to nothing.
So he pushed the door open and runs up the stairs.
"Please be here."
No one answers. No one is there.
The lock. The front door. The steps. John's afraid. But he lives. He'll walk into an empty flat. Feel lost. And this time, John will look for him. Waiting. Even more waiting.
Sherlock has not eaten. Nor slept. He could say not since all this started three years ago, but that would be a poetic dramatization and a biological impossibility. Yet he feels like his whole body collapses into pause the moment John walks back into his life, present and safe.
He drags himself near the door and sits there waiting, head banging on the wood. John will have to find him. He'll wait there for him to catch on and deduce his presence. But John will most likely panic and use his feelings to find him, that sense of the right orbit, the magnetism of the others presence people feel. So it will take a while.
"You were here the whole time."
The voice brings him back to consciousness. He fell asleep.
"Not the whole time, obviously. Just the last couple of days."
"The night I came home-"
"Yes."
"Can you please open the door?"
"I lost my key."
"Why would you even-"
"You. I was waiting for you. We should go back together."
There's a pause and Sherlock imagines John sitting down, mimicking his position.
"You doubted me coming back."
He wants to say no, but he did, at some point. Because it all rested into a tiny detail only he knows, he deduced, he anticipated. The first thing he knew about John.
"You had that man locked in here. Who was he?"
A man? Oh, that man. The voice in the box. The pawn.
"Moran's rapist."
"What?!"
Finding him was hell. But he did it, finally, another piece of the game.
"Sherlock?"
He can hear John, but his jaw weighs tons and he can't answer.
"Sherlock!"
Louder now, above him, urgent.
I'm not a ghost, he tries to say, but he can't, he can't. John's safe. Sane. Maybe he isn't. He hears other voice too now, screams, loud discharges, pavements collapsing onto him -impossible- John's hushed words into his skin -I love you, Don't go- his heart racing, then stopping altogether.
Days, years pass, all days, not even one night for him to rest. Inside his mind it's never night, no pause button, no blessed fast forward. He smells may rain and gun powder and John's skin.
Sherlock wakes up. More like he opens his eyes, because he's always awake, he feels like life runs over him and he runs into it and nothing escapes him. It's exhausting. John looks worried. It's not a pleasant view.
"Give me your hand."
John gives him his left hand. Of course he does. His dominant hand, plunging always first into any battle. Sherlock takes it, feels the bones, the skin, the blood pumping. He kisses it. He sucks the finger that saved both their lives. John inhales sharp but lets his hand be.
"You kept that man in there."
"Yes," he answers, because it doesn't matter now, John will forgive every not good thing he ever did. It's his curse. A virus Sherlock planted in him and he resents it, but what can he do other than observe it grow and mutate. One day he'll forgive himself. In the end, maybe John will forgive him too. He plans for them to wait that day together.
"One day you'll have to tell me everything."
Of course he will. He'll need a plan for that day, for John to be relaxed -probably after sex, then- for John to feel safe and there and feel his presence, so he'll accept everything and kiss him, or just hold him. He would do that.
"How long?"
"You were out for almost 20 hours. Never seen you sleep so much. You looked like you were dead."
Sherlock smiles and John smiles back, hesitates but then comes to him for a touch of lips. Sherlock is hungry and stretches out, into the body next to him, but strong hands stop him.
"Not now."
"When?"
"We have time. Unless you want to take another case or ...get married any time soon."
Oh, John, you don't fear death, but you feel insecure about me being here for you. Idiot,he thinks but only gives a mild scorning look.
"What am I saying. You probably will."
It's true, it may happen. For a case, of course, he'll do whatever it takes. Except faking a suicide. That would be dull the second time around.
"Move over, you take over the bed."
Of course he does, it's his bed, he thinks, but sees John undressing and trying to fit in the remaining space. The prospect frightens him, only a second, until, like a satellite, he moves over to find his planet. He snarls at the metaphor and collapses into John's body, to create some chaos, or restore some order. Their lives constrict within the limits of the bed and he feels like he can stop running.
"Only one thing I got wrong," he continues a thought started who knows when and ready to be tied nicely and then forgotten.
"What?"
"Harry is your sister. Sister."
"There's always something," John replies in the hair on his neck, warm and close and completely there.
Sherlock doesn't say babysitter, Mycroft wouldn't dream of calling it what it is, but nevertheless, he is in their flat waiting. If he deduces every hour of the nigh passed -and of course he does- he says nothing. He even prepares tea.
"Where's Sherlock?"
"And good morning to you Doctor," he offers, trying very hard to stop deducing the said night to the second. He somewhat fondly remembers Sherlock's "sex doesn't alarm me" reply. He smiles.
"Well?"
"My brother is fine, I assure you. We both know, no matter how well the time off suited him, he was bound to resume his prior day to day routine."
"Lestrade called?"
"No, actually. He's helping me. Well, better said, the government."
John smiles back and passes a hand through his hair.
"That is frightening. Sorry, but it is."
Mycroft doesn't reply to that. His arrangements with Sherlock are games, check played at a distance.
"I assure you he is safe." The words slip before he can consider them and that doesn't happen with him. Ever. John's look, a retelling of years and years of silence, makes him regret the slip even more. "Did he tell you?"
"I'm sure he will. When he's ready."
"Doesn't strike you as odd? He always boasts about his plans, especially to eager ears."
"Well..." John sips from his cup and makes a face but drinks the rest in two sips.
"He always plays others. This time, he played himself. He was the pawn."
"It all worked out. Why should it matter?"
"Because there was a chance, a very considerable chance for things to go wrong. He trusted you with your life and ...his."
"What?"
"Miss Adler kindly informed me that the revolver was not modified according to our specifications. There wasn't time."
"You mean-"
"No, no, you were quite safe, the bullet could never enter the barrel when shot by your hand. But Moran would have been safe too. The revolver was still perfectly fit for his hand. If not for a little, very little detail, that game was to produce two winners."
"Then how..."
"Sherlock did what I never thought he will ever do. For certain, something I would never recommend or allow. He trusted the odds."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm afraid I said too much. I'm sure he'll want to explain himself."
"You just said-"
As if summoned, Sherlock steps into the flat and eyes them suspiciously.
"It's done," he addresses Mycroft, but quickly moves his attention to a staring flatmate, half dressed and positively intrigued. "What did he say to you?"
"You-"
"Never mind. Don't listen to him. Mycroft, you know the way out."
"You're welcome, Sherlock."
And the door closes with a sound almost covered by Sherlock huff.
"I know I said you can take your time to explain, but this...well, it's ...tell me it was safe. For both of us."
"Of course it was. I would never allow for you to get hurt."
And Sherlock means it. John sees it in his eyes and the way he moves to touch him, take his hand and place another kiss on his left hand finger.
"How did you know. We were both left handed, both ex soldiers, we both-"
"You were nothing alike," Sherlock says determined, a little too loud and too close. His expression then changes into something warm and John can see pride on those features. "Your hand is always steady," he whispers and it seems like it's the end of the explanation, like he just offered the key to the equation.
Of course, John still can't see it. And Sherlock smiles, dragging the known body back to a common place, where variables add up to the same result.
"Idiot," he teases, warm and slow, before closing the door to the world.